Tradition 9 · September 6

Rule-Making Benders

Daily Traditions · September 6

The threat

A frightened group makes rules, and the rules do more damage than the thing it was frightened of. Bill W. watched it happen to nearly every early group and named it in A.A.'s own pamphlet on the Traditions (P-17, p. 12): "At one time or another most A.A. groups go on rule-making benders." A bender is a binge. The group grows fast, a few members drink, a few hit the room up for money, and the steady ones get scared for the thing they love. So they vote: "Charters, bylaws and membership rules are excitedly passed and authority is granted committees to filter out undesirables and discipline the evildoers." Now the room has a committee with the power to put a drunk out. That is what Tradition 9 means by organized. Bill recorded the result on the same page: enforcing the rules caused more trouble "than the very worst that the worst ever did." The rules were dropped. The people they were written to keep out stayed, and the group came to regard them "not as menaces, but rather as our teachers." No A.A. group needs a committee to protect it from its own newcomers. It never did.

Sit with

The rules hurt the group more than the drunks did, so A.A. threw out the rules and kept the drunks. Who has decided I need protecting from — and what has that cost?

Grounded in: P-17, A.A. Tradition: How It Developed (pp. 12–13).

Tradition 9

"A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve."

Read the Long Form (pp. 563–566). The short form on pp. 561–562 is the one everybody quotes — but the Long Form is where the Traditions actually say what they mean. Tradition 3's "no other affiliation" clause, for instance, exists only in the Long Form. That single clause is why no treatment centre can own an A.A. group. Most of what circulates online skips it.

And a distinction worth keeping straight: the Traditions are governance, not theology. They bind A.A. groups and the Fellowship — not individuals, and not outside businesses. They were adopted in 1950 to keep A.A. from being owned or co-opted. They are not a rulebook for your personal life.

What the Traditions actually say → The Long Form, p. 563 → Search the Big Book → Every day this month →

Ask Recovery Einstein about Tradition 9 → Get the app →

← September 5Which Way the Money Runs Tradition 9All of September September 7 →Shouted Down

Daily Traditions is an independent educational resource from Recovery Starts — not official A.A. literature, not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, and not medical advice. The Twelve Traditions are the property of A.A. Page references are to Alcoholics Anonymous (the Big Book), 4th Edition: short form 561–562, long form 563–566. If you're in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline).