THE TWELVE TRADITIONS
of
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

During its first decade, AA accumulated experience
indicating that certain group attitudes and principles
were valuable in assuring survival of the Fellowship's informal structure.
In 1946, the Fellowship's international journal, The AA Grapevine,
published these principles as the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous.
They were accepted and endorsed by the membership as a whole
at the 1950 International Convention of AA in Cleveland, Ohio.

1.  Our common welfare should come first;
personal recovery depends upon AA unity.

2.  For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority---
a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience.
Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

3.  The only requirement for AA membership
is a desire to stop drinking.

4.  Each group should be autonomous
except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.

5.  Each group has but one primary purpose---
to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

6.  An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name
to any related facility or outside enterprise,
lest problems of money, property, and prestige
divert us from our primary purpose.

7.  Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting,
declining outside contributions.

8.  Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional,
but our service centers may employ special workers.

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

10.  Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues;
hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

11.  Our public relations policy is based on attraction
rather than promotion;
we need always maintain personal anonymity
at the level of press, radio, and films.

12.  Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions,
ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
 

"AA's Twelve Traditions apply to the life of the Fellowship itself.
They outline the means by which AA maintains its unity
and relates itself to the world about it,
the way it lives and grows."

---From The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 15.

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