What were the conditions that led to the
Twelve Traditions?
Answer
After the Jack Alexander
article was published in 1941 it brought down a
deluge on our little New York office of thousands
upon thousands of inquiries from frantic alcoholics,
their wives, their employers and at that moment we
passed out of our infancy and embarked upon our next
phase- the phase of adolescence.
Well, adolescence by definition is a troubled time
of young life and we were no exception as groups
began to take shape all over the land and these
groups immediately had trouble. We made the very sad
discovery that just because you sobered up a drunk
you haven't made a saint out of him by a long shot.
We found that we could be bitterly resentful and we
discovered that we had a much better booze cure than
we thought possible. A lot of us found that we could
gripe like thunder and still stay sober. We found
that we were in all sorts of petty struggles for
leadership and prestige. A lot of us were very
suspicious of the Book enterprise in the hands of
that fellow Wilson who has a truck backed up to Mr.
Rockefeller who has all the dough. And we began to
have all sorts of troubles.
Money had entered the picture - it had to. We had to
hire halls that didn't come for nothing, the book
cost something, we had dinners once in a while. Yes,
money came into it.
Then we found little by little that the groups had
to have chores done. Who was going to be the
Chairman, would we hand pick him or elect him or
what? You know what those troubles were and they
became so fearsome that we went through another
period of flying blind. The first period of flying
blind you remember had to do with whether the
individual could be restored into one piece, whether
the forces of destruction in him could be contained
and subdued. Now, we were beginning to wonder in the
early part of our adolescence, whether the
destructive forces in our groups would rend us apart
and destroy the society. Ah, those were fearsome
days.
Our little New York office began to be deluged with
mail from these groups, growing up at distances and
not in contact with our old centers and they were
having these troubles: There were people coming out
of the insane asylums. Lord, what would these
lunatics do to us? There were prisoners, would we be
sandbagged? There were queer people. There were
people, believe it or not whose morals were bad and
the respectable alcoholics of that time shook their
heads and said, "surely these immoral people are
going to render us asunder." Little Red Riding Hood
and the bad wolves began to abound. Ah yes, could
our society last?
It
kept growing, more groups, more members. Sometimes
the groups divided because the leaders were mad at
each other and sometimes they divided because they
were just too big. But by a process of fission and
sub-division this movement grew and grew and grew.
Ten years later it had spread into thirty countries.
Out of that vast welter of experience in our
adolescence it began to be evident that we were
going to take very different attitudes towards many
things than our fellow Americans. We were deeply
convinced for example, that the survival of the
whole was far more important than the survival of
any individual or group of individuals. This was a
thing far bigger than any one of us. We began to
suspect that once a mass of alcoholics were adhering
even halfway to the Twelve Steps, that God could
speak in their Group conscience and up out of that
Group conscience could come a wisdom greater than
any inspired leadership.
In
the early days we all had membership rules. Where
have they gone now? We're not afraid anymore. We
open our arms wide, we say we don't care who you
are, what your difficulties are. You just need say,
"I'm an alcoholic and I'm interested." You declare
yourself in. Our membership idea is put exactly in
reverse.
Years ago we thought this society should go into
research and education, to do everything for drunks
all the time. We know better now. We have one sole
object in this society, we shoemakers are going to
stick to our last and we will carry that message to
other alcoholics and leave these other matters to
the more competent. We will do one thing supremely
well rather than many things badly.
And so our Tradition grew. Our Tradition is not
American tradition. Take our public relations
policy. Why, in America everything runs on big
names, advertising people. We are a country devoted
to heroism, it is a beloved tradition and yet this
movement in the wisdom of it's Group's soul, knew
that this was not for us. So our public relations
policy is anonymity at the public level. No
advertising of people, principles before
personalities. Anonymity has a deep spiritual
significance - the greatest protection this movement
has.
As
our society has grown up it has developed its way of
life. It's a way of relating ourselves together,
it's a way of relating ourselves to these
troublesome questions of property, money and
prestige and authority and the world at large. The
A.A. Tradition developed not because I dictated it
but because you people, your experience formed it
and I merely set it on paper and tried beginning
four years ago (1946) to reflect it back to you.
Such were our years of adolescence, and before we
leave them I must say that a powerful impetus was
given the Traditions by the Gentleman who introduced
me. (Earl T.)
One day he came down to Bedford Hills after the long
form of the Traditions were written out at some
length, because in the office we were forever having
to answer questions about Group troubles, so the
original Traditions were longer and covered more
possibilities of trouble. Earl looked at me rather
quizzically and he said "Bill, don't you get it
through your thick head that these drunks do not
like to read. They will listen for a while but they
will not read anything. Now, you want to capsule
these Traditions as simply as are the Twelve Steps
to Recovery."
So
he and I started the capsulizing process, which
lasted a day or two and that put the Traditions into
their present form. Well, by this time we had a lot
of experience on these principles, which we began to
think might bind us together in unity for so long as
God might need us. And at Cleveland (1950), seven
thousand of us did declare "Yes, these are the
traditional principles upon which we are willing to
stand, upon which we can safely commit ourselves to
the future, and so we emerged from adolescence.
Again, last year we took destiny by the hand.
(Transcribed from tape. Chicago, IL, February 1951).
