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The ONLY Requirement (you don't have to adopt ANYone's beliefs to recover)
Last edited Sat Jun 1, 2013, 04:09 PM - Edit history (1)
Everything shown as quoted in the below is copyright © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services unless otherwise stated (some are copyright © The AA Grapevine, Inc)All emphasis shown in the below is mine.
[font size=4, color=blue]# Tradition 3 (also part of the A.A. Preamble):[/font] " The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. "
[font size=4, color=blue]# Tradition 3, Long form: [/font] "Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought AA membership ever depend upon money OR CONFORMITY. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation."
[font size=4, color=blue]# From Tradition 3 in the "Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions" book (p. 139, 143) [/font]
( http://www.aa.org/twelveandtwelve/en_pdfs/en_tradition3.pdf ) <-link good 2/22/13, but can't copy and paste from.
"This Tradition is packed with meaning. For A.A. is really saying to every serious drinker, "You are an A.A. member if you say so. You can declare yourself in; nobody can keep you out. No matter who you are, no matter how low you've gone, no matter how grave your emotional complications - even your crimes - we still can't deny you A.A. We don't want to keep you out. We aren't a bit afraid you'll harm us, never mind how twisted or violent you may be. We just want to be sure that you get the same great chance for sobriety that we've had. So you're an A.A. member the minute you declare yourself. "
...
"Not long after the man with the double stigma knocked for admission, A.A.'s other group received into its membership a salesman we shall call Ed. ... He had at least an idea a minute on how to improve A.A. ... But he had one idea that wasn't so salable. Ed was an atheist. His pet obsession was that A.A. could get along better without its 'God nonsense.' He browbeat everybody, and everybody expected that he'd soon get drunk ... Distressingly enough, Ed proceeded to stay sober.
"... The elders led Ed aside. They said firmly, “You can’t talk like this around here. You’ll have to quit it or get out.” ... {Ed} read aloud, “The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.” Relentlessly, Ed went on, “When you guys wrote that sentence, did you mean it, or didn’t you?” Dismayed, the elders looked at one another; for they knew he had them cold. So Ed stayed."
...
"Not long after the man with the double stigma knocked for admission, A.A.'s other group received into its membership a salesman we shall call Ed. ... He had at least an idea a minute on how to improve A.A. ... But he had one idea that wasn't so salable. Ed was an atheist. His pet obsession was that A.A. could get along better without its 'God nonsense.' He browbeat everybody, and everybody expected that he'd soon get drunk ... Distressingly enough, Ed proceeded to stay sober.
"... The elders led Ed aside. They said firmly, “You can’t talk like this around here. You’ll have to quit it or get out.” ... {Ed} read aloud, “The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.” Relentlessly, Ed went on, “When you guys wrote that sentence, did you mean it, or didn’t you?” Dismayed, the elders looked at one another; for they knew he had them cold. So Ed stayed."
So if someone tries to censure you or say you have to talk only "program talk" (or post only "program" posts in online 12-step support groups), you can point out this simple tradition to them. If it is still not clear to them:
[font size=4, color=blue]# From Bill W. in the 1946 Grapevine[/font], also printed in the book, "The Language of the Heart: Bill W's Grapevine Writings", pp 32-33. © The AA Grapevine, Inc:
"Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA Group. This clearly implies that an alcoholic is a member if he says so; that we can't deny him his membership; that we can't demand from him a cent; that we can't force our beliefs or practices upon him; that he may flout everything we stand for and still be a member. In fact, our Tradition carries the principle of independence for the individual to such an apparently fantastic length that, so long as there is the slightest interest in sobriety, the most unmoral, the most anti-social, the most critical alcoholic may gather about him a few kindred spirits and announce to us that a new Alcoholics Anonymous Group has been formed. Anti-God, anti-medicine, anti-our Recovery Program, even anti-each other— these rampant individuals are still an AA Group if they think so!"
The first sentence of the above is also in the Long Form of Tradition 3
The entire Grapevine article is at: http://silkworth.net/pdfBillW/The-Individual-In-Relation-to-AA-as-a-Group-July-1946.pdf It is also included in the book, "The Language of the Heart: Bill W's Grapevine Writings", pp 32-33. © The AA Grapevine, Inc.
[font size=4, color=blue]# Concept V In the Twelve Concepts of World Service upholds the right of minority opinions to be heard -- thoroughly [/font]
( http://www.aa.org/pdf/products/p-8_thetwelveconetps.pdf ) (scroll to Concept V)
[font size=4, color=blue]# You must work all the steps exactly as in the Big Book, even if you have to 'fake it' - NOT according to A.A. [/font]
In spite of all of the above, if someone insists you have to "work the steps", and if you don't agree with a step, that you must "fake it until you make it" ---
First point out that A.A. is a program of RIGOROUS HONESTY (chapter 5, How It Works" first paragraph, chapter 10, To Employers, p. 145). Point out that "fake" is not a word to be found in the Big Book (at least not in the first eleven chapters). Tell them that faking anything -- whether your program or your sobriety status -- is detrimental to your recovery. Tell them that from your observations, those who are dishonest with themselves and their group seem to have the highest failure rates. Explain to them that lying to yourself and others is what got you into this mess in the first place, and then again point to Tradition 3. And to the below:
[font size=2]# Bill W.: "AA's Twelve Steps were to be suggestions only" ... "regardless of their belief or lack of belief"[/font]
- "Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age", page 167
"Who first suggested the actual compromise words I do not know, but they are words well-known throughout the length and breadth of AA today: In Step Two we decided to describe God as a "Power greater than ourselves." In Steps Three and Eleven we inserted the words "God as we understood him." From Step Seven we deleted the expression "on our knees." And, as a lead-in sentence to all the steps we wrote the words: "Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a Program of Recovery." AA's Twelve Steps were to be suggestions only."
"Such were the final concessions to those of little or no faith; [font color=brown]this was the great contribution of our atheists and agnostics[/font]. They had widened our gateway so that all who suffer might pass through, regardless of their belief or lack of belief."
"Such were the final concessions to those of little or no faith; [font color=brown]this was the great contribution of our atheists and agnostics[/font]. They had widened our gateway so that all who suffer might pass through, regardless of their belief or lack of belief."
[font size=2]# How It Works, Chapter 5: "Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery"[/font]
(Many groups read the first 2 1/2 pages of this chapter at every meeting, which includes the above words followed immediately with the steps themselves, without any title. Interestingly, nowhere else in the Big Book do the steps appear, not in any of the prefaces or appendices, nowhere)
[font size=2]# "Our Twelve Steps to recovery are suggestions; the Twelve Traditions which guarantee A.A.'s unity contain not a single 'Don't'. They repeadtedly say 'We ought ...' but never 'You Must'". [/font] - 12 X 12 Tradition One p. 129
[font size=2]# "First, Alcoholics Anonymous does not demand that you believe anything. All of its Twelve Steps are but suggestions". [/font] - 12 X 12 Step 2 p. 26.
[font size=2]# Bill W. on Buddhists replacing "God" with "good" - "A.A.’s Steps are suggestions only. A belief in them, as they stand, is not at all a requirement for membership" [/font]- An Excerpt From Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age(page 81)
"A poignant story comes from the book AA Comes of Age. In the mid 1950s AA’s reach extended to alcoholics around the world. Bill Wilson, co-founder of AA, was quite clear about liberty for individual AA groups in his “Chapter on Unity” from A. A. Comes of Age. On page 81 he talks about Buddhists who said that they would like to be part of AA, but also would like to replace the word “god” with “good” so that the practice of the Steps would be compatible with their atheistic belief. In 1957, Bill Wilson writes:
“To some of us, the idea of substituting ‘good’ for ‘God’ in the Twelve Steps will seem like a watering down of A.A.’s message. But here we must remember that A.A.’s Steps are suggestions only. A belief in them, as they stand, is not at all a requirement for membership among us. This liberty has made A.A. available to thousands who never would have tried at all had we insisted on the Twelve Steps just as written.” -- Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age pg. 81, reprinted with permission of A.A. World Service Inc.
[font size=2]# Rewording The Steps In The Big Book - "Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict" redid each of the Twelve Steps specifically with his wife in mind, [/font]
"from the First, saying, 'I am powerless over alcohol, and my homelife is unmanageable by me,' to the Twelfth, in which I tried to think of her as a sick Al-Anon and treat her with the love I would give a sick A.A. newcomer. When I do this, we get along fine." -- "Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict" in 3rd Edition, p. 452, "Acceptance Was The Answer" in 4th Edition p. 420.
[font size=2]# "The absence of rules, regulations, or musts is one of the unique features of AA as a local group and as a worldwide fellowship"[/font]. - 44 Questions, p .16
[font size=2]# "No one has to do anything in AA" [/font] - 44 Questions, p. 24 [emphasis in the original]
[font size=2]# "Acceptance of the 'Twelve Steps' is not mandatory in any sense".[/font] - 44 Questions, p. 27
[font size=2]# "We must never compel anyone to pay anything, believe anything, or conform to anything"[/font] - Tradition 3, 12 X 12, p. 141
[font size=2]# "The full liberty to practice any creed or principle or therapy should be a first consideration. Hence let us not pressure anyone with individual or even collective views"[/font] -- Bill W., Address to the 1965 General Conference.
"In AA we are supposed to be bound together in the kinship of a universal suffering. Therefore the full liberty to practice any creed or principle or therapy should be a first consideration. Hence let us not pressure anyone with individual or even collective views. Let us instead accord to each other the respect that is due to every human being as he tries to make his way towards the light. Let us always try to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Let us remember that each alcoholic among us is a member of AA, so long as he or she so declares."
[font size=2]# “...the A.A. program of recovery is based on certain spiritual values. Individual members are free to interpret these values as they think best, or not to think about them at all.” [/font] - From “Members of the Clergy Ask About Alcoholics Anonymous" First printed 1961, updated 1996 http://www.aa.org/pdf/products/p-25_membersoftheclergyaskaboutaa.pdf
[font size=4, color= blue]# You are doomed to jail, institutions, or death unless you find your Higher Power - NOT according to A.A. [/font]
[font size=2]# "they appreciate that some alcoholics have been able to achieve and maintain sobriety without any belief in a personal Higher Power"[/font] - "Questions & Answers on Sponsorship", p. 23
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