as a person with a desire to stop drinking and live a decent life i am a full fledged member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
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the Literature from The Program is suggested only, no one need care AT ALL what the Big Book or any other book says. only the Traditions actually matter, in a legal/literal sense: no Religion, (including making the Big Book or any other Book from AA sacred), no politics, no commerce and no personal dominance (rotation of leadership).
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if you are interested in talking over your struggles in life, including struggles with "the program", please let me know. i will contemplate any ideas that makes sense to me as i trudge forward, smiling, in sobriety.
I, too, am a big believer in the Traditions of AA. They provide structure and principles for all groups and members of AA. I go to a weekly meeting on Traditions and we always have informative discussions.
The traditions of AA were "hammered out" on "anvils of experience."
The traditions are all about the fellowship. Built on past mistakes they are a set of spiritual principles (laws) that keep us united in our purpose that the individual may recover. Oft quoted tradition three not only sets out the requirment for membership but also spells out that any two or three alcoholics gathered together for the purpose of sobriety can call themselves an AA group provided that as a group they have no other affiliation. So we know who can be in the fellowship and form a group.
Conference made another clarifying declaration a few years ago, adopting a staement by Bill W. "Sobriety, freedom from alcohol, through the teaching and practice of the 12 steps is the sole purpose of an AA group." So now we know what a group does and it seems AA's claim about sobriety go beyond mere membership in the fellowship and actually include the 12 steps as a suggested program of recovery, such suggestions based in the experience that they actually work when we really try, and half measures were not effective.
howdy fyne, can you link me to the declaration that the sole purpose of an aa group is the teaching and practice of the 12 steps?
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this is the kind of thing that is anethema to my own program. i don't care, at all, about the 12 steps. i resonate with fellow alcoholics and talking things over with them helps me, i believe. whether i choose the 12 steps or the 8 fold path of the buddha is up to me, and the suggested steps are just that, suggestions.
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there are many many quotes from bill and others saying that those who utterly dismiss the steps are still aa members. the purpose of my group is for us to stay sober and carry the message. the message being that those of us from like circumstances not using and trying to live better help one another.
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w
