Tradition Six

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. Tradition Six

From the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Contents:
Experience proved that we could not endorse any related enterprise, no matter how good. We could not be all things to all men. We saw that we could not lend the A.A. name to any outside activity.

Focus Questions from The Grapevine:
1. Should my fellow group members and I go out and raise money to endow several AA beds in our local hospital?
2. Is it good for a group to lease a small building?
3. Are all the officers and members of our local club for AAs familiar with “Guidelines on Clubs” (which is available free from GSO)?
4. Should the secretary of our group serve on the mayor’s advisory committee on alcoholism?
5. Some alcoholics will stay around AA only if we have a TV and card room. If this is what is required to carry the message to them, should we have these facilities?

Tradition Five

Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Tradition Five

From the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Contents:
Better do one thing well than many badly. The life of our Fellowship depends on this principle. The ability of each A.A. to identify himself with and bring recovery to the newcomer is a gift from God . . . passing on this gift to others is our one aim. Sobriety can't be kept unless it is given away.

Focus Questions from The Grapevine:
1. Do I ever cop out by saying, “I’m not a group, so this or that Tradition doesn’t apply to me”?
2. Am I willing to explain firmly to a newcomer the limitations of AA help, even if he gets mad at me for not giving him a loan?
3. Have I today imposed on any AA member for a special favor or consideration simply because I am a fellow alcoholic?
4. Am I willing to twelfth-step the next newcomer without regard to who or what is in it for me?
5. Do I help my group in every way I can to fulfill our primary purpose?
6. Do I remember that AA old-timers, too, can be alcoholics who still suffer? Do I try both to help them and to learn from them?

Tradition Four

  Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.  Tradition Four

From the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Contents:
Every group manages its affairs as it pleases, except when A.A. as a whole is threatened. Is such liberty dangerous? The group, like the individual, must eventually conform to principles that guarantee survival. Two storm signals— a group ought not do anything which would injure A.A. as a whole, nor affiliate itself with outside interests. An example: the “A.A. Center” that didn't work.

Focus Questions from The Grapevine:
1. Do I insist that there are only a few right ways of doing things in AA?
2. Does my group always consider the welfare of the rest of AA? Of nearby groups? Of Loners in Alaska? Of Internationalists miles from port? Of a group in Rome or El Salvador?
3. Do I put down other members’ behavior when it is different from mine, or do I learn from it?
4. Do I always bear in mind that, to those outsiders who know I am in AA, I may to some extent represent our entire beloved Fellowship?
5. Am I willing to help a newcomer go to any lengths—his lengths, not mine—to stay sober?
6. Do I share my knowledge of AA tools with other members who may not have heard of them?

Tradition Three

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

From the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Contents:
Early intolerance based on fear. To take away any alcoholic's chance an A.A. was sometimes to pronounce his death sentence. Membership regulations abandoned. Two
examples of experience. Any alcoholic is a member of A.A. when he says so.

Focus Questions from The Grapevine:
1. In my mind, do I prejudge some new AA members as losers?
2. Is there some kind of alcoholic whom I privately do not want in my AA group?
3. Do I set myself up as a judge of whether a newcomer is sincere or phony?
4. Do I let language, religion (or lack of it), race, education, age, or other such things interfere with my carrying the message?
5. Am I overimpressed by a celebrity? By a doctor, a clergyman, an ex-convict? Or can I just treat this new member simply and naturally as one more sick human, like the rest of us?
6. When someone turns up at AA needing information or help (even if he can’t ask for it aloud), does it really matter to me what he does for a living? Where he lives? What his domestic arrangements are? Whether he had been to AA before? What his other problems are?

Tradition Two

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.  Tradition Two

From the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Contents:
Where does A.A. get its direction? Sole authority in A.A. is loving God as He may express Himself in the group conscience. Formation of a group. Growing ains. Rotating committees are servants of the group. Leaders do not govern, they serve. Does A.A. have a real leadership? “Elder statesmen” and “bleeding deacons.” The group conscience speaks.

Focus Questions from The Grapevine:
1. Do I criticize or do I trust and support my group officers, AA committees, and office
workers? Newcomers? Old-timers?
2. Am I absolutely trustworthy, even in secret, with AA Twelfth Step jobs or other AA
responsibility?
3. Do I look for credit in my AA jobs? Praise for my AA ideas?
4. Do I have to save face in group discussion, or can I yield in good spirit to the group
conscience and work cheerfully along with it?
5. Although I have been sober a few years, am I still willing to serve my turn at AA chores?
6. In group discussions, do I sound off about matters on which I have no experience and
little knowledge?

Tradition One

Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.   Tradition One
From the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Contents:
Without unity, A.A. dies. Individual liberty, yet great unity. Key to paradox: each A.A.'s life depends on obedience to spiritual principles. The group must survive or the individual will not. Common welfare comes first. How best to live and work together as groups.

Focus Questions from The Grapevine:1. Am I in my group a healing, mending, integrating person, or am I divisive? What about gossip and taking other members’ inventories?2. Am I a peacemaker? Or do I, with pious preludes such as “just for the sake of discussion,” plunge into argument? 3. Am I gentle with those who rub me the wrong way, or am I abrasive?4. Do I make competitive AA remarks, such as comparing one group with another or contrasting AA in one place with AA in another?5. Do I put down some AA activities as if I were superior for not participating in this or that aspect of AA?6. Am I informed about AA as a whole? Do I support, in every way I can, AA as a whole, or just the parts I understand and approve of? 7. Am I as considerate of AA members as I want them to be of me? 8. Do I spout platitudes about love while indulging in and secretly justifying behavior that bristles with hostility?9. Do I go to enough AA meetings or read enough AA literature to really keep in touch? 10. Do I share with AA all of me, the bad and the good, accepting as well as giving the help of fellowship?

Step Twelve

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of working these steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.  Step Twelve, Alcoholics Anonymous

Questions from the Contents page in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions:
Joy of living is the theme of the Twelfth Step.  Action its keyword.  Giving that asks no reward.  Love that has no price tag.  What is spiritual awakening?  A new state of consciousness and being is received as a free gift.  Readiness to receive gift lies in practice of Twelve Steps.  The magnificent reality.  Rewards of helping other alcoholics.  Kinds of Twelfth Step work.  Problems of Twelfth Step work.  What about the practice of these principles in all our affairs?  Monotony, pain, and calamity turned to good use by practice of Steps.  Difficulties of practice.  "Two-stepping".  Switch to "twelve-stepping" and demonstrations of faith.  Growing spiritually is the answer to our problems.  Placing spiritual growth first.  Domination and overdependence.  Putting our lives on give-and-take basis.  Dependence upon God necessary to recovery of alcoholics.  "Practicing these principles in all our affairs":  Domestic relations in AA.  Outlook upon material matters changes. So do feelings about personal importance.  Instincts restored to true purpose.  Understanding is key to right attitudes, right action key to good living.  

Reading Assignment:
Step Twelve - Read - Chapter 7 - Working with Others
Step Twelve - Page 106-1258 in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

A few questions for focus:
What has my awakening looked like?  Share examples of awakenings.
How do I contribute in Service to AA?
Do I practice the principles in all my affairs?

***This is not meant to substitute getting a sponsor***
***This is not meant to be a comprehensive Step***
***This is meant to be food for thought for me and if it helps you, then, "Thank You God"***