About AA

A.A. PREAMBLE

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.

There are no dues or fees for A.A. membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.

The A.A. Preamble, above, is AA’s simplest self-description. If you’d like to know more about Alcoholics Anonymous, attend a meeting, read the Big Book, visit aa.org or call the hotline. (Here in the Upper Valley, the AA Answering service number is 802-295-7611)

If you’re wondering what AA is and is not, you may be interested to know that AA is not a religion, a business or any kind of hierarchical organization with rules and penalties. AAs Twelve Traditions describe an ongoing, voluntary activity with no organization. No one in AA has the right or power to tell anyone else in AA what to do or not do. AAs are all individuals. Some are religious. Some are agnostics or atheists. Some follow all the suggestions they hear and find sensible. Some get very active in the volunteer work of hosting meetings, etc.. Some keep pretty much to themselves. Some AAs talk about a God or “higher power” they rely on, but many don’t, and no one has to accept anyone else’s ideas. AAs take what works for them and leave the rest, which may work for someone else.

AAs share an interest in staying sober by getting honest with ourselves about our drinking and our lives. Most do so with the help of the Twelve Steps, which merely suggest a process for getting and staying honest with ourselves. We go to meetings to share our experience, strength and hope.

Here are the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions:

The Twelve Steps

  1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
  2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
  4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
  5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
  6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
  7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
  8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
  9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
  10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
  11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
  12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The Twelve Traditions

  1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. 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 A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.
  4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
  5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
  6. An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
  7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
  8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
  9. A.A., 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 A.A. 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.