MY THOUGHTS ON TRADITION SIX
TRADITION SIX
"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."
“We
sometimes congratulate ourselves on the Traditions as though they were a list
of virtues singular to us. Actually, they are a collection of the lessons of
our past experience during the early days of A.A.” Bill W.
“These
Traditions are not fixed absolutely. There may be room for improvement.
However, they should not be lightly cast aside, since they bear on our unity,
survival and growth under Gods grace." Bill W.
I
had a sponsee who became treasurer of a group and ask me if I thought it was OK
to pay people to go out on commitments for the group it seemed the group he was
treasurer for started to use the group’s money to pay people to speak at other
meetings
My
answer to him is that it is not the way of AA but groups are autonomous as long
as they don’t affect any other group or AA as a whole but in my opinion money
collected is not for paying people to help themselves stay sober
Its
our responsibility to go out on commitments I would never ask to be paid for
staying sober and others should not be paid I need to read the twelve and
twelve often to be reminded of the traditions
The
6th tradition is important for us because if you’re like me I still want to run
the show at times re-reading the traditions helps me find my real motives in
what I an trying to do I want to be able to help thru suggestions not control
AA
has done fine long before any of us have gotten sober and the twelve steps and
twelve traditions have lead the way If we suit up show up and be of service as
humbly as humanly possible we well stay sober
I
have enough trouble focusing on myself without complicating it with outside
issues It seems to follow that AA as a whole has enough to do without getting
involved in outside issues The founders know from experience its best not to
get involved
It made me feel more secure about the
whole AA program ...that their real goal was about helping people recover not
about making money or any other commercial crap I believe the traditions is
what makes aa and the steps is what makes us with out them we'd have neither
I
must admit I don't use the traditions like I do the steps but they are very
necessary Imagine the insanity of bunch of alcoholics without the structure and
boundaries that the traditions create!!
All this tradition does
is separate the material from the spiritual An earlier tradition suggests that
it is better to one thing well than to do many things badly we simply cannot
lend the AA name We must be free
This program, it is the best thing that
has ever happened to me it has given me serenity and peace of mind it has
allowed me to be a better person I have never had any problems with the
traditions because to me I knew that there had to be some order to this thing
and they were it
The primary purpose of an
AA group can be described quite simply to help alcoholics gain and maintain
sobriety even without outside interests politics and resentment can divert a
Meeting from that primary purpose
Tradition is the passing down a custom from one
generation to another it is also any time honored set of practices principles
beliefs etc. and as AA involves so does the traditions
In my district it is traditional in most of our meetings to give medallions to those who have completed one or more years of sobriety In earlier years we were accustomed to given cakes to celebrate one our more years of sobriety
As we
involved in our meetings we started to give medallions as we further involved
we started to give chips to anyone who was new or complete one month or more in
sobriety thus this has become a tradition in most of our groups
My District has agreed that as such the medallions and chips Literature
and books should be made available to our groups thru our service office having
a service office is to help groups with everything that is customary to the
running of there groups
If groups give these things as part of there tradition they should be
available to them provided that as such it does not interfere with AA as a
whole
Legacy is something handed
on from those who have come before and when we have good solid ideas they
should be passed on to the future generations of Alcoholics to come after us
change is necessary to growth even in our groups
As
a DCM tradition six came up for me someone wanting to send me flyers about a
play coming to a local collage the play is about getting sober in AA This
person wanted me to announce the flyer and put these flyers on the tables at
meetings
To help get the word out about their play This may be of interest to some in the fellowship but it would give the impression that AA endorses this production this was not an AA related announcement
I wrote back a friendly note stating the above and the sixth tradition I did suggest that they were free to post their flyers on any public board in the halls we meet in if it is Ok with the landlord to do so tradition six is here to protect our name
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