Principles Before Personalities — AA Traditions Explained – AA Speaker – Richard E. – London, UK
AA speaker Richard E. from London breaks down all 12 AA Traditions, explaining how they keep groups unified and protect the message of recovery from diversion and collapse.
Richard E., an AA speaker from London, UK, walks through all 12 AA Traditions in this workshop-style talk, showing how these principles keep groups strong and protect the message. Drawing on the history of the Washingtonians and Oxford Group, Richard explains why principles must come before personalities—and what happens when they don’t.
AA speaker Richard E. explains the 12 AA Traditions, covering common welfare, group conscience, autonomy, primary purpose, and anonymity. He uses the cautionary history of the Washingtonians and Oxford Group to illustrate why these principles are essential to AA’s survival. The talk emphasizes that traditions protect the group’s recovery, just as the steps protect the individual’s recovery.
Episode Summary
Richard E. opens with his own qualification—a “professional stopper” who could quit drinking three times in one day—and then dives into why traditions matter just as much as steps. His central message: the steps are for personal recovery; the traditions are for group recovery. “The steps help me live with me,” he says. “The traditions help me live with you.”
What makes this talk stand out is Richard’s approach to making the traditions practical rather than abstract. He uses humor and real stories to illustrate what each tradition actually means in a meeting. When introducing Tradition One (Common Welfare), he asks the audience to turn to someone they haven’t seen in a while and introduce themselves—then reveals they’ve just practiced Tradition One. It’s a simple, concrete way to show how the traditions aren’t rules handed down from on high; they’re principles that describe how healthy groups actually operate.
Richard then traces the cautionary history of the Washingtonians, a fellowship of six men in 1848 Baltimore who grew to over a million members in four years—and disappeared entirely within a decade. Their failure wasn’t because of weak commitment; it was because they diverted from their primary purpose, getting involved in politics and religion, and eventually admitted non-alcoholics. By comparison, AA’s success comes directly from adhering to its traditions. He also covers the Oxford Group’s later downfall, including their support of Adolf Hitler—a stark reminder of what happens when organizations lend their name to causes outside their purpose.
Tradition Two addresses group conscience and trusted servants. Richard shares a story about being voted to sweep cigarette butts after his secretary term ended. His initial ego reaction—”Don’t you know who I think I am?”—gave way to clarity: “There was a lot of God in that decision because it kept me humble.” He emphasizes that leaders in AA don’t govern; they serve by example.
Tradition Three (“The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking”) brings in the story of a woman named Irma, a sex worker in 1940s Southern California who was explicitly told by a group: “You’re not one of us. Please leave.” She died of alcoholism 2.5 years later. Bill Wilson’s response was that he couldn’t force groups to accept her—there were no conditions. Irma’s story was likely a catalyst for Tradition Three. Richard reads the long form: “A membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence, we may refuse none who wish to recover.” But he’s clear: if someone is not suffering from alcoholism, they need therapy, not AA. This is “an altruistic program where we look out to fix what’s within,” not a self-help program.
Throughout, Richard emphasizes the balance built into the traditions. Groups are autonomous (Tradition Four) but only up to the point where autonomy doesn’t harm other groups. Tradition Five—that each group’s primary purpose is to carry the message of spiritual awakening through the steps—is the pivot point. He notes that back-to-basics groups that take people through all 12 steps in four weeks before attending regular meetings report 95% success rates, compared to today’s 3-6% success rate where the message gets diluted by discussions of dogs, washing machines, and hearing aids.
Tradition Six warns against endorsing outside enterprises. Richard covers the cautionary tale of a group that bought a building for AA meetings on the floor but added a mother-and-baby unit, detox center, and counseling services on other floors. Money and prestige took over, the group fractured over resources, and it nearly disappeared. A member later sent the World Service office a card reading “Rule 62: Don’t take yourself too damn seriously.”
Traditions Seven through Nine address self-support, non-professionalism, and organization. Richard is direct: “Whoever’s got the money makes the policy.” He explains why AA must stay non-professional—it’s not knocking people who work in treatment centers, but there’s a difference between spiritual work and paid work, and mixing them confuses people. He illustrates how AA has an inverted organizational triangle: the conference serves the region, the region serves the intergroup, the intergroup serves the committee, the committee serves the group, and the group serves the newcomer. It’s “organized chaos” held together by members adhering to principles.
Tradition Ten (no outside issues) comes with the Washingtonians’ political endorsement that blew up when their candidate was caught with his secretary, and the Oxford Group’s backing of Hitler. The lesson: don’t lend the AA name to anything outside AA.
Tradition Eleven (anonymity at the level of press, radio, and film) includes two powerful contrasting stories. One about a baseball player who broke his anonymity to the press, got drunk three months later, and became a headline proving “AA does not work.” Another about a man named Steven who came to meetings for three years, struggled, and died after drinking a quarter bottle of vodka and choking on his own vomit—nobody from AA went to his funeral because nobody knew his last name or family. It’s a sobering example of how anonymity within the fellowship (knowing people’s real names, families, how to find them) is different from anonymity to the outside world.
Then Richard shares his redemptive counterexample: a friend who broke anonymity with a hospital nurse purely out of love, telling her about AA. That nurse’s husband got sober as a result. Same action—breaking anonymity—but done from love rather than ego. The difference between personalities and principles.
Tradition Twelve, placed with Eleven because they intertwine, reminds us that anonymity is “a spiritual foundation of all our traditions ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.” Richard ends with a final story: a man offered $10,000 for 12 radio lectures on alcoholism, refused by the World Service office. When he pushed back (essentially telling them to “stick it”), the office replied that they couldn’t stop him but they would encourage their half million members to write to his sponsor every week. He backed down. Sometimes personality gets in the way, but the principles hold.
Richard’s conclusion is warm and direct: the traditions are vital to his recovery, and they will be vital to others once they understand them. “This is a program of action. We have to adhere to this stuff. Otherwise, we will die. If there’s nowhere to come, there’s millions behind us. We have nowhere to go and their lives won’t be saved.”
Notable Quotes
The steps help me live with me. The traditions help me live with you.
After you’ve been around a while, you will understand that the steps stop me committing suicide. The traditions stop me committing homicide.
Unless each AA member follows to the best of their ability the suggested 12 steps of recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. The same stern threat applies to the group itself. Unless there is an approximate conformity to AA traditions, the groups too can deteriorate and die.
God speaks through the group conscience. If you’re not happy with it, then go and find another group. Simple as that.
Whoever’s got the money makes the policy.
There was a lot of God in that decision because it kept me humble. No matter how long I’m around, I’m still one of you.
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Anonymity
Sponsorship
Founders & AA History
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Principles Before Personalities
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
- Anonymity
- Sponsorship
- Founders & AA History
People Also Search For
AA speaker on step 12 – carrying the message
AA speaker on anonymity
AA speaker on sponsorship
AA speaker on founders & aa history
▶
Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-onrise.com.
Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Thank you very much.
Good evening everybody. My name's Christian. I'm a very, very grateful recovered alcoholic name.
And um by a power greater than myself, which I choose to call God today, 12step program of recovery, good sponsorship, and clear-cut directions from the big book of alcoholics on I haven't found it necessary to take a drink, drug, or mind altering woman today. Um, are you sure you didn't lie to everybody, Dave? Usually when I would mention the word traditions, right, everybody just gets their coat and heads for the door.
Are you sure he hasn't lied to you lot and told me it's something else going on here tonight? There seems to be a lot of you. That's fantastic.
It just means that we're all on the same page and that that's a wonderful thing. Um, so yeah, we are going to talk about the traditions tonight. And um, first of all, I'm going to qualify myself.
So when I drunk, I had little or no control over how much I drunk. When I tried to stop, I found that I couldn't. Um, in fact, when I got here, I was an actual a professional stopper.
I was so good at it, I stopped three times in one day once. That's how good I was. At our bar 9, I drank a quarter of a bottle of vodka.
I said, "I'm this has got to stop. I'm not doing this no more." And art 4 that afternoon, I drank another quarter bottle of vodka and said, "This has got to stop. I'm not doing that no more." And at last 10 that night, as I drunk another quarter of vodka, and I went into like absolute paralysis, as my head at the table, I said, "I got to stop doing this." So, that's how good I am at it.
Um, I like to keep things light because that's the way that I learn. Um, this we're not a glum lot, so I don't believe in sitting here being all too serious and and and trying to lecture you in any way. Um, I'm not going to be using any big words tonight.
And that's not because I don't want to confuse you. It's just cuz I don't know any. Okay.
Um, so in the spirit of learning light and in the spirit of um, keeping it interactive, what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to look over to somebody who you haven't seen for a while or you don't know and I'd like you to get up and I'd like you to go over and introduce yourself to them and ask them how they are. So anybody So, well done everybody. You just took part in tradition one.
You went over, you asked your fellows about their common welfare and we all did that in unity. So, let's go to do tradition two. It's that simple.
No, it's not. I'm joking. Tradition one.
But that is what it's about. It's our common welfare coming first. It's about us asking how are you?
what's happening for you um and about the group. The steps are my individual personal recovery. They're our personal recovery.
The traditions are the group's recovery. And the concepts is the fellowship's recovery. Okay.
Um for me, basically, the steps help me live with me. The traditions help me live with you. Or as one old-timer put it, the steps are there stop me committing suicide.
The traditions are there stop me committing homicide. After you've been around a while, you will understand that. Tell you, you really will.
Um so tradition one a common welfare comes first. Bill Wilson knew that the common welfare of any group any country any um population has to come first. I mean if you look at something like an army what they will do is they will sacrifice a regiment in order to win a battle and sometimes they'll sacrifice winning a battle to win the war and a country will sometimes sacrifice an army in order to save the population.
So our individual welfare comes second a close second the common welfare of all of us has to come first and the reason it comes first is because without a group here I am not going to get recovery I'm not the common welfare of the group has to come first so I'll ask you a question because it is an interactive workshop we're doing we have the right to throw somebody out of a meeting if they're causing problems >> yes >> okay why anyone So yeah, I think it's important for secretaries, if there are secretaries in here, to know that we absolutely have the right to ask somebody to leave. And if they don't leave, then we ask the police to come and get them because the common welfare of the group must come first. Okay?
As we go through the traditions, I'm going to talk about the Oxford group and I'm going to talk about the Washingtonians. The Washingtonians was in 1848 and it was started by six men in in Clancy's Bar in Baltimore and they got together and decided not to drink. Within four years of them forming they had over a million members and they grew at 10 times the rate of AA and four years later they was gone off the face of the planet.
So as we go through the traditions I'm going to go big big battles and forwards to the Washingtonians to explain why we have the traditions that we have. And it was the same with the Oxford group. By 1940, the Oxford group had gone and we learned a lot of our our steps and you'll see that from the tenants that the Oxford group had.
Um, so I wonder past you that um I just found out recently I didn't know it blew me away. The Washingtonians in 1848 had six steps and this were their six steps. One, we miss we must recognize that alcohol is our problem and it's destroyed our lives.
Two, we must seek help from God. Three, we must serve God. Four, we must take a moral inventory of ourselves.
Five, we make restitution. And I love this, right? Number six, we have to go and recruit a new member every week.
I mean, is that step 12 or what? Um, 1848, they had that and it was gone within 4 years. So, the common welfare must come first.
Um, and that depends upon our unity. You know, we go to meetings. Um, and just my experience, he's saying take your time with doing steps.
She's saying get a sponsor when you're ready in 2 years time. Somebody else is doing a step a year. Somebody else is saying don't worry about the big book.
You can read that when you get well. Um, go unity, you know, and I think you're very lucky here cuz I've been here before and you're all on the same page. You don't use the same book.
You're on the same page. And I think it's absolutely paramount to keeping a group strong. And I want to um read something to you from Bill Wilson.
And this is what he said. Unless each AA member follows to the best of their ability as suggested 12 steps of recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. Drunkenness and disintegration are not penalties inflicted by people in authority.
They are the results of personal disobedience to spiritual principles. We must obey certain principles or we die. And the same stern threat applies to the group itself.
Unless there is an approximate conformity to AA traditions, the groups too can deteriorate and die. So we of AA do obey spiritual principles first because we must and ultimately because we like the kind of life such obedience brings. Um so these are set of guidelines.
What happened was in 1944 Bill and Bob decided to go on a little road trip. They they started to go around the country to the states or through the states to have a look how the groups was doing. in the World Service office at the time that was receiving bundles of letters each week.
Um everything from can you sort this crawl out and we need to sort this out and it was it just seemed like it was in chaos and um so they went on a bit of a road trip to have a look around for himself. In 1946, they got a letter or Bill Wilson got a letter from a bloke talking about the Washingtonians and Bill had never heard about the Washingtonians. So, he really delved into the Washingtonians and what they what they did and then came up with the 12 traditions that they came out in an article in the grapevine in 1949 and they was called 12 points to ensure our future.
Um, and if you look at the word traditions, very very clever because it makes it sound like they've been around hundreds of years and they had even been accepted yet, but he's making it sound like we've had them for hundreds of years. So that was accepted in 1950. Um, so it's absolutely paramount that in unity we support our common welfare of each group.
So that's tradition one. Nice and simple. I'm not going to bore the hell out of you with it.
There's lots of different other ways you can go at it, but for me it really is about us keeping the group strong, being in unity with the message that we carry within the group. All the traditions go back to tradition five. Our primary purpose to carry a message and I'll talk about that in tradition five.
So tradition two, for our purpose, our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority, a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. And our leaders are but trusted servants. They do not govern.
So I love that bit. He said, "God may express himself in our group conscience, and sometimes God may not express himself in a group conscience, as far as I'm concerned." Um, I started a meeting up with a friend of mine called Simon over in Richmond a couple of years ago and my commitment came to an end about three months ago. So, I had to rotate out of my secretary commitment.
So, we're in the group conscience and somebody volunteered me to do the sweeping up after the meeting and pick the butts up. Um, there's no God in that. Let's have it right.
Where's God in that? You know what I mean? So, I smiled and I said, "Lovely, I'd love to do it." And in my head, I went, "Don't you know who I think I am?
I'm the founder member of this group. Like, how dare you do that to the great me. Um, and I found out 2 months later that there was a lot of God in that decision because what that did was really keep me humble because no matter how long I'm around, right, I'm still one of you.
And the minute I start thinking I'm too big for my boots, I'm going to pick up and I'm going to go. So, there was a lot of God in that. Um, do we have the right if a group conscience has gone off, it's gone against we we think it's a good idea, do we have the right to call six or seven of our sponsors down the coffee shop the next day, talk to them about it and get them to go back next week and change the group conscience.
Do we have the right to do that? >> Anybody? >> God speaks through the group conscience.
You know what? If you're not happy with it, then go and find another group. Simple as that.
Just go and find another group. God may express himself and sometimes in our opinion when when we're like that, he may not. Um the first time the group conscious was used, I think you'll find it in the 12 and 12 was when um Bill Wilson was asked to be a professional at Town's Hospital.
Charlie Wilson asked him to be a professional there. And um he went back to the group and said, "Look, me and Lois are skin. We're on the floor.
We're living on people's couches. We got no money. we've got no nothing.
We're in trouble here. And the group conscience said, "We don't think that's a good idea because how can you sell a gift from God?" He didn't like it. He wasn't happy with it, but he obeyed it.
Um, and of course, alcoholics anonymous has grown and grown and grown. Um, and we we've stayed nonprofessional as a direct result of that. So, even for him, he had to obey the group conscience.
And I'm going to give you my experience on this very quickly. I got a friend of mine who started a meeting up in Chisik and um his meeting was on a Saturday and there was another meeting on a Sunday. So what he wanted to do was affiliate himself with the other meeting and have basically the same sort of secretaries, the same GSRs and get because there was a great message there and he wanted to be able to say this is where we carry a message in here of of this type.
Um so on the Sunday they had a group conscience um to sort of like affiliate with the other group and 25 people who don't usually go to that meeting showed up to the group conscience to vote it out. Um is that right? Can I do that?
The group conscience is up to you because you're autonomous as a group. So therefore you can have anything going on within that group. If you want to make it that you got to turn up three times year in a row to be able to vote in a group conscience, then so be it.
So be it because it will stop that happening. Because for me, I just think there was no God in that. That was an absolute travesty.
Um it goes on to talk about um our trusted servers are leaders. They do not govern. Um so how can we have leaders when there are no leaders here?
Um the leaders are simply the people that have been around the longest usually and they don't lead by telling you to go here and go there and do that. They just lead by example. That's what it means.
We we lead by example for the new person walking in the door. So that's tradition two. So tradition three, the only requirement for AA membership is a desire desire to stop drinking.
Um, when I go through the work responses and we talk about tradition free, I get them to put underneath, I am an AA member because I say I am. That does not make me an alcoholic. It doesn't.
When Bill Wilson wrote this, right, one of the worst things you could have was alcoholism. It was such a stigma. So, he didn't believe that anyone was going to turn up at these meetings who wasn't an alcoholic.
Um, and for me years later, my own opinion, and I'm not expressed opinions of AA, these are my own opinions. Um, we tend to see a lot of people from treatment centers, we see a lot of people that have a bit of a drink problem and they're told, "Come to AA." So, not everybody sitting in here, as far as I'm concerned, is an alcoholic. Um, if you stop and you're okay and you do nothing and you don't suffer from the spiritual mode, the irritable rest and discontent, then I'm sorry, you're not like me.
And unfortunately, what will happen is you will tell me to do nothing and that will kill me. Um, I want to talk about a woman as well in 1940 1941. Her name was Irma um Leavone.
Mulavone was a um a woman of the night, a prostitute. She very woman of ill repute. At the time, Southern California had two meetings a week.
Um and the wives and the towns people were seeing turn up at the meetings and they didn't like it and they didn't want her in there. And at the time there was only like three women in AA. Um so it was not only a stigma to be a man and be an alcoholic, but if you was a woman it was even worse.
So, if you go on a computer and you look up on barefoot, I think it is, you'll find that there's a letter on there from AA to Irma and it basically states, "We don't want you in here. You're not one of us. You're not one of our members.
Please leave." Um, she wrote to Bill Wilson and he said, "There's nothing I can do because these groups just doing whatever they was at the time. There's no conditions." And 2 and 1/2 years later, Irma um died of alcoholism. Now, that's not specifically the reason why they did tradition free, but I'm sure that it must have contributed to it that anybody anybody that's suffering and what I do is like I prefer got it there.
I prefer the long form a membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence, we may refuse none who wish to recover. If you're suffering from alcoholism, you're welcome here.
If you're not, you need to get therapy and you need to go away. You need to go and do that stuff cuz this is not a place of therapy. This is not a self-help program.
This is an altruistic program where we look out to fix what's within. Um, so that's tradition three. Tradition four, each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups as a whole.
So can I start a meeting up and call it the heavy bikers meeting? What do you reckon? >> Yeah.
>> Okay. >> So, what about if I call it the gay hairy bikers meeting? Can I do that?
>> If you're gay, it's up to you. It's your life. >> Each group is self-governing.
That's what auton autonomy means. We're all self-governing. Um, one of my sponsors r me up a little while ago.
He's um was in over at a meeting in Elen and he said to me that um the meeting on say the Tuesday night at 6:00 was rubbish and I said there's no such thing as a bad meeting. It's just bad members, right? So don't give me that it's rubbish bit.
Um well, we want to start a meeting up at the same time down the road with like a really strong message so the people want to hear a solution can come to this meeting. Is he allowed to do that? >> I don't think he is.
On the toes of another meeting, is he? >> Okay. Anybody else?
Yeah. Okay, Matt's right. Um, if you're going to affect another group, then the best thing that you can do is go and see the secretary of that group and say, "Look, we want to start another meeting up.
When's it best to start it up? Is it best to start before your meeting or after your meeting, but not at the same time?" Your autonomy stops when you start affecting a as a whole or another group. So therefore, you can only only do your own stuff as long as it doesn't affect anybody else.
Otherwise, you can call your meeting what you want. And here's the thing about autonomy, right? You can be autonomous and call your meeting whatever you want.
As long as the common welfare comes first, as long as God expresses himself in the group conscience, as long as you have a primary purpose, as long as money and prestige doesn't divert you from that primise, as long as you're self-supporting, as long as you're not organized, non-professional, you can have that, you can have that autonomy and do that you want as long as you adhere to these traditions that are set out. So you're autonomous up until the point of having to comply to these 12 traditions so that we don't fold up and die. Um so that's about autonomy and that you can do basically whatever you want as long as you follow these traditions.
So tradition five, each group has one primary purpose to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. >> What message? What's the message?
The solution >> solution book. >> Yeah. Spiritual experience.
>> Spiritual experience. Anybody else? The 12 step says it.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. So our primary purpose as a group is to tell the person coming through the door, I have had a spiritual experience as a direct result of doing the 12 steps contained within the big book of our synonymous. that has relieved me of the obsession to drink and use whatever your substance is and has given me a life that I'm able to deal with my problems.
That is the message that you carry as a group. And it says in there that you ought to be one spiritual entity, one voice together. How many meetings will you go to?
And it's about his dog, her plumber, his hearing aid, um everything under the sun other than having a vital spiritual experience which is to relieve me of the obsession to drink and use. That is the primary purpose. Um the Washingtonians going back to them diverted from their primary purpose which was about stopping alcoholism and how to get well from it and started going into politics and they started going into religion.
Um, and they got involved in everything. Everything they could get there, they got involved in. And slowly but surely, the alcoholics were there started to leave.
Their membership got up to a million because what they did was they opened the doors and said that anybody could come. You didn't even have to be an alcoholic. And that's why they got to a million so quickly.
But very quickly, they were gone because they started getting involved in all this other stuff. So, as a group, you're to act as one spiritual entity having exactly the same message. Uh, how you deliver that message, it's entirely up to you, but you're supposed to act as one single entity together.
Um, I don't know if you know what the success rates are and what they was. Um, the book says it's 75%. I read an article the other day by a man called Wally P back to basics.
He said that his groups, what they would do is when you when you came to a meeting, you was taken in the back room and over the next four weeks, you was made to do the 12 steps before you was allowed in the meeting. What that did was it wiggled out the people who didn't want to do it cuz they didn't bother showing up. But the ones who did want to do it went through the 12 steps before they was allowed in the meeting.
Their success rate was 95%. 95%. Today the success rate in Alcoholics Anonymous is somewhere between 3 and 6%.
Why? Any ideas? >> Because the message being told and the dogs, the washing machines, the hearing aids being diluted too much.
>> I think a lot of it comes down to sponsorship as well. You know, I've been in I've been in meetings and I've heard people say, "I'm not going to sponsor you till you're you're two or 3 weeks over." Well, I couldn't get two or three weeks over in my life. You know, when I was at that moment of of you know, I wanted this, you know, I needed it there and then that I wasn't I couldn't do two weeks over on my own.
I'm I'm a crazy. >> So, therefore, we have to carry this one primary purpose, right? that you can have a spiritual experience as a result of this.
Um, if you take anything back to the groups that you go back to, please take this back. This is our primary purpose, right? Is it more spiritual to not say anything or is it more spiritual to tell people the truth?
>> You know, people sitting there dying and we just keep patting them on the back and say, "Just keep coming back. Just don't take the first one and you won't get drunk." That's what we tell them. That's what they've been told.
You know, that's not what the book says. The book says having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. This is the message that we try to carry.
The 12st step. That's our message. Um, so tradition five.
So we go on to tradition six. An AA group will never endorse, finance or lend the AA name to any related facilities or outside enterprise. these properties of manual property prestige diver primary purpose.
Um there was a group I think it was Maryland I could be wrong on that I'm not sure. Um and they found that they become quite a big group and they become quite successful um and started earning lots of money at the pot. So they bought a building and I'm sure it's in the 12 and 12.
Um where on the bottom floor it was going to be AA meetings. The second floor it's going to be a mother and baby unit. Third floor it was going to be a detox center.
Fourth floor counseling. And they wrote to the World Service office said this is what we're going to do. And they wrote back and said we don't think that's a good idea but you have the right to be wrong.
Crack on and do whatever you want being autonomous. So that's what they did. I think it was very quickly after they' started getting all the money in um and getting all that stuff that it all started to just fall apart and they they was arguing about money.
They was arguing about what they should have on this floor, what they should have on that floor. Um and it didn't take long for them to almost disappear off the face of the planet. And um I don't know if you've seen it in the 12 and 12 the World Service office got a card a letter from the from this group from the group one of the group members who said basically we should have listened to you.
It all went tits up. Um and he put a card in it and it had on the front of it rule 62. >> And he opened it and it said don't take yourself too damn seriously.
Um because that's what they' done. They diverted themselves away from our primary purpose which is to help a drunk walking through the doors. That's what our primary purpose is.
Not the mother and baby unit, not the counseling session, not the hospital detox. This is what it's about. And we got to remember as well, right, that when when we start getting affiliated with other things like treatment centers, detox centers, the public out there don't know that we're not.
They don't know that we're not affiliated with these people. They just presume that we are. Um, so we can't get involved with anybody else.
We just have to stick to our primary purpose and not let any of that outside stuff divert us from what we're doing here. Okay, so that's tradition six. Tradition seven, fully self-supporting.
Um, just as we are as individuals, we must be fully self-supporting. So, Alcoholics Anonymous must be fully self-supporting. Um, can you imagine if we were sponsored by Coke, right?
the 12 steps as sponsored by Coca-Cola. Um, it wouldn't take long before Coca-Cola started asking you to go and do talks for them. Um, it's as simple as this.
Whoever's got the money makes the policy. How long before they said, "Do you know what? We don't really like that word recovered." All right, let's take that out.
Can we take that out the book, please? Or what about we take alcohol out and put like Bicardi cuz we don't like them. Um, The minute we're taking money from other people, they're calling the shots.
So, we must always be fully self-supporting. But also as well, we must be fully self-supporting, but not to the point where we get too rich. We must never get too rich.
And that's why each group usually has a prudent reserve about what they keep. Um there was a woman in the states who died and she'd um I think she'd had about 30 years 30 odd years of sobriety and she left a will and in her will she said I'd like to thank alcohol synonymous for the last 33 years I've had of my sobriety and she left $10,000 which of course they they picked up and was like wow we're going back in the 1940s here. $10,000.
That's a lot of money. And of course, they all spoke about it and talked about it. And this is what they said about it.
Like the alcoholic's first drink, it would, if taken, inevitably set up a disastrous chain reaction. And where would that land us? What they found out was that during looking at this woman's will, another 180 people had died also living 10,000, 30,000, 25,000.
we would have become too rich and money once again would have diverted us from our primary purpose. So, it was refused. In the States today, I think you'll find, and I'm not sure it's the same over here, one person is only allowed to donate up to $1,000 a year.
That's it. Then, no one no one person is allowed to donate more more money than that. And that's why they've kept it so that we never become too rich because we're sooner or later we're going to be arguing about money, what we should spend it on, what we shouldn't spend it on, what we should put it to, who we should sponsor and then once again we're going to get diverted.
So that's the reason why we're fully self-supporting and we decline outside contributions. Okay. So, tradition A, alcoholics anonymous should remain never um always non-professional, but service centers may employ special workers.
And as I talked about Bill W earlier um being offered by um Charlie Town to come in as a lay therapist and they was going to pay him $1,000 a year um which he absolutely thought was a fantastic idea until the group said no. Um and I'll ask you the same question that he was asked. How can we give a god-given gift and sell it?
We can't. You know, one of the things I see is I I I've been around a while and um and I know a lot of people that work within the treatment industry. Now, I'm not knocking them, right?
What the book says is none of us make a sole vocation to this work. Nor would do we think this effectiveness would be improved if we did. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before our respective homes, occupations, and affairs.
Now, I'm not knocking anybody works in the treatment center. that's your thing and you want to go and work in that, fantastic. And I worked in the treatment center myself.
But I was under no illusions that what I did on a daily basis with the addicts and alcoholics I worked with wasn't the same as I did in a coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon with respons. I absolutely knew the difference. One was money and one was spiritual >> and I kept them separate.
I've seen so many people go down the road of thinking that what I'm doing at work is spiritual, therefore I'm doing the work, therefore I'm okay. And a lot of these people are now dead. They're either dead or they're out there using, drinking, smashing themselves to pieces because they've got mixed up between what is the spiritual, what is the money side of it.
So, we must stay non-professional with this stuff. We must there is there is a difference between the two. Um, and that's my experience of of seeing people within the treatment industry that do that stuff, you know.
I really I see it all the time. Um, so tradition nine, AA as sought never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those that they serve. Can you imagine AA being organized, right?
And it it sounds a bit of a mad one because we have to have some sort of organization. Um so how can that be right that we can't be organized but we can but we can't be. Anyone got any ideas?
How can we be organized but we can't be organized? Anyone want to answer that? >> We create our group members and it goes up to York and all the way along the line don't you know a starts at the bottom.
It starts here and goes up to up to York doesn't it? >> Okay. Can you imagine oldtime standing at the back of the room and say right you need to stand over there.
you need to go there and you need to go there. One, their ego would just be like manifesting in the illness, right? You need to do this, you need to do that, you need to do that.
And then comes everyone else and just be going, I ain't doing that. There's no way. Um, so what we really have is a sort of like organized chaos.
That's what we have. Um, but what we rely on is each person within as an individual within the group ads that we have. Um, adearing to the traditions.
So that makes us organized in a certain way. Um I don't know if you've ever seen a um a business like a big company business you got like they have a triangle which is like the company CEO the vice chair the directors of the board the general board then the workers and it goes down. Well we have the triangle that's upside down.
So what we actually have is we have um the group that serves the individual the committee serve the group intergroup serves the committee region serve the intergroup conference serve the region. So when you hear the newcomer is the most important person in the meeting. This is the reason why the conference serves the region.
The region serves the intergroup the intergroup serve your committee. your committee serve your group and you serve the newcomer walking through the door. Now, here's here's the paradox in that, right?
If you're new, brand new, you're not the most important person at the meeting. The geese next to you is. Get your head around that one.
Right? No matter how many times you sit here thinking, I'm a newcomer, I'm the most important person in the meeting. No, you're not.
It's the geese next to you who's just as new as you are. Because that's what we do. We look out.
So we have organization but we only have it to a certain point. Um so it's like I said it's a sort of like organized sort of chaos that we have as long as we adhere to the principles within the uh the traditions. Um tradition 10 we have no opinion on outside issues.
Hence the AA never be ought to join in public controversy. So going back to the Washingtonians in 1848, in 1840, 1849, 1850, um the Washingtonians decided to put their name to a senator who was up for election. Um part of his policy for election was that people shouldn't drink, which they absolutely loved.
So they threw their weight behind them, their million members to get him elected. two weeks before the elections were due, he was caught in bed with his secretary, which of course in 1848 could get your hands cut off in them days, right? Um, so it was all over the newspaper.
Washingtonians support Senate saying and so who's been caught with his pants down. It didn't take long for them to be completely ostracized by everybody. Um, so going on for the Washingtonians to the Oxford group and I don't know if you know about the Oxford group, but the Oxford group did the same thing in 1930 1938 1939.
They was quite taken by a fellow in Germany. What he' done was he invented this car called the Volkswagen and they thought it was one of the greatest things they'd ever heard because what he did was he wanted to give it to everybody in the country to use this Volkswagen. So they threw the weight of the Oxford group behind this man and said, "He's our savior.
He's going to be fantastic." His name was Adolf Hitler. You can imagine by 1940 how long the Oxford group were around still because this savior who was such a social giant was invading Poland and Czechoslovakia as this was going on as they were saying he's such a fantastic fellow. So we don't lend our name to anything and that's born out of the experience of the Washingtonians and the Oxford group and that's where it comes from.
So traditionally a public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We may always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and film. Dave introduces himself as what, Dave?
>> Dave Wiggins. >> Why'd you do that, Dave? >> Because to let people know that I'm And there's only one Dave Wiggins.
This day wants to know. >> Okay. So, we're anonymous at the level of press, radio, and film.
Now, the reason we're anonymous at that level is because there was a baseball player called Roi H, and he was a bit like David Beckham of his day, except he was a proper piss head, and he was just off the scale. Um and all the the newspapers got hold of the fact that he'd stopped drinking and went to him and said, "How you stopped drinking?" And he said, "I've joined Alcoholics Anonymous. It's fantastic.
They've saved my life." And of course, they was like, "Wow, this is fantastic. This alcoholous they must really be good at what they're doing." And 3 months later, he was pissed. So now their headline was AA does not work because they didn't look at it he didn't work AA they looked at it AA does not work.
So therefore we're anonymous at the level of press radio and film. We're not anonymous at the level of our own fellowship. Dave says his name's Dave Wiggies.
My name is Richard Eve. Um and I want to tell you a story. In Richmond a little while ago we had a fellow called Steven.
and he'd been coming to the meetings for about about 3 years on and off and he he really was struggling to get this. He really was. And as I kept trying to explain to him, there's nothing to get here.
This is about giving. When you learn to give, you'll get. That's what this is about.
But he was in and out, in and out, and in and out. And we've all seen him. We we've all seen him in and out, in and out.
And um unfortunately, he took a quarter of a bottle of vodka, tripped down the stairs um and choked on his own vomit. Nobody from AA went to his funeral. >> Anybody know why?
>> They didn't know he didn't know who he was. They couldn't ask. >> Nobody knew who he was.
Nobody knew his family was. Nobody knew what his second name was. Not one of us showed up at this man's funeral cuz we didn't know because he'd stayed anonymous at the level of AA.
That's not what this tradition is about. All my sponses I know either where they live, I know their families, I know their second names, or I know how to get hold of them. If one of them's in hospital and can't get to a phone, I'll know.
I know because they are not anonymous at the level of AA. We have to be like that. So between tradition 11 and tradition 12, it talked about anonymity being a spiritual foundation of all our um practicing principles of four personalities.
And I'm going to tell you a couple of stories. So there's an American businessman and he's a glass salesman and he's going around the country selling glass and he turns up at this big factory one day and his primary purpose in life right is to ear as much money as he can apart from being a means where it's to give the message away. So he goes to this big company and as he gets this big company there's a car in the car park and there's a bumper sticker and it says I'm a friend of Bills and he he sort of smiles at it looks at it and he goes in and he says to the woman I'm I'm here to see the purchasing manager and he like you know and he starts like so she rings up you know is he about puts the phone and she said be with you in a minute.
So he said, "Who's is the car outside?" She said, "Oh, that's the purchasing manager." He went for that. So he meets the purching manager and shakes his hand. They go up into the office.
And on the way up to the office, he thinks to himself, "You know what? I'm not going to use AA, right? I shouldn't really do that.
Out of principle, I should not do. My personality wants me to scream, friend of Bills. Yeah, I know.
Yeah. Secret handshake, whatever it is." and um he decides the best thing he can do is actually on his own merit try and get the contract to get as much glass as he can. So after about an hour of talking and discussing backwards and forwards, the purchasing manager agrees to have half a million dollars worth of glass off of him over the next two years and he's chuffed a bit.
So as he's leaving, he turns to him and he says, "Who's is the car in the drive?" Right? Chuffed with himself. And the purchasing manager looked at him and he said, "That's the wife or the ex-wife.
She run off with one of them AA geysers." So, I got another story for you. A friend of mine, his little brother suffers from a terminal illness. Um, I think he's I think he's got mental handicap problems as well.
and he has to go to hospital quite often. So he goes up the hospital with his brother and his mom and while they're up there every week they get to have the same nurses that are always dealing with them. And um over the course of 8 months of him coming in to the rooms and doing the program the nurses watch him get well.
He doesn't know he's just changed. And she said to him one day, "You seem to be really different. I don't know what's happened to you, but you just seem to be really different." So he decided to break his anemy and he said, "You know what?" He said, "I've been going to AA.
I got myself responsible and I did the steps and and that's what's changed me. She said, "That's fantastic." She said, "Um, my husband's been going away. He's a doctor and he's banging trouble." And he went, "I'm sorry to hear that." So, my friend didn't go to the hospital again.
His mom has been going up there and and every time the mom goes up there, the nurse plugs her about her son. What's happening with him? Is he all right?
And what does he do? She said, "Oh, he he gets down every morning on his knees and he writes a gratitude list and he reads two pages out the big book. He rings his sponsor and apparently he rings newcomers.
This is the mom telling her, "All right, cuz she watches him do it." So, she's going home and telling the doctor what he's doing and he went up the hospital. Oh, no, he didn't. The mom came back to him about 2 or 3 months later and she said, "I got something to tell you." And he said, "What's that?" She said, "The nurse came to see me and she said she wanted to send her thanks to you.
Her husband's now 6 months sober. He's got a big book Nazi sponsor. He's getting on his knees every morning writing a gratitude list.
He's going through the big book. He's going through the steps and her life has improved immensely because of the direct result of you breaking your anonymity to this woman. So, there's two sorts of anonymity breaks there.
One of them was going to be for personal gain. Turned out it wasn't. Um the other was purely coming from a place of love that he broke his anonymity purely from a place of love.
An anonymity is just about I can say I'm an alcoholic. You can't. Not in here.
You can tell whoever you want I'm an alcoholic and you tell them in my name everything. But out there you can't. You can't do that because you're going to break my enemy and that's just not fair.
Um so that's tradition 11. So anonymity is a spiritual foundation of all our traditions ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. Once again as I just talked about in 11 because they come very close with each other.
Um, our anonymity is sacred in the in the real world out there. It has to be. It has to be.
That's why we have PI um to go out and do that stuff. Um, one of the biggest breakers of anonymity in this fellowship that has ever been is Bill W. And he absolutely admits that himself because what was happening was that every time there was a press film, a radio interview, whatever, he would go out and break his anonymity on Bill W.
I'm the founder. And what happened was all the other members started getting a little bit jealous and they went and started doing it as well. And um I'm going to finish on this.
This is lovely little story. I I love this story. And uh there's a fellow and he wrote to the World Service Office and he said, "I've been offered to do 12 lectures on alcoholism on the radio.
going to be paid a fortune for it. So, I'm going to go and do it. So, the office wrote back to him and said, "Look, we don't think that's a good idea." Right?
We've had problems with people breaking their enemy before like that. Not a good idea. So, he wrote back to him and he actually I think you can find the archives.
It says something along the lines of stick that up your ass, right? I can do what I want. It's a free country.
It's free speech. Bollocks basically. What are you going to do about it?
And there's a lovely letter that the World Service Office sent back and it said, "We totally agree with your right of free speech. We totally agree with your right to do whatever you want and you're right. We can't stop you.
But what we will be doing is getting our half a million members to write to your sponsor next week to tell them that we don't think it's a good idea." And then the other and then every other week for the next year. Can you imagine the sponsor listen? I've just had half a million letters through the door like, "Stop.
Please stop. I don't want it. Please." and um he wrote back a week later and said, "I've been thinking about it and I think it's a fantastic idea for me not to go and do that." Apparently had nothing to do with the sponsor.
So sometimes our personalities will get in the way, but we have to adhere to these principles that are in the in the 12 traditions. And um it's been a real honor um to be able to sit here tonight and talk to you. Um, and I hopefully I've just made it as simple as I possibly can.
And we've had a bit of a smile and a laugh as going through it as well. Um, I am truly grateful to AA. I'm truly grateful to this program and what I've been given um, as a direct result of doing the work.
Um, I hope the traditions are absolutely vital in my recovery. Vital. Um, and I hope that if they're not for you that they will be after tonight.
Um, this is a program of action. We have to adhere to this stuff. We have to do this stuff.
Otherwise, we will die. If there's nowhere to come, there's millions behind us. We have nowhere to go and their lives won't be saved.
So, um, thank you very much for letting me speak tonight. God bless. >> >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day. >>