for our meeting tonight will be the discussion of a Step or Tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous. In keeping with AA’s First Tradition, we respectfully ask that you confine your remarks to only the Step or Tradition being discussed. Other problems may be discussed after the meeting if you wish.”
When I first started attending my home group, that statement really bothered me—because I wanted to talk about whatever moved me. Today I see that statement as saying, “Please check your chainsaw at the door.”
Brian H.
Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Response to May Grapevine
September 1992
(From Dear Grapevine)
I read with interest “Are We Locked In?” by E. L. of Council Bluffs. About those "noisy wet drunks" that come to our meetings, the First Tradition as written in The Twelve Traditions Illustrated spells out the answer. For E. L., I quote, “Our brother the noisy drunk affords the simplest illustration of this Tradition. If he insists on disrupting the meeting, we ‘invite’ him to leave and we bring him back when he’s in better shape to hear the message. We are putting the ‘common welfare (of the group)’ first. But it is his welfare, too; if he’s ever going to get sober, the group must go on functioning, ready for him.”
During my 21 years in the Fellowship, I have been a part of groups that have asked “noisy wet drunks” to leave, but as the First Tradition suggests, in most every instance some of us in the group hung on to him (followed up) and, if still interested, we “brought him back” when he was in better shape to grasp the message.
D. A.
Lakeview, Arkansas
Only Natural
January 2011
I was given the gift of sobriety a little over two years ago. I’m finding the love I once had for nature slowly returning. My passion for hiking, paddling, natural history and keeping a nature journal all faded away. I lost this passion during the last few years of my daily drinking and isolation, a sure sign of chronic alcoholism. It was my abiding love of the natural world that sustained me physically, emotionally and spiritually even at the bottom when I felt alienated from everything. My link to the natural world was my Higher Power hard at work while practicing anonymity.
Now, recovering from alcoholism, I’ve once again become an active volunteer for the agency that maintains my state’s nature preserves. I venture out from time to time with a crew of biologists, botanists, herpetologists, entomologists and all kinds of other “ologists” to restore and maintain the rare and endangered species of plants, animals and their ecosystems. These good folks have taught me much about the intricate relationships these plants and animals have with one another as well as their unique habitats.
Not long ago I began reading about AA’s Traditions and was struck by the similarities Tradition One has with the unity of the natural world I’ve learned about: how the individual parts make up the whole and the whole in turn makes life possible to continue on and pass on its endowments to the individuals yet to come. This perpetual dynamic seems to be at work in both the physical and spiritual worlds. Each unique individual plays an important role in the community, but on the flipside, each is only a little piece of the greater puzzle (which I still find puzzling but have come to believe in).
And so, at least to my reckoning, it seems that the dynamic process that unifies and perpetuates the unique habitats I help preserve is the same process at work in Alcoholics Anonymous: unity, service and recovery, each individual making a distinctive contribution to the whole.
This ecological paradox is beautifully expressed in the chapter about Tradition One in the “Twelve and Twelve”: “Those who look closely soon have the key to this strange paradox. The AA member has to conform to the principles of recovery. His life actually depends upon obedience to spiritual principles. If he deviates too far, the penalty is sure and swift; he sickens and dies … . Realization dawns that he is but a small part of the greater whole.”
It appears to me that there is definitely something at work, something that offers individuals lavish liberty to be themselves (even to destruction) yet acts like a glue that bonds us together as a community or fellowship. The “Twelve and Twelve” defines this glue as “an irresistible strength of purpose and action.” For each animal and plant, each alcoholic, there is a common bond: to stay alive, which for an alcoholic like me translates into staying sober with the help of AA and then passing on this legacy of unity and recovery. What is required from me is self-sacrifice to insure the common welfare. It’s like a complete unbroken circle.
I am just now beginning to understand how I relate to the Fellowship of AA. What I’ve been taught working on nature preserves has shed some light on this “common welfare” mentioned in Tradition One. My individual liberty to act, think, talk or balk, as well as my sobriety, relies solely on my willingness and my complete surrender to the spiritual principles spelled out and conveniently numbered in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
My sponsor told me early on that the AA program was a program of relationships. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about at the time. Now I think I’m finally catching on. It all began with striking up a relationship with a power greater than me. By Step Five I found myself stepping into a meaningful relationship with another human being. Now along comes the First Tradition, which spells out for me how to form a relationship with a community: that “crowd of anarchists,” as the “Twelve and Twelve” so aptly defines us in the chapter on Tradition One.
I’ve witnessed this “strength of purpose and action” out on the nature preserves where I volunteer and am now witnessing it again here in the Fellowship of AA. Individual diversity is obviously not a weakness but a strength—a strength of purpose and action.
Just like the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions are a pathway of spiritual progress. Being a chronic isolator at heart (I seem to have been born that way) I first went along with this unity/group deal because I was desperate and willing to try anything. As my sobriety lengthened from hours to days to months, I found out that this Tradition One ecology seemed to help keep me sober as it did others in my group. As time progressed I began to get a glimmer of the miraculous promises available to me by putting common welfare first. Instead of feeling diminished by being only a small part, I began to feel like I’d found a home, a place where I belonged after a lifetime of isolation and being fatally unique. Now I see that the spiritual principle of putting common welfare first is my proper relationship to the big picture—the whole deal—which in turn keeps me whole.
As I’ve witnessed out on the preserves and here in AA, when an individual flourishes and grows it greatly benefits the whole community that it is a small yet distinctive part of. And this is only possible if the community itself flourishes and grows. This same economy at work in nature is hard at work in the AA Fellowship. I’m not surprised. It seems to be how it works.
Ed C.
Bowling Green, Kentucky
For the Good of the Group
January 2015
The other day someone at our home group had to be interrupted by one of the long-timers in the room. What could cause an interruption like this, you ask?
Our group conscience says that the needs of the group come before the individual … in line with our First Tradition. The limited time we have available is for carrying the message, not for providing a forum for someone to carry out a rant about how their life is all messed up. We try to be as tolerant as we can, but sometimes the meeting needs to get back on track. Where did I learn this?
Some 25 years ago, when I was a newcomer, my life was a complete mess. I was in a treatment center and learned to express my feelings in the group. However, the folks in AA were not so sure that was the answer. A couple of times people in meetings with a lot more time than me explained that it was in the best