A Dozen Steps

Traditions Checklist - Tradition Three

by Mark on March 6th, 2008

I’ve had a copy of The Traditions Checklist bookmarked for quite a while so…

Traditions Checklist - Tradition Three: The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

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?

Can we join together and spread the news? We have Traditions in AA! They’re invaluable to our now and future existence! Yay! 8O

[These questions were originally published in the AA Grapevine in conjunction with a series on the Twelve Traditions that began in November 1969 and ran through September 1971. While they were originally intended primarily for individual use, many AA groups have since used them as a basis for wider discussion.]

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POSTED IN: The Twelve Traditions