• Alcoholics Anonymous - Bangalore

The Three Legacies of Alcoholics Anonymous

Recovery, Unity, Service — these are the Three Legacies given to the whole membership of A.A. by its founders and their fellow Oldtimers. This heritage was announced, at the St. Louis Convention in 1955 and this coincided with A.A.’s 20th birthday, Bill W. turned over to all of us the responsibility for A.A.’s continuation and growth.

12 Steps

The 12 steps are known as Recovery – First Legacy and it is the entire foundation of our program. The 12 steps were published in the Book named “Alcoholics Anonymous” also known as “The Big Book” in April 1939. The physical compulsion and the mental obsession are removed when we have completed the 12 steps. Then comes the promise, we have recovered from a “seemingly hopeless state of mind and body”. Unity and service cannot be a part of our lives unless we are practicing these principles in all our affairs.
Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:
  • We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable.
  • Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  • Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
  • Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
  • Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
  • Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
  • Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
  • Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
  • Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
  • Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
  • 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.
  • 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.

12 Traditions

The 12 Traditions are known as Unity – Second Legacy. The Traditions were first published in April 1946 AA Grapevine, under the title “Twelve Points to Assure Our Future” and were formally adopted at AA’s First International Convention in 1950. Bill W’s book on the subject, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, was published in April 1953.
When an alcoholic applies the Twelve Steps of our recovery program to his personal life, his disintegration stops, and his unification begins. The Power which now holds him together in one piece overcomes those forces which had rent him apart. Exactly, the same principle applies to each A.A. group and to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. So long as the ties which bind us together prove far stronger than those forces which would divide us if they could, all will be well. We shall be secure as a movement; our essential unity will remain a certainty.
The Twelve Traditions are the principles that serve as the framework to preserve A.A.’s unity. Our Co-founder Bill W. said, “Our Traditions are a guide to better ways of working and living”. And they are to group survival what A.A.’s Twelve Steps are to each member’s sobriety and peace of mind. Most individuals cannot recover unless there is a group. The group must survive, or the individual will not.”
Our A.A Experience has taught us that:
  • Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
  • 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.
  • The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.
  • Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
  • Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
  • 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.
  • Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
  • Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
  • A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
  • Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
  • 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.
  • Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

12 Concepts

Our Co-founder Bill W. said, “an A.A. service is anything whatever that helps us to reach a fellow sufferer — ranging all the way from the Twelfth Step itself to a ten-cent phone call and a cup of coffee, and to A.A.’s General Service Office for national and international action. The sum total of all these services is our Third Legacy of Service”.
The 12 Concepts are known as Service – Third Legacy. The Twelve Concepts for World Service were written by A.A.’s co-founder Bill W. and were adopted by the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1962. The Concepts are an interpretation of A.A.’s world service structure as it emerged through A.A.’s early history and experience. The 12 Concepts are found in the book “The A.A. Service Manual/Twelve Concepts for World Service” and should be read by every “trusted servant”.
As A.A. grew up, it began with the groups — first only a few, then hundreds and then thousands. These Concepts therefore aim to record the “why” of our service structure in such a fashion that the highly valuable experience of the past, and the lessons we have drawn from that experience, can never be forgotten or lost. The concepts summarize the hard-won experience since the inception of our fellowship such as responsibility, authority, delegation, leadership, accountability, spiritual guidance, participation, communication, open-mindedness, fairness, and finances.
Our A.A. experience has taught us that:
  • Final responsibility and ultimate authority for A.A. world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole Fellowship.
  • The General Service Conference of A.A. has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole society in its world affairs.
  • To insure effective leadership, we should endow each element of A.A.—the Conference, the General Service Board and its service corporations, staffs, committees, and executives—with a traditional “Right of Decision.”
  • At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional “Right of Participation,” allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge.
  • Throughout our structure, a traditional “Right of Appeal” ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.
  • The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Conference acting as the General Service Board.
  • The Charter and Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees to manage and conduct world service affairs. The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the A.A. purse for final effectiveness.
  • The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of over-all policy and finance. They have custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active services, 2 exercising this through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities.
  • Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, once exercised by the founders, must necessarily be assumed by the trustees.
  • Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined.
  • The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs, and consultants. Composition, qualifications, induction procedures, and rights and duties will always be matters of serious concern.
  • The Conference shall observe the spirit of A.A. tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and whenever possible, substantial unanimity; that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that it never perform acts of government; that, like the Society it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action.