One of the great heritages of this program are the 12 Traditions. This is, I always think and believe, a great gift of our founders to the alcoholics living in sobriety today. It’s what preserves our program and keeps people like ourselves from wandering off course and floundering in a morass of self will and self destruction.
Alcoholics, like myself, who are prone to exercise our defects of selfishness and being self centered, and, as Bill W. said we are all promoters with ideas of all kinds, are cautioned by these guardians of the program to exercise humility in place of our egos. That’s pretty much what Tradition One is all about. To put aside our own petty agendas for the good of the whole.
And what’s the good of the whole? That we stick to the program of offering the solution to alcoholism and not wandering off willy nilly into all kinds of other areas, as happened to the Washingtonians back many years ago. To keep it simple, as Dr. Bob cautioned Bill.
In the 5th Tradition it tells us more specifically what it is that we should be doing. Carrying the AA message to the alcoholic, who still suffers, that there is a solution to this disease.
We talked about the first two Traditions today. A few remarked that they are glad for these Traditions, because they believe that members of their families down the line are going to need AA.
They are happy for the benefits they have received and hope that AA will be here in the future. If we adhere to these Traditions, as they are expressed in our literature, then we should have no fear of this.
For myself, because of what has happened to me as a result of entering into this program, I am extremely grateful for these Traditions. Where would I be, or any of us, if they were not present in our lives?
I always had to chuckle at Sandy B.’s remark about the highest office anyone in the program can aspire to is that of servant. That’s what it says in Tradition Two. Talk about learning to maintain humility. Sounds like just what the doctor ordered.