September 10, 2025
“In our Twelve Traditions we have set our faces against nearly every trend in the outside world.
We have denied ourselves personal government, professionalism and the right to say who our members shall be. We have abandoned do-goodism, reform and paternalism. We refuse charitable money and prefer to pay our own way. We will cooperate with practically everybody, yet we decline to marry our Society to anyone. We abstain from public controversy and will not quarrel among ourselves about those things that so rip society asunder — religion, politics and reform. We have but one purpose: to carry the AA message to the sick alcoholic who wants it.
We take these attitudes not at all because we claim special virtue or wisdom; we do these things because hard experience has told us that we must — if AA is to survive in the distraught world of today.
AA Co-Founder, Bill W., January 1955, “Why Alcoholics Anonymous Is Anonymous”, The Language of the Heart
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