Preface to the Gender Independent Edition						   
Foreword										   

	
THE TWELVE STEPS

Step One										  

	"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol -- that our lives had become
	unmanageable."

	Who cares to admit complete defeat?  Admission of powerlessness is the first step
	in liberation.  Relation of humility to sobriety.  Mental obsession plus physical
	allergy.  Why must every A.A. hit bottom?

Step Two 										  

	"Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

	What can we believe in?  A.A. does not demand belief;  Twelve Steps are only
	suggestions.  Importance of an open mind.  Variety of ways to faith.  Substitution
	of A.A. as Higher Power.  Plight of the disillusioned.  Roadblocks of indifference
	and prejudice.  Lost faith found in A.A.  Problems of intellectuality and self-
	sufficiency.  Negative and positive thinking.  Self-righteousness.  Defiance is an
	outstanding characteristic of alcoholics.  Step Two is a rallying point to sanity. 
	Right relation to God.

Step Three										  

	"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
	understood God."

	Step Three is like opening of a locked door.  How shall we let God into our lives? 
	Willingness is the key.  Dependence as a means to independence.  Dangers of
	self-sufficiency.  Turning our will over to Higher Power.  Misuse of willpower. 
	Sustained and personal exertion necessary to conform to God's will.


Step Four										  

	"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."

	How instincts can exceed their proper function.  Step Four is an effort to discover
	our liabilities.  Basic problem of extremes in instinctive drives.  Misguided moral
	inventory can result in guilt, grandiosity, or blaming others.  Assets can be noted 
	with liabilities.  Self-justification is dangerous.  Willingness to take inventory
	brings light and new confidence.  Step Four is beginning of lifetime practice. 
	Common symptoms of emotional insecurity are worry, anger, self-pity, and
	depression.  Inventory reviews relationships.  Importance of thoroughness.

Step Five										  

	"Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of
	our wrongs."

	Twelve Steps deflate ego.  Step Five is difficult but necessary to sobriety and
	peace of mind.  Confession is an ancient discipline.  Without fearless admission of
	defects, few could stay sober.  What do we receive from Step Five?  Beginning of
	true kinship with humanity and God.  Lose sense of isolation, receive forgiveness
	and give it;  learn humility;  gain honesty and realism about ourselves.  Necessity
	or for complete honesty.  Danger of rationalization.  How to choose the person in
	whom to confide.  Results are tranquillity and consciousness of God.  Oneness
	with God and humanity prepares us for following Steps.

Step Six										  

	"Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character."

	Step Six necessary to spiritual growth.  The beginning of a lifetime job. 
	Recognition of difference between striving for objective -- and perfection.  Why
	we must keep trying.  "Being ready" is all-important.  Necessity of taking action. 
	Delay is dangerous.  Rebellion may be fatal.  Point at which we abandon limited
	objectives and move toward God's will for us.

Step Seven										  

	"Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings."

	What is humility?  What can it mean to us?  The avenue to true freedom of the
	human spirit.  Necessary aid to survival.  Value of ego-puncturing.  Failure and
	misery transformed by humility.  Strength from weakness.  Pain is the admission 	
price to new life.  Self-centered fear chief activator of defects.  Step Seven is 
change in attitude which permits us to move out of ourselves toward God.

Step Eight 										  

	"Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends
	to them all."

	This and the next two Steps are concerned with personal relations.  Learning to
	live with others is a fascinating adventure.  Obstacles:  reluctance to forgive; 
	nonadmission of wrongs to others;  purposeful forgetting.  Necessity of exhaustive
	survey of past.  Deepening insight results from thoroughness.  Kinds of harm done
	to others.  Avoiding extreme judgments.  Taking the objective view.  Step Eight is
	the beginning of the end of isolation.

Step Nine										  

	"Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so
	would injure them or others."

	A tranquil mind is the first requisite for good judgment.  Good timing is important
	in making amends.  What is courage?  Prudence means taking calculated chances. 
	Amends begin when we join A.A.  Peace of mind cannot be bought at the expense
	of others.  Need for discretion.  Readiness to take consequences of our past and to
	take responsibility for well-being of others is spirit of Step Nine.

Step Ten										  

	"Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
	admitted it."

	Can we stay sober and keep emotional balance under all conditions? 
	Self-searching becomes a regular habit.  Admit, accept, and patiently correct
	defects.  Emotional hangover.  When past is settled with, present challenges can be
	met.  Varieties of inventory.  Anger, resentments, jealousy, envy, self-pity, hurt
	pride -- all led to the bottle.  Self-restraint first objective.  Insurance against
	"big-shot-ism."  Let's look at credits as well as debits.  Examination of motives.



Step Eleven										  

	"Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with
	God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and
	the power to carry that out."

	Meditation and prayer main channels to Higher Power.  Connection between
	self-examination and meditation and prayer.  An unshakable foundation for life. 
	How shall we meditate?  Meditation has no boundaries.  An individual adventure. 
	First result is emotional balance.  What about prayer?  Daily petitions for
	understanding of God's will and grace to carry it out.  Actual results of prayer are
	beyond question.  Rewards of meditation and prayer.

Step Twelve										  

	"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."

	Joy of living is the theme of the Twelfth Step.  Action its keyword.  Giving that
	asks no reward.  Love that has no price tag.  What is spiritual awakening?  A new
	state of consciousness and being is received as a free gift.  Readiness to receive gift
	lies in practice of Twelve Steps.  The magnificent reality.  Rewards of helping
	other alcoholics.  Kinds of Twelfth Step work.  Problems of Twelfth Step work. 
	What about the practice of these principles in all our affairs?  Monotony, pain, and
	calamity turned to good use by practice of Steps.  Difficulties of practice.  "Two-
	stepping."  Switch to "twelve-stepping" and demonstrations of faith.  Growing
	spiritually is the answer to our problems.  Placing spiritual growth first. 
	Domination and overdependence.  Putting our lives on give-and-take basis.  
	Dependence upon God necessary to recovery of alcoholics.  "Practicing these
	principles in all our affairs":  Domestic relations in A.A.  Outlook upon material
	matters changes.  So do feelings about personal importance.  Instincts restored to
	true purpose.  Understanding is key to right attitudes, right action key to good
	living.




	


THE TWELVE TRADITIONS


Tradition One										  

	"Our common welfare should come first;  personal recovery depends upon A.A.
	unity."

	Without unity, A.A. dies.  Individual liberty, yet great unity.  Key to paradox: 
	each A.A.'s life depends on obedience to spiritual principles.  The group must
	survive or the individual will not.  Common welfare comes first.  How best to live
	and work together as groups.

Tradition Two										  

	"For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as
	may be expressed in our group conscience.  Our leaders are but trusted servants;  
	they do not govern."
	
	Where does A.A. get its direction?  Sole authority in A.A. is loving God as may be
	expressed in the group conscience.  Formation of a group.  Growing pains. 
	Rotating committees are servants of the group.  Leaders do not govern, they serve. 
	Does A.A. have a real leadership?  "Elders" and "bleeding deacons."  The group
	conscience speaks.

Tradition Three 									 

	"The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking."

	Early intolerance based on fear.  To take away any alcoholic's chance at A.A. was
	sometimes to pronounce a death sentence.  Membership regulations abandoned. 
	Two examples of experience.  Any alcoholic is a member of A.A. on their own
	say-so.

Tradition Four										 

	"Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or
	A.A. as a whole."

	Every group manages its affairs as it pleases, except when A.A. as a whole is
	threatened.  Is such liberty dangerous?  The group, like the individual, must
	eventually conform to principles that guarantee survival.  Two storm signals -- a 
	group ought not do anything which would injure A.A. as a whole, nor affiliate
	itself with outside interests.  An example:  the "A.A. Center" that didn't work.

Tradition Five										 

	"Each group has but one primary purpose -- to carry its message to the alcoholic
	who still suffers."

	Better do one thing well than many badly.  The life of our Fellowship depends on
	this principle.  The ability of each A.A. to identify themselves with and bring
	recovery to the newcomer is a gift from God . . . passing on this gift to others is
	our one aim.  Sobriety can't be kept unless it is given away.

Tradition Six										

	"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."

	Experience proved that we could not endorse any related enterprise, no matter
how good.  We could not be all things to all people.  We saw that we could not lend the
	A.A. name to any outside activity.

Tradition Seven									

	"Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside
	contributions."
	No A.A. Tradition had the labor pains this one did.  Collective poverty initially a
	matter of necessity.  Fear of exploitation.  Necessity of separating the spiritual
from the material.  Decision to subsist on A.A. voluntary contributions only.  Placing the
	responsibility of supporting A.A. headquarters directly upon A.A. members.  Bare
	running expenses plus a prudent reserve is headquarters policy.

Tradition Eight 									

	"Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service
	centers may employ special workers."

	You can't mix the Twelfth Step and money.  Line of cleavage between voluntary
	Twelfth Step work and paid-for services.  A.A. could not function without 
full-time service workers.  Professional workers are not professional A.A.'s.  Relation
 of A.A. to industry, education, etc.  Twelfth Step work is never paid for, but those
	who labor in service for us are worthy of their hire.


Tradition Nine										

	"A.A., as such, ought never be organized;   but we may create service boards or
	committees directly responsible to those they serve."

	Special service boards and committees.  The General Service Conference, the
board 	of trustees, and group committees cannot issue directives to A.A. members or
	groups.  A.A.'s can't be dictated to individually or collectively.  Absence of
	coercion works because unless each A.A. follows suggested Steps to recovery,
	they sign their own death warrant.  Same condition applies to the group.  Suffering
	and love are A.A.'s disciplinarians.  Difference between spirit of authority and
	spirit of service.  Aim of our services is to bring sobriety within reach of all who
	want it.

Tradition Ten										

	"Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues;   hence the A.A. name
	ought never be drawn into public controversy."

	A.A. does not take sides in any public controversy.  Reluctance to fight is not a
	special virtue.  Survival and spread of A.A. are our primary aims.  Lessons learned
	from Washingtonian movement.

Tradition Eleven									

	"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."

	Public relations are important to A.A.  Good public relations save lives.  We seek
	publicity for A.A. principles not A.A. members.  The press has cooperated. 
	Personal anonymity at the public level is the cornerstone of our public relations
	policy.  Eleventh Tradition is a constant reminder that personal ambition has no
	place in A.A.  Each member becomes an active guardian of our Fellowship.



Tradition Twelve 									

	"Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to
	place principles before personalities."

	Spiritual substance of anonymity is sacrifice.  Subordinating personal aims to the
	common good is the essence of all Twelve Traditions.  Why A.A. could not remain
	a secret society.  Principles come before personalities.  One hundred percent
	anonymity at the public level.  Anonymity is real humility.

The Twelve Traditions -- the Long Form						 

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