Just as the 12 steps are a set of guiding principles for individual AA members, the 12 traditions are a set of guiding principles for AA as an organization. The traditions were written by Bill Wilson and are a codification of principles developed and practiced during AA's early, turbulent years. The traditions were first published in May 1946 in their "long form" in AA's official organ, The Grapevine, and were unanimously ratified in Cleveland at the first international AA convention in 1950.

To a great extent the 12 traditions explain why AA has survived and prospered for over half a century: they're a blueprint for organization according to noncoercive, anarchist principles. It's a tribute to the soundness and wide applicability of these principles that they were adopted as a result of the real-life experiences and problems of the AA fellowship—large numbers of people who, in the vast majority of cases, almost certainly knew nothing of organizational theory. As well, it's a tribute to the wide applicability of these tenets that they were codified by Bill Wilson, a life-long conservative Republican. (While a discussion of anarchist organizational principles might seem out of place in an analysis of AA, it's inescapable in that AA is organized strictly in accord with those principles. Since most readers will probably have little interest in this topic, though, discussion will be kept to the minimum necessary.)

While the 12 traditions are, overall, much sounder and more humane than the 12 steps, the traditions are still a mixed bag of sound, useful con­cepts and worse-than-useless religiosity. (The comments on religiosity will be perfunctory in this chapter, because extensive treatment would essentially duplicate criticisms of religiosity in the previous chapters.)

The following discussion will use the "short form" of the 12 traditions. Those interested in seeing the "long form" should consult 12 Steps and 12 Traditions.
 

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

But for some of the other traditions, the first tradition could be very dangerous. The idea that the individual is less important than the "common welfare" is, of course, the justification for invasive, coercive government and all manner of horrifying violations of individual rights. It's also one of the central principles—in practice, if not always in rhetoric—of all religious cults and all authoritarian political groups. Traditions 2, 4, and 9, however, make it crystal clear that AA is organized on a nongovernmental (that is, noncoercive) basis. So, instead of a call to coercion, the first tradition is basically a call to cooperation.

Unfortunately, it's also a restatement of the AA principle that the individual is powerless in him or herself, and that recovery is possible only through the AA program. The undesirable effects of this belief—especially the substitution of one form of dependency for another and the induced hopelessness that this belief fosters in alcohol abusers who want to quit or moderate, but can't stand AA—were dealt with in the previous chapter.
 

2. 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.
 

This tradition makes plain the AA belief that AA is guided directly by God—at least at times. While this may seem an arrogant claim, it pales in comparison with the claims of many religious cults that they're guided by God at all times. And the intent of this tradition is certainly benign in comparison with the intents of religious cults.

Stripped of its religious terminology, the first sentence in the second tradition simply means that AA will operate in accordance with the desires of its membership. The second sentence is equally important. The idea that officers (or "leaders") should serve rather than govern is a cornerstone of any group organized along anarchist principles, as AA is. In 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, Bill Wilson wisely notes, "our group conscience, well-advised by its elders, will be in the long run wiser than any single leader."ⁱ

This tradition finds expression in AA's organizational form and decision­making process. To ensure that no ruling elite emerges, there are regular elections for all AA offices; all major decisions are made by majority vote at both local and national levels; and officers have neither the power to determine who is or isn't an AA member, nor to control the activities of the membership.

Another safeguard against the formation of a ruling elite which other groups organized on anarchist principles normally take, but which is only "recommend[ed]" in AA, is the rotation of offices.ⁱⁱ This does not refer to the simple holding of elections at regular intervals, but rather to a prohibi­tion against individuals serving more than one term. Though this is only a "recommend[ation]" in AA, it seems to be vigorously adhered to in practice.
 

3. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.
 

This is another healthy principle. It ensures that anyone who comes to AA for help will not be turned away; and it goes a long way toward explaining why AA's membership is so diverse. This tradition also serves AA well in a pragmatic sense: if the requirement for AA membership was abstinence, AA membership would undoubtedly be much lower than it is now. As Ken Ragge notes, "The only thing more common among AA members than abstinence is binge drinking."ⁱⁱⁱ

This tradition also means that AA has no formal way to rid itself of troublesome and disruptive members. Perhaps surprisingly, this has not proven to be much of a problem. From my observations, disruptive persons rarely show up at meetings more than once, and when they do they're generally "bad vibed" out of them. Group opinion is a very powerful force for assuring adherence to group behavioral norms. Unfortunately, it is such a powerful force that a great many persons who come to AA for help, but who merely disagree with AA dogma, are also "bad vibed" out of AA meetings.
 

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

This is the principle of decentralism. It's an additional safeguard against the emergence of a ruling elite. The only conditions AA places on group autonomy are "A group ought not to do anything which would greatly injure AA as a whole, nor should it affiliate itself with anything or anybody else." The prohibition against injurious activities is normal in organizations of any type, though the prohibition against affiliation with other entities or individuals is not. In this particular, AA departs markedly from specifically anarchist groups. Most such groups are interested in a wide range of issues and normally will work with other organizations toward common goals. AA, on the other hand, is a single-interest group which believes that it has the answer to alcoholism and is solely concerned with the spread of its "program."

AA does, however, maintain close though informal ties through mem­bers with dual affiliations with other organizations. In particular, AA maintains close ties with the alcoholism treatment industry, in which AA "professionals" and "para-professionals" dominate. AA also maintains close ties with the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, which was founded by AA member Marty Mann, and which counted Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith among its openly listed sponsors. This is certainly better than the situation today, when the NCADD is essentially AA's "pro­fessional" front group and its spokesman on matters of "public controversy."

Thus, AA is adhering to the letter of this tradition, not to its spirit.
 

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

There's both a good side and a bad side to this tradition. The good side is that having a single focus promotes group cohesiveness—there's no wrangling about organizational direction—and that this particular focus serves a therapeutic end. Proselytizing to others gives a sense of purpose to AA members and tends to increase their self-esteem by helping them feel useful.

The bad side of this tradition is that it promotes the idea that AA has the answer to the problem of alcoholism. (Notice that the primary purpose of AA groups as defined in this tradition is to "carry" the AA "message" to alcoholics—not to help alcoholics sober up.) The negative consequences of this—arrogance, self-absorption, hostility to non-12-step alcoholism re­covery programs, etc.—were dealt with in the previous chapter, and will be dealt with further in Chapter 8.
 

6. An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
 

This is a wise principle. Overt involvement with commercial enterprises would certainly alter the nature of any Alcoholics Anonymous group; it would move it away from being a volunteer, self-help organization. Further, given the sleazy nature of many, if not most, American businesses, open association with commercial ventures could easily give AA a bad name.

Unfortunately, while AA has no overt involvement with "outside enter­prise[s]," it does have massive covert involvement with such enterprises. At this writing, involvement in AA groups is prescribed as part of treatment in well over 90% of inpatient alcoholism treatment programs, and AA "professionals" run the vast majority of treatment programs. As a conse­quence, approximately 50% of all AA literature sold is sold to these institutions.^iv The profits from these sales make up a significant part of the budget for AA's General Service Office. In 1988, contributions from individual AA groups were $1,045,300 less than the cost of group services, and income from sales of publications to institutions covered this shortfall.^v While AA is not paid directly for its services by institutional programs, they do provide AA with meeting space, a huge market for its literature, and a huge pool of recruits.^vi As of 1996, fully 40% of AA members had been introduced to AA by a treatment facility.^vii

Thus, AA is adhering to the letter of this tradition, but not to its spirit.
 

7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
 

To those inundated by junk mail begging for their hard-earned dollars, AA's seventh tradition sounds strange indeed. But it embodies one of the most intelligent principles AA has adopted.

As Bill Wilson notes in 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, "Whoever pays the piper is apt to call the tune."^viii One of AA's prime goals is to keep control of the organization in the hands of its membership; and this vow of corporate poverty, the seventh tradition, is an important guarantee of this. The seventh tradition is intended to keep the organization's service structure dependent upon the membership as a whole for financial support. It's also designed to keep individual AA groups self-directed.

If AA as a whole, or individual AA groups, accepted large contributions, those making the contributions could easily end up having undue influence even if they didn't intend to. The way that this normally occurs is that an organization will accept one large donation from an individual, then another, and before anyone notices it, the organization has become de­pendent on the donor. Then, even if the donor makes no demands, the group becomes very careful not to do anything that could alienate the donor. Thus, even if they don't intend it, those who give large sums of money often end up with undue influence.

Unfortunately, AA's dependence upon money derived from literature sales to institutions seems to subvert, at least in part, the intention of this tradition. At present, the services provided to groups by the General Service Office cost more than the groups as a whole donate to meet G.S.O. expenses. Thus, those groups—nearly half—that don't contribute a dime toward G.S.O. expenses are to some extent non-self-supporting.
 

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

On the surface, this seems remarkably similar to the policy of anarchist political groups that employ service workers, but have no "professional" staff. The reason for AA's policy is, however, different in one important respect from that of anarchist groups. Anarchists avoid "professionalization" of their organizations because they wish to avoid creating hierarchies; they wish to keep their organizations as democratic as possible, something which the creation of an "expert" or "professional" class would work against. To that end, when necessary, they employ service workers whose duties and responsibilities are carefully limited, and who it is clearly understood do not set policy.

This wariness of a "professional" governing class certainly seems to be a large part of the reason for the eighth tradition; but AA also feels that professionalism "does not work for us."^ix By this, AA means that professional psychiatric or psychological treatment independent of AA "does not work." This position tends to lock AA into its regrettable we've-got-the-answer mind set. The positive aspect of this tradition is that it does go a long way toward preventing the formation of a professional bureaucracy dictating policy to members.
 

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

This tradition demonstrates that its author, Bill Wilson, was just as confused as most members of the public are about what does and what does not constitute organization. The discussion of organization in 12 Steps and 12 Traditions makes it extremely clear that Wilson shared the popular miscon­ception that organization is synonymous with coercion and hierarchy. The clearest expression of this belief is his statement: "Power to direct or govern is the essence of organization everywhere."^x

This assertion, which assumes that hierarchy and coercion are essential to organization, is demonstrably false. Organization, according to a dic­tionary definition, is merely "the state or manner of being organized . . . into a whole consisting of interdependent or coordinated parts, especially for harmonious or united action." Another way of stating this is that organi­zation is a form of systematization for the purposes of communication and coordinated action. Thus, the questions of coercion and hierarchy are external to the question of organization. Coercive, hierarchical organiza­tions, such as government, the military, and large corporations, exemplify but one type of organization.

A brief glance at present-day society reveals thousands of organizations that do not employ coercion. Some examples of organization based on voluntary cooperation are the Red Cross, the National Organization for Women, the U.S. Chess Federation, Mensa, the American Radio Relay League (the national ham radio organization), and innumerable food co-ops and other mutual aid groups. Some of these are nonhierarchical in addition to being noncoercive. As well, a glance at history reveals nonhierarchical mass labor organizations, such as the IWW in the U.S. and the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo in Spain, based purely on voluntary cooperation.^xi

But perhaps the most telling argument against the idea that coercion and hierarchy are necessary to organization is AA itself. AA is probably the best current example of a mass organization run along anarchist (noncoercive) lines. It's a tribute to the efficacy of the noncoercive principle of organiza­tion that it functions so well in an organization composed overwhelmingly of persons totally ignorant of anarchist theory and history, and almost certainly violently opposed to anarchism (or what they mistakenly suppose it to be) as a political philosophy.^xii

It's more than a bit ironic that the creation of "service boards or com­mittees directly responsible to those they serve" is a cornerstone of the type of organization that Bill Wilson didn't recognize—noncoercive organi-zation.
 

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

This is undoubtedly a wise guiding principle for a single-interest group. It allows members with widely divergent views on other topics to work together effectively in pursuit of their one common interest. For an organi­zation such as a chess club, it makes a lot of sense. Whether this principle also makes sense for an organization dealing with a social problem is open to question.

AA adopted this tradition largely because of the experience of the Washingtonian Society in the 1840s and 1850s. Like AA, the Washing­tonians were originally a self-help organization of alcoholics rooted in Protestant evangelicalism. They had considerable success; the society had more than 100,000 members at its high point. But the Washingtonians expanded their activities to embrace other reform causes such as abo­litionism and the temperance movement. They were soon mired in internal and external controversy and disappeared within a few years. (Had they confined themselves to social issues directly contributing to alcohol abuse, the outcome of their story might have been different.)

Unfortunately, the tenth tradition is also an expression of the AA belief that alcoholism is purely an individual problem unrelated to political, social, and economic conditions. If AA were to adopt the more realistic view, that alcohol abuse has clear socioeconomic contributory factors, it would be very difficult for AA to avoid "public controversy"—especially if it wanted to actively work to mitigate the socioeconomic factors which help to produce alcohol abuse. Even if AA didn't want to deal directly with the social, eco­nomic and political factors which contribute to alcoholism, it would still be a huge advance if AA would simply admit that these factors exist.

Instead, AA continues to lay total responsibility for alcoholism directly on the shoulders of alcoholics—a position inherently supportive of the socioeconomic status quo. If alcoholism is completely the responsibility of individuals, by definition it has no causes or contributory factors in the social realm; and hence there is no need whatsoever for changes in the social structure in order to eliminate, or reduce the level of, alcohol abuse—all that's necessary is that individual alcohol abusers adopt the AA program.
 

11. 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.
 

This two-part policy has served AA well. The deliberate policy of avoiding organizational self-promotion has resulted in a tremendous amount of favorable publicity for AA in the mass media. The attraction-not­promotion policy has worked well for two reasons: 1) AA is well intentioned and is widely believed to be doing great good in alleviating a serious social problem; 2) AA, with its religious orientation, emphasis on individual culpability and solutions, and disregard of the social factors involved in alcohol abuse, fits snugly into the existing social order. So, it should be no surprise that the corporate-owned media treat AA in a friendly manner. It's doubtful that AA's non-self-promoting policy would work as well for a more controversial organization. (It should be noted, though, that AA has em­ployed televised public service announcements advertising its services; this seems difficult to reconcile with the eleventh tradition. It should also be noted that AA has little need for direct self-promotion, because there are a myriad of 12-stepping addictions "professionals" ready and eager to pro­mote AA—without, of course, revealing their affiliation with AA.)

The second part of this policy, maintaining personal anonymity, is very wise. It's yet another safeguard against any individual(s) gaining undue influence over AA—it's a leveling device. It's also a safeguard against individuals using AA as a means of self-promotion. But these were un­doubtedly only secondary reasons for this tradition's adoption, if indeed they were even considered.

The real reason for the adoption of the eleventh tradition was almost certainly the fear that prominent members would announce their member­ship and then get publicly drunk. This was a major concern in early AA—as witnessed by the lock-up of Morgan R. before his appearance on the "We the People" radio show (see page 33)—and it would be most surprising if this fear weren't the primary motivation for this tradition.
 

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

This is basically a restatement of the latter part of the eleventh tradition, perhaps added for emphasis. It is refreshing, though, to see this call to act from principles rather than from a desire for self-aggrandizement. One can only wish that this principle were far more widely practiced in all spheres of social life—both inside and outside of AA.

Given this call to act from principles, it's quite ironic that many AA addictions professionals use this tradition (and the eleventh tradition) as justification to act in an unprincipled manner that evades personal responsi­bility. There's really no other way to construe attacks on AA critics and "alternative" approaches, as well as blatant promotion of AA and its central tenets, by 12-stepping "professionals" who won't disclose their affiliation with AA. Thus, the twelfth tradition, a call to principled action, has been perverted into a "spiritual" excuse for unprincipled, dishonest action.