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      "For thousands of alcoholics yet to come, A.A. does have an answer. But there is one condition. We must, at all costs, preserve our essential unity; it must be made unbreakably secure. Without permanent unity there can be little lasting recovery for anyone. Hence our future absolutely depends upon the creation and observance of a sound group Tradition."

      —AA co-founder Bill W., AA Grapevine, October, 1947

      Founded in 1935, AA’s first decade was filled with an array of challenges and with little or no experience to hold onto, AA groups were often flying blind. Rules were made and broken; policies were introduced and soon discarded; and, inevitably, powerful, sometimes bitter, disputes broke out.

      But AA was working—alcoholics were getting and staying sober—and soon the growing body of experience from the Fellowship’s pioneering time began to crystallize into a set of working principles that could guide and protect the group life of AA.

      In 1946, these core principles were codified by the founders and early members as the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and were published in the April 1946 Grapevine under the title “Twelve Points to Assure Our Future.” Wrote Bill W., AA’s co-founder, “Nobody invented Alcoholics Anonymous. It grew. Trial and error has produced a rich experience. Little by little we have been adopting the lessons of that experience, first as policy and then as tradition. That process still goes on and we hope it never stops.”

      Since then, AA members have had years of experience with the principles outlined in the Twelve Traditions and as the stories in this collection show, those principles remain at the heart of Alcoholics Anonymous, providing ongoing guidance and protection for individuals, groups and the Fellowship as a whole.

      Accepted and endorsed by the membership at AA’s International Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1950, application of the Traditions continues evolving today, and the stories here share the diverse experience, strength and hope of individual AA members and groups who have found workable solutions to difficult problems through these twelve vital principles.

      Based on immutable values such as humility, responsibility, sacrifice and love, the Twelve Traditions provide the spiritual—and practical—underpinning for AA’s ongoing adventure of living and working together. Our hope for this collection of stories, gathered from the broad experience of individual AAs, is that it will provide a pathway for members and groups to learn more about how these vital principles

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