The Twelve Traditions and Three Legacies – Traditions Workshop – Part 10 of 10 – Local AA Speakers

I'm Herb. I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our Traditions Workshop. You have to pretend we didn't start because we just started. All right, that was recorded. But anyway I'm so pleased to be here. I did the step work in the first 15 years of being in recovery. My first venture into the Big Book and the step process was at five years and then about every three years thereafter for about 15 years total um i was doing the steps uh from steps one through twelve with a step guide at the conclusion of that having just powerful powerful spiritual awakenings each time i became to be aware of the traditions more than i had before and so i asked a man who took the traditions as seriously as i take the steps to take me through the traditions as a traditions guide and he did that this material was developed from that effort And as the result of that, I took three Zs and five Zs of my sponsees through the traditions over a six-month to a one-year workshop kind of format. It was like an invite-only type thing. You had to be one of my Sponsees in order to do that. And I did that several years in a row with several of my sponsees. And so I got kind of the hang of the traditions and the workshop format, doing the work each time myself. This is the first time, And it's a fluke of the synchronicity of wanting to put my step meeting workshop on a calendar year basis and the way it ended and the timing that we had. It's absolutely perfect. We'll start September 9th, and we will end December 9th. All right? And that's just the wayit works out. we'll have a holiday during the thanksgiving and then we'll stop at the beginning there of december so that the balance of the month is off for us all from this work anyway and then i'll pick up the step workshop in january i believe it's january 6th that will start i don't know whether i have that flyer here but i will have it next week on the steps i also have more flyers on the traditions if in fact you find that this might be of value to other people that you're connected to or you want to announce it at meetings each of these workshops that we're going to be doing is modular all right although there is a connectivity one tradition to the next it builds organically it's not like the step work where you can't just parachute into the fourth step legitimately without having done one two and three here you could in fact come into the fourth tradition and learn about it and if you were interested continue with that traditions and then maybe recycle yourself or listen to the recordings type thing so just because they miss the orientation doesn't mean that oh i'll have to wait till the next time i don't anticipate the next time see I'm going to be focused on the step workshops on a calendar year basis and my time is limited so I don't anticipate now the spirit may have different ideas but we'll see what happens but I anticipate this is a one-and-only kind of trip through that's why I'm very interested in having it recorded and seeing what that feels like in terms of its value to the community okay this is please yes Rob all right hold on just minute let me just make this it because I thought of it because it is being recorded and you have a nice voice a nice loud voice but it may not be picked up it would really be helpful if in fact you're going to ask a question not I'm not making any rules but it would be very helpful if you come to the mic and ask your question there and then I can respond to it that's correct that is correct thank you yeah that's a clarification we will not meet the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week thank you all right and that right it's good good judgment thanks so this is a workshop you've been maybe exposed to my step workshop you know that there's a lot that happens in terms of the teaching but there's more that happens terms of the work that you do it'll be the same with the tradition workshop the emphasis on the work not the work i do here and the teaching that i do here or the facilitating that i do here but the work that you do in between the tuesdays all right and let's well before we do that so the first piece of work will begin right now i would love to establish a baseline you've come here for a reason many people saw the announcement some people even said they would come i'm sure that didn't come tonight for some reason or other but you saw it you heard about it and you came here's the question it's a simple question but hold it don't just ready fire aim right hold the question not a complicated question hold it for 30 seconds as you pause and really get to your heart and ask yourself this question and then once you've asked it and allowed it to percolate for just 30 seconds or so then write out an answer why did you come to this workshop what are you expecting what is the need that you're responding to in you or your program pause hold it breathe and then when you're ready write out a sentence or two if you want to do more than that that's terrific or save it for when you get home but I'm going to start back up again in just a few seconds Thank you. Continue writing if you haven't finished. I'm going to start talking again. and so one of the handouts that you have is the format I put that right in the front of my three ring binder because it'll be that which I use here in the workshop and it has the opening prayer which no surprises the set-aside prayer geared to the traditions and then a different kind of format that talks directly about an approach to the Traditions which I will read next week and we will conclude the meeting next week in the same way we conclude our step meetings with the prayer of St. Francis tonight we won't do that we'll end with the Serenity Prayer but right after that i have the set of assignments because that's the heart of this and i would like to review the assignments now everybody has a different style of approaching homework or assignments all right or tasks or projects each one of you has a different style and i i'm not going to tell you how to do this but what i do know from my experience is if you wait from here tonight until you have time to do the assignment you will be doing it at six o'clock on tuesday night out in the parking lot which won't be very productive better than nothing but not very productive for you because it'll all be rushed and it won't be absorbed, and it won't been done with any real thought or connection. So understand who you are and how you approach tasks. Take a look at the assignment as I go through it tonight and maybe tomorrow. Kind of figure out on your calendar where might you make an appointment with yourself in order to get some of the work done and kind of plan it out mechanically. If I work a half an hour each time I sit down and this might take two hours, then I'm going to have to schedule four seatings, all right? But that's the way my mind thinks. It may not be the ways your think. I was with a bunch of people in the monastery who were really bright and they never attended classes regularly and they hardly ever turned in their assignments and they hardly ever opened their book, and they crammed all night before the exam, and they got better marks than I did, who had attended every class, done every assignment, studied all right through the thing, but on the night beforethe exam, I went to bed at 9 o'clock so that I could be rested for the exam. Well, I'm a methodical person, all right? But they had a different style, okay? your style is your style honor it but pay attention if you do want to do the assignment you need to make an appointment with yourself and you need to think through when you're going to allocate the time I don't believe that my estimate of two hours is an overestimate on the preparation the reading, the reflection and the writing. I think that's just about right and maybe it'll be a little less than that once you get the hang of it or maybe not. Maybe it will be more if you get caught in the prairie fire of an interest in it then maybe you'll do the mad dog research that I do. And so on Tradition 1 first page of the assignment it says read Bill Wilson's article article in the December grapevine, Language of the Heart. That would assume that you had language of the heart. All right? It's a strong suggestion, but I don't want to put a burden on anybody from a financial standpoint. And that also means that if you don't have the money or the check tonight to take any material that you want to take, take it anyway and bring the money or the check next week or send it to me my cards are there i trust you it's no problem it's not about the money it's about making sure that you have the resources so if you don't leave tonight without what it is you want as a resource to support the work that you think you're going to do all right and um so i hope that's clear susie will take your name and your phone number and your email and the amount of whatever it is that you owe and then we'll be all good with that okay I don't take credit cards at this point so that won't work just check or cash and so if you if you choose to have the language of the heart I have a limited supply of them so I didn't anticipate that and everybody would do that then then get that I think it's fifteen dollars yeah and it all includes taxes okay because the governor gets his the second is a piece of the assignment is the most important and that's the 12 and 12 and I really want to strongly suggest I can't imagine how you would do this workshop without that and I don't mean borrowing your friends or your sponsors or your sponsees for your significant others have your own copy ten dollars all right it's the large print I just anticipated that that would be real cool to have is the large friend because I like it so if I like it you must like it yeah really you have the 12 traditions illustrated and I'm suggesting that you do this in the order that I'm giving it to you because the language of the heart is printing the articles that were written by Bill in 1947 the 12 and 12 wasn't completed and published until 1952 so i'm doing it kind of chronologically so that you see how it builds and to see if there's any sort of difference in the flavor of it and then we're through with the books unless you want to look at dr bob and the good old timers a a comes of age there may be one other one there and periodically through the series I will bring in handouts or I will bring in brochures that I'll be distributing, alright? The brochures they're not that expensive so I'm happy to provide those for you. The books not so much You will need a dictionary more than even with the step workshop I'm recommending a dictionary. So it says what is the principle of humility Define principle, define humility Please take these directions seriously It's not you sitting back saying Gee, I wonder how I define that Ah, principle, yeah The head of the school That's a different spelling, alright That's an AL, not an LE Humility Oh, I know what that is, alright Yeah, on your knees Wrong on both You know what I mean? you might think that you know a word and in fact you might know the word exactly but when you look it up in a dictionary or lots of you who are technological look it up on your google search and get more than you ever wanted to know you will get nuance and you will get flavors and you'll get word roots that will give some real nice spirit and meaning to the word so please use the dictionary and not only just read it but then write it all right then there's a series of questions how do these apply to my life because this isn't a workshop preparing you to understand the tradition so that you can go into the general service structure to do work that's not the point of it Although the traditions certainly guide And are principles to guide The work of the general service structure That's not the way we're going to be studying it here We're going take it as an extension Of the twelfth step that says Practice these principles in all our affairs And we're gong to see the traditions As spiritual principles that apply to me spiritual principles that apply to my relationship with you spiritual principles that apply to my fellowship and my group the group itself and the groups among each other and perhaps even in your community a general application of the spiritual principles in your life with yourself with other people and with the community at large so it'll have that kind of flavor and so the questions are pretty repetitive you'll see a formula here how does how does this particular paragraph or principle humility and and the principle itself apply to a a at work in my personal relationships with my family and with my friends write a paragraph how i can contribute how i contribute to and where i fall short in achieving substantial unanimity look up the word substantial they're in bold look up the word unanimity that's a mouthful where does it come from what does it mean and we'll talk about those kinds of things and have a really full and i believe very interesting discussion george A substantial unanimity has a meaning in Alcoholics Anonymous, which may not be found in the dictionary. we had to discuss that here and that's what we'll be doing when next week when we discussed tradition one we will discuss the meaning of that phrase in those words in the context of AA so it'll give it a deeper flavor Alex well I do say that an older dictionary I'm fond of trying to have the words defined uh... as they were defined at the time bill was writing now if you don't have a dictionary spending much time uh... either looking forward or to certainly not buying it i happen to have a dictionary from the nineteen hundreds from nineteen thirty i have an english dictionary from england i have a french dictionary a latin dictionary a greek dictionary and a hebrew dictionary Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. Exactly, please. So if you are not in AA and don't know what substantial unanimity means... Then you will learn next week. Exactly. Is it in the 12 and 12? I don't think it is, but yeah, I don' t think it's in the 11th grade. I don''t think it''s in the twelve and twelve. But the point of it is the direction is not to understand the word substantial unanimitiy in AA. It''s what is it in a dictionary so that we can, in fact, have some fun when George then brings it all to our attention. Right, George? That's right. Please. Justin. So you have the one format, the traditional one that you want us to do the work in and we'll do it during the week at our correct time. And then the other, the short form, you're saying till that night, correct? All right. So Justin's raising the comment about the worksheet with the short and long traditions at the top. That worksheet, I'm suggesting, this is how I used it, that you bring it here so that it be a tool for you to stay engaged with the discussion about the tradition. What does it say? What does het mean? How does it apply to me? what is my experience these are the questions i've suggested will keep you engaged and that's a worksheet for you this is an assignment sheet for you to look at both the short and long form of the traditions that will be illustrated in each of the chapters of the 12 and 12. all right good thank you it's always good to clarify make sure we've got the directions. Write a paragraph about unity. We've already looked up the word unanimity, you might need to look up the world unity itself. Any word that's bold I'm suggesting even if it's not in writing that you look it up in a dictionary and write out the meaning. Consider whether I place the common welfare of my various groups ahead of my own personal well-being. And then I'm suggesting, because this was the instruction given to me, write a prayer. See underneath each step is powerlessness. Underneath each tradition is powerlessness, that is it's setting a vision statement, it's sitting a goal, it setting a guideline, it sitting a principle. But not necessarily do we achieve that 100% like with the steps I am powerless to actually experience powerless until I go through a process and be alchemy of grace and willingness will give me an experience my first experience in the step one was in my first year and I looked at the drama in my life and I said I must be an alcoholic I go to jail I black out and I do embarrassing things I must an alcoholic well that doesn't make me an alcoholic as most of you know from doing your work in the first step all right what makes me an alcoholic i didn't discover till I was five years sober that I have an allergy and that was it and then three years later I did the work again with another man who knew that I didn't know anything about the obsession and he helped me have an experience with the second part of the first half of the first step what's wrong with my mind and then at 10 or 11 years of sobriety going through the work again with other man he knew that i didn't know about unmanageability and he introduced me to the set-aside prayer and the bedevilments and the material on pages 60 and 62. And my world imploded. I'm 10 years sober, having had two major spiritual awakenings. And yet I was still asleep to the true nature of unmanageability. All right? And so we're suggesting here a prayer be formed after you've done all your reading and all your reflecting and all your writing, that you create then a prayer that includes God and perspective and the other words that are on that page. All right? Well, I'm going to read it for the tape. Small part of a great whole, personal usefulness to others and unselfishness. So then I'm gonna read it. I'm moving now to the next set of material and that's the worksheets that I've talked about that you bring blank to the workshop so that you can then use that here to assist you to sort of stay focused on what the discussion is. And the final piece, at least the way I've laid it out in my three-ring binder, is the checklist from the AA Grapevine which has questions on each of the traditions. Now, it may be that you want to incorporate doing that before you actually answer the final question. I can see that from a logic... Oh, I have it, actually. Number seven, reflect on the grapevine checklist and then do the final piece that made chronological sense. Okay, so we're going to pass the basket, and I've suggested that the donation be $5, knowing that some of you can't afford anything and that's just fine and some of you could afford that and the average will work it out so that we can pay the rent we have a smaller group although not much smaller than what we ended up with last year or earlier on in the step process so we'll see how we deal with that so target five and put in what you can afford and if you can afford anything know that you're taking care of by the community that's how we do it here all right so yes Monisha I'm not sure what did I just say the assignment is tradition number one and I had not emphasized a point number seven which was the grapevine checklist I had begun to introduce it out of order and then point number eight is to prepare a prayer based on your overall review all right yeah thank you all right so any questions or comments so far rob i'm not sure what your question is but you will have a what is going to be supplied by me you need to purchase the twelve and twelve if you don't have one you need a purchase the language of the heart if in fact you don t have one and you want one i don't see two additional pamphlets where where are they no tradition five but we're not there stay with tradition one Yeah, stay with Tradition 1. All right? Thank you. Yeah. I mentioned that I have other pamphlets that I'll be passing out at a later time rather than overburden you at this time. Yeah. It's all apace. It's alapace. Let's focus on Tradition 2 and Tradition 3 and the orientation. My name is Bob. I am an alcoholic. Bob. So this is the information that we're going to do tonight. Is it due next week or in two weeks? when is when do we meet next and what's tradition will we be working on next week so do it before next week yeah this is an assignment force tradition one you do the reading you do the reflection you do the assignment and we come together to discuss it yeah yeah but I see the logic of that because a lot of times with my step work i would give a teaching and then an assignment and send you out to do that So I can see that. So I'm glad you asked the question to clarify what the protocol is. We're making it up as we go along, but I've got kind of a feel for it. Yeah, good, thank you. Manish? Oh yes. Okay, what is the grapevine? See, it wouldn't have occurred to me to ask that question. It's the magazine that's published monthly by the general service office that has stories in it and newsy kinds of things and it's like that published monthly and people can buy it at meetings I don't know whether Al-Anon has a comparable publication yeah they do okay so that would be what is the name of it the forum it would be the same as the forum Richard the meeting in print and I don't want to anyway yep good it was included in the 1947 grapevine yeah and so that comes from there you don't need a grapevine you don t need to know anything more about the grapevine you have what you need please well why isn't it on all right thank you it's on hear me yeah okay yeah I'm Rob I'm an alcoholic when you say that you know We're going to learn to practice the traditions in all our affairs. I'm mindful that when the 12th step was written, the traditions had not been formulated yet. That's correct. And I guess I'm having... Coming in here, not knowing a whole lot, the traditions were formulated to preserve the community. Well, that's originally what they were for. I'm suggesting they have a broader use okay because they are spiritual principles okay that will apply to you and to your relationships with other people so this is something that developed in the uh aaa tradition but i don't believe it was the original intention i i don t know actually what bill's intention was but that's a question as i go through these assignments now looking again at the history i'll be looking at that to see perhaps what his consciousness was when he was developing these whether he had anticipated that this would be uh sort of a personal development tool or whether it was just for the aa organizational structure it's a good question perfect thank you yeah yeah it's wonderful yeah well in fact yeah Did you have your hand up? Yeah. All right. So this book... Yeah. It's just basically... She's holding up Language of the Heart. It's basically all Bill's writings. It's some of Bill's writing. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so the way the traditions began to develop, Bill was in the midst of publishing the big book and organizing AA locally and nationally, and then it began to develop internationally. And some guy in the early 40s came up from Florida and he said to Bill, so how are we going to prevent happening to us what happened to the Washingtonians? And Bill said, who are the Washingtonian? Well, here's a guy who's the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous who is really bright and has dedicated his entire life to recovery from alcohol and is organizing it, all right? And he had never heard of the Washingtonians. That's how extinct the Washingtonian were at 1940. In 1840, when it started, within four years, they had a group of guys in a tavern who were tired of drinking and they said let's form a community to support one another 1840 and we will eliminate our drinking problem together and they were somewhat successful in the beginning so successful that in four years they had 300,000 members 1840, no radio, no television. I'm not sure about telegraph, certainly no telephone, all right? 1840. And yet in four years they had 300,000 people. And we know when the big book was published after four years, they had 100 with all of the technological devices of communication. So the Washingtonians were clearly doing something very well in the beginning. In fact, Abraham Lincoln addressed one of their national conferences. I mean, this was a substantial group that rose very quickly and was extinct in 10 years. And Bill did a little research to find out what had gone on. They promoted personalities. They got people who were really bright and articulate and charismatic to represent them at the public level. And they said, if it works for alcohol, why not women's rights? And if it worked for alcohol why not abolition of slavery? And if works for Alcohol, why Not Abolition of Alcohol? And they went on a political and a social do-gooder campaign And, of course, the thing blew up from its own energy. All right? And so Bill then began to take seriously the letters he was getting from the groups around the country and around the world. When he was responding, he was thinking about what would be the experience and what wouldbe the group conscience. And they would do a little assessment in New York and then they would respond in a letter describing certain principles. Bill never wanted to take a position that there were rules and regulations or mandates of any kind, or even suggestions. They stayed away from that. They just shared our experience, all right? And so when, in fact, he did wordsmith the traditions and want to get them published, people were just aghast. They said, no, Bill, you've already written 12 steps and we only had six in the beginning. And now you've written a book for God's sake and you've created an organization. We don't want any more organization. We don'T want any rules and regulations. The bill said, the traditions are not rules and regulations. They're the combined experience of the membership as to what works and what doesn't work. He said, Alcoholics Anonymous will never need rules and regulations because there's only two disciplines. One is alcohol, and the other is God. And you're either going for one or you're going for the other. Those are the only disciplines in AlcoholicsAnonymous. No rules, no regulations, no hierarchy. All right? just our experience as to what works and what doesn't work it was brilliant absolutely brilliant all right so in the process that i'm suggesting is the same process that we use with regard to the steps all right and i've suggested that we pray the set aside prayer accommodating the theme of the traditions it's in the format if you care to look at what I've wordsmithed that you do some reading which is part of the assignment that you do something reflecting which is of the Assignment that you'd do some writing which is part of The Assignment and once you've done all of that we'll gather next week will read the short and long form of the tradition and then in some formatted way will proceed through the assignment and have discussions about your definitions your reflections your experience your understanding etc etc especially if in fact you've been involved in the general service community which I have not all right I don't believe that's my gift or my charism in terms of being involved with the general-service organizational structure it takes a particular personality to do that and so and we'll discuss that here but as the man suggested to me he said don't come at it like you've done every other academic thing that you've with your head come here with your heart with an open heart listen to your experience listen to your exp to the spirit listen to intuition and your inspiration as you're going through this work and i i would recommend that same process then for you all as we go through this bill had the genius i believe whether he was conscious of it or not to construct a 12 step program as you know from my model that addresses the human being in three parts All right, the step process which was his what he called the first legacy This was his first gift to the community of humanity. He calls it formally the first Legacy all right legacy gift or whatever and Of course the traditions are the second legacy and The concepts are the third legacy will come to those in just a minute But as we saw from the step way that I approached the model of the steps, we have a physical disease, we have mental disease, but most of all we have spiritual disease. This is who we are as human beings. We're material, but the thing that distinguishes us as human being is that we have mind that knows and a will that decides. this model holds up for the first step but each step and the entire step process as I see it and have experienced it and have communicated it but it also holds up for the traditions which is the second legacy now this was developed and approved in 1950 by the first international conference these 12 traditions as guidelines for conduct within the group and between groups and among the groups and the primary purpose the one word that you'll hear a lot about that's why the definite the dictionary work is so important is unity in the same way that the primary purpose of the steps is transformation spiritual awakening finding god the primary purpose of the traditions is unity think of one body and the cellular structure and the functionality of the various organs but how they are all integrated in one body this that that image that metaphor that mental image will give you a real sense of the purpose of the traditions it's so that all the various parts of the one body the community of humanity in this particular fellowship all right can operate and survive harmoniously unity is the key unity is the key very analogous to the uh the body system all right and the third of course legacy are the 12 concepts of service so once bill had established that the individual can survive and flourish from their alcoholism the group can survive and flourish in terms of the group dynamics but how do you run a business that is a non-profit spiritual organization and he developed the 12 concepts the third legacy which is the ability to run a non profit spiritual organization it's brilliant I usually carry a couple copies of the manual, the concepts in the manual. I forget the exact title of it. The what? The General Service Manual and the concepts because he's actually even got job descriptions and functionality and protocol for communication. It's brilliant. I mean, the steps are brilliant. The traditions are incredibly brilliant. But when you read and study the concepts, i've actually done workshops on the concepts you can see the innate brilliance the way that bill could see the integration and he had this wonderful vision uh that in fact uh a has incorporated so we have three parts of the human being we have three part of the program we have 12 principles for each part therefore we have 36 spiritual principles all right during this workshop in contrast to the step workshop we're going to be looking at the 12 principles represented by the 12 traditions and this was approved these concepts were approved in 1955 which was the second international conference and a a had come of age between these two uh events to its full maturity anybody have any questions about that please corey oh there it is you gave this to me two years ago well there you go there you know corey's very entrepreneurial he's trying to create his own business and there's no reason that we couldn't take a look at this as a model for creating a functioning business not necessarily based not necessarily having a spiritual uh mission and certainly not necessarily a non-profit mission right yeah for sure but still there's some wonderful spiritual principles that just relate to and correspond to our humanity all right the true self not the false self that unfortunately our culture is built on monisha when you were talking just now you said the traditions yes because I'm taking it beyond the original intent all right and that was the point that you all made there he made the point that the traditions were formed for a reason and that was for the coherence of the groups themselves within the group and then among all of the groups but there's been a lot of work done in the last probably 40 plus years of applying the traditions to relationships there's a woman from I think Georgia or Arkansas Arkansas who does wonderful workshops on practicing the traditions in your relationships and she takes a whole spin that just focuses on that part of it i have some material which i will bring here on that for those of you that might be interested nicole i feel i feel like alanon really focuses on using traditions in relationships as well so So I just wanted to throw that out there. You what? I just want to throw it out there Sure, Al-Anon copied AA Except for their love of the big book There's a lot of it Anyway, I won't go into the controversies Manish The reason I asked that question was that In some of my meetings, sometimes AA folks would throw out some of the traditions. What? Especially in some of MY scholarship meetings. Yes. AA, people who've been in AA also... Yes. ...would use the traditional... Oh, when you say throw out, you mean talk about. They would like... You see how I heard that. So they would reference a tradition in a very practical way that apply to everyday stuff. And it was very eye opening, like for example- That's what we're doing. You know, we're self-reliant on our own contribution and there's a million ways to interpret that. Yeah. I don't depend on others for my self esteem and worth and value and financially self supporting whatever that may be. And so for me, that's I think one of the pieces that was really interesting about doing the traditions because I've seen that and maybe one other tradition applied in ways that were completely outside of just what you mean by rote and meaning? And so, is that something you'll do in this workshop? That's the whole point. The whole point of the workshop is to take the traditions and translate those spiritual principles and apply it to my personal life in all of its ramifications. I don't know that oh the question is as I did this for the step work in terms of the triangle does the traditions have a similar symbol or model I don' t know that but that's a wonderful question and as I go through the reflections I'll be rethinking it with that in mind. Of course, Bill took this three-part process and he put a circle around it for the original AA logo, the circle being an ancient symbol for infinity or for divinity or for representing a symbol for god or higher power and he put aa straight in the midst of that all right the three parts the alanons who learned a lot from aa i mean really seriously it's wonderful what they've done have taken the symbol and they turned it inside out. They took the triangle and they put the circle in the middle. Both wonderful, mystical representatives and symbols of the mystery. Where you have the symbol with the triangle in it, you have transcendence. All things. God is everything, right? And where you have the circle inside the triangle, you have immanence. The spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things. These are phrases from the big book. Bill had wonderful mystical insights about the spiritual realities, calling it the fourth dimension, right? And so this symbol here represents at least a couple approaches to really, really solid theology. All right, but that's a distraction. So the traditions were created as guidelines because the groups are filled with human beings. And you know who we are. You saw that in the step four inventory. instincts gone awry anger and fear and inappropriate sex and dishonesty camouflage or freeze survival instincts at the at the reptilian level right all about selfishness and self-centeredness and of course bill had already uh written some parts of the fourth step for the 12 and 12 and he used the seven capital sins because of his influence from Father Ed Dowling, that Jesuit who taught him a little about Catholic theology and that's where that comes from. Well, if the human beings are like that in themselves and the steps correct that, they're going to be like that in the meetings, maybe even aggravated in the readings with one another and the traditions are meant to work with that. As the steps work with the character defects of the individuals, the traditions work with the character defeats of the group. All right? Brilliant from Bill's standpoint. The purpose of the steps is about rigorous honesty and the purpose of the traditions is to lead us to tolerance. A real sense of tolerance. Now, step 10 said that's our code, isn't it? Alright? Love and tolerance is our code and so it wasn't much of a stretch for Bill to go there The steps restore our humanity and the traditions return us to our community and the concepts ensure survival of the spiritual organization how does it operate the steps tell us how it works the traditions tell us why it works through unity and the concept ensure the continuity of the work through helpful service but it means service here not service in the sense of sponsorship and step work and and this other centered contribution that we talk about in the step world service in concept world has a very very defined and focused meaning it means a function in the structure of the aa organization well bill had this brilliant insight also about uh the organizational structure and he turned it upside down our corporate life of course is a hierarchical structure which works really well in terms of our capitalistic way of living and i'm saying that as an observation not in any way commenting on positive or negative I don't mean to do that at all, but the hierarchy is very clear in a corporation, right? All of the little people here and the managers here and the directors here and the unit division vice presidents and then the executive vice presidents, and then the CEO. And the line of command is like that, right, that's what we do. I mean, that' s the way business is usually operated. Bill turned it upside down, and he said, the people are the CEOs of AA. And he coined the phrase, I believe coined it, servant leadership. All right? So that the executives, if you will call them that, there is a president of AA, all right? The executives of the general service function take all of their direction from the people. All right? He's completely flipped it. That's what the GSO work is all about in terms of the pods of groups here, and they send representatives, and they have something they call here DCM, I think, and that goes here to a bigger thing and then it filters down here and they have an annual meeting of the representatives of the people and there's a long, long, long discussion about everything. A loving discussion. A what? A loving long discussion about everything, that's right, exactly. Bill wrote The Steps in 20 Minutes, and you've heard me share that story. He was in a depression. He was writing how it works. He had written his story. He had a deadline to publish a book, all right? He had an appointment to do that, and he sat on his bed in his depression one evening, went into meditation like the Oxford group had taught him, and he's writing this chapter, How It Works, and he said, how does it work? really how what is my actual experience in my actual history and he began in writing out literally writing out the process steps as he remembered his own experience and when he finished this 20 minute meditation on a blank piece of paper handwritten he numbered it and there were 12 and he said well 12 apostles 12 steps i guess that'll work he brought it to the community the fellowship at the time and they were outraged for three or four years all of these people had been exposed to the oxford group six steps bill you're just complicating this thing we have six steps in his work why are you complicating it with 12 steps he said well because i wanted to eliminate the wiggle room all right and as you know there's no wiggle room in the steps they are organic and uh in a whatever you call that little locking mechanism between pieces they're interlocking all right that's how the steps work one leads intransient in yeah definitely forward into the next intractably maybe into the next step and oh so it took 20 minutes the traditions took 15 years getting these these letters and experience and the group conscience and writing back and making mistakes and learning from our mistakes 15 years he calls it hammered out on the anvil of experience it's a great mental image like the blacksmith with the hot boom boom you know And then the concepts were written then within the five-year period between 1950 and 1955. One of the things Bill did definitely attempt was to step away from the Oxford group because it had its roots in an organized religion, religion and he wanted to make sure that AA was completely neutralized all right and so he didn't use any of the vocabulary of the Oxford group in the big book or not much of it anyway it's very transparent so that he could make it open to anybody who wanted to have a spiritual awakening and we learned from the Oxford group however about transformation we learn from all of this early chaos in a with all of these groups in the hinterlands I'll bring in some material that'll just be and you'll read it in the 12 and 12 just shocking as to the the way people had interpreted how to manage drunks alright and so we learned from our experience and hammered out these 12 traditions to give us a singleness of purpose that's and once again that harkens right back to this body concept this unity concept singleness or purpose all right my eye is not independent of my body it has a purpose for the body survival my ear is not independent of the body its functionality is for their survival of the and so that's the singleness of purpose that the traditions are trying to establish in terms of spiritual principles and we'll have lots of perhaps exciting conversation about some aspects of an interpretation of some of the traditions and their application he talks about the character defects of the individuals as personal glorification ambition exhibitionism intolerance and attachment to money property power and prestige complacency and repeating mistakes and not learning from them instincts gone awry if you've done your fourth step inventory out of the big book you know exactly how that applies I think at this point we're going to stop and ask for questions I see that we're coming to a close with regard to the time and I've got some more information that will contrast steps and traditions and some of the history which gives it some flavor, some wonderful words some insights and I'll be sharing that with you next week as we then begin the process formally please if Bill wanted to distance the AA from the early Christian roots did the early AA group say the our father? I have no idea Yeah, the question is, did the early AA groups say the Our Father? Probably in Akron, Ohio, for sure, on the podium they had the Bible. They still do in Akroon. Mm-hmm. They still due. In the first AA meeting that Bob had created, they still have the Bible on the stadium. Mm-hm. George. Listening to one of the early AA members in Los Angeles, there was considerable controversy in LA introducing the Our Father until it became established. There's a lot of fighting over it. The Our Father is not, in its words, a Christian or a Muslim or a Buddhist prayer. It's very neutral, except for the fact that its origins comes out of the Christian scripture. Please. But as an organization, it's not promoted or looked at against. It's all about conscience. Each group is independent. Again, the beauty, the silver bullet of AA that builds concept. We don't have any dogma. We don'T have any theology. We suggest if you're powerless that you find power, and when you find it, we suggest you give it a name. That's it all right you get to choose exactly. Thank you, please Candy She has her fantasies I get to hear them here regularly if you see me stop for just a minute. I'm listening so I was looking at this and within the traditional business structure the incentive is financial move up the ladder given that alcoholism has no return on investment to the individual but as we're all moving up or down this side of your model not everyone is staying sober within this structure So not everyone is actually advancing to the same goal. So what happens... You're assuming that there's a goal here. You're assuming that advancing is actually an appropriate word. Well, I'm looking at it in terms of how we look at return on investment. Yeah, well, probably not a good idea, huh? Because this is just a model that suggests about the authority structure and the democracy of the organization. Actually, to your point, what is actually the thing that's holding this structure together the group conscience god as illustrated through the group conscious that's what's holding it together it's a great insight that's exactly right yeah we're gonna we're going to talk more about that especially when we get into some of the later traditions please uh joe alcoholic substantial unanimity is what's holding it and that's why it's sort of bigger say it to me again please yeah yeah unanimity yeah we'll be talking lots more about that in each of the traditions we will see the theme of unity in each the traditions and we will see the theme different aspects of the spiritual principles so don't it's just like everything else like the step work in step one we all really wanted to hurry up and get to step 12 and it took 12 months and some of us actually got there yeah right so in it's it's an organic process we'll eat this critter a little bit at a time right all right so I really appreciate the launching of our new ship and our new workshop here I hope you come back you're welcome to bring people we have plenty of room and we have plenty of handouts if you want to take some for other people please do that and if you want to purchase some stuff or you want to just take it and bring the money next week it's fine and Jason we're out of what handouts we're out of most of the handouts and we're out of language of the heart so I'll bring some more of whatever we're out of next week so we don't yes please david uh silkworth.net they do have that article from thank you silkworth dot net the assignment article is there all right thank you there you go no I haven't yeah I don't know I'll give it some thought it's a really good yeah I'm yeah thank you all right thank you are yes Susie a pair of glasses are needing an owner yeah alright alright alright so let's again pray the wisdom prayer the serenity prayer and i look forward to seeing you next week god grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference