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Keyboard and Mouse

Alcoholics Anonymous 

District 28
Area 60

Keyboard and Mouse

Alcoholics Anonymous 

District 28
Area 60

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AA 12 Steps

  1. We admitted we were powerlesss over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

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

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

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

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

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

  7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

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

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

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

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

  12. 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.
     

AA Traditions

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

  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.

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

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

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

  6. 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.

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

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

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

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

  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.

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

AA Promises

  1. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.

  2. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

  3. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

  4. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.

  5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

  6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

  7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

  8. Self-seeking will slip away.

  9. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

  10. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.

  11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

  12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.


Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

 

Reprinted from the book Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book) with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.

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What We Do

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Unity

The 12 spiritual principles used within the fellowship are the 12 Traditions found in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and the Appendix of the Big Book (Fourth Edition). 

 

The second Legacy,  Unity (Body) suggests we join a home group and participate in the meetings.  In early sobriety, meetings and fellowship with recovered alcoholics can help to keep a newcomer sober until they have completed their steps and found a higher power.  The fellowship of AA is the group members and is fondly referred to as “the meeting before the meeting, the AA meeting, and the meeting after the meeting.”

Service

 Service in AA is based in the 12 spiritual principles known as the 12 Concepts, which are found in the General Service Manual and the Appendix of the Big Book (Fourth Edition).  
 

“12.  Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to another alcoholic and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” (BB 60:1)  “Practical Experience shows that nothing so much insures immunity from drinking than intense work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our TWELFTH SUGGESTION: Carry this message to other alcoholics!” (BB 89:1) 

Recovery

The 12 Steps are known as Recovery and it is the entire foundation of our program. Thus it is the bottom of the triangle, holding up Unity and Service. The physical compulsion and the mental obsession are removed when we have completed the 12 Steps.  Then comes the promise, we have recovered from a “seemingly hopeless state of mind and body”. Unity and Service cannot be a part of our lives unless we are practicing these principles in all our affairs.  We cannot give away what we do not have ourselves.

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