Tradition VI

on

Short: 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.

Long: Problems of money, property, and authority may easily divert us from our primary spiritual aim. We think, therefore, that any considerable property of genuine use to AA should be separately incorporated and managed, thus dividing the material from the spiritual. An AA group, as such, should never go into business. Secondary aids to AA, such as clubs or hospitals which require much property or administration, ought to be incorporated and so set apart that, if necessary, they can be freely discarded by the groups. Hence such facilities ought not to use the AA name. Their management should be the sole responsibility of those people who financially support them. For clubs, AA managers are usually preferred. But hospitals, as well as other places of recuperation, ought to be well outside AA—and medically supervised. While an AA group may cooperate with anyone, such cooperation ought never go so far as affiliation or endorsement, actual or implied. An AA group can bind itself to no one.

Application in AA

  • Who does this Tradition apply to?
    • The Tradition applies strictly to groups ...
    • ... but also applies to intergroups, regions, (areas, districts,) or any other entity in the service structure ...
    • ... and to the charity and its corporations and sub-committees
  • The relationship of Tradition VI to Tradition V:
    • Tradition VI is the corollary to Tradition V:
      • Tradition V says 'stick to this purpose'
      • Tradition VI says 'do not pursue other purposes'
  • Why do we have it?
    • The experience of the Washingtonians:
  • What related facilities / enterprises are meant in the narrow meaning of this Tradition?
    • Examples of facilities:
      • Clubhouses (e.g. 'Alano' clubs)
      • Hospitals (general or specialised)
      • Treatment centres and rehabilitation centres
      • Detoxes
    • Examples of enterprises:
      • Yoga
      • Psychotherapy
      • Religion
      • Social events
  • Defining what we're not allowed to do
    • Finance: giving money
      • Paying outside facilities or enterprises for goods and services is OK
      • Contributing to the funding of outside facilities or enterprises at the level of capital or donation is not OK
    • Lend the AA name to: Allowing the AA name to be used in the name of an outside facility or enterprise
    • Endorsement: saying an outside facility or enterprise is good
    • Affiliation:
      • Formal incorporation into a structure
      • Formal expression of subscription to an ideology
    • Perception is as important as fact
    • Examples of how Tradition VI might be breached
      • AA is not able, itself, to be a member of an association of charities, where it has the formal status of member with rights, responsibilities, duties, and fees
      • Juxtaposing the AA logo and other logos (e.g. those of the Armed Forces) on business cards, flyers, newsletters, etc.
      • Prison guards directing or supervising AA meetings held in prison
      • Treatment facilities directing or supervising AA meetings held on their premises
  • Defining what we're allowed to do
    • Cooperation: let's work together whilst retaining (1) our identity and (2) our ideology
      • Working with prisons and treatment facilities to put on AA meetings
      • Working with the various national parliaments to put on AA events
      • London Armed Forces Network: an informal network that holds meetings to enable discussion and interaction between public, private, and third sector organisations involved in providing assistance to serving persons, their families, and veterans
        • AA Armed Services Liaison Officers are present as invited participants, not 'members of the Network'
        • There are no fees to pay
        • There are no rights, responsibilities, or duties
      • Armed Forces Day: a series of public events, some of which includes fares where AA has a stand, alongside many other organisations
        • AA is positioned as an invited participant, not as part of the structure of the Armed Forces
        • There are no rights, responsibilities, or duties
  • Money, property, prestige
    • These are naturally contentious, e.g. in the following situations:
      • Splitting the bill at a restaurant after a meeting
      • How the group responds to the treasurer running off with money
      • What a group should do with a large reserve of money
      • Who owns the AA banners bought for AA public information work?
      • Who gets to be GSR? Chair? Delegate?
    • Unity is fragile at the best of times
    • Since there is unavoidable contention in AA, it is best to avoid avoidable contention
  • When is something 'inside AA' and when is it 'outside AA'?
    • Inside AA:
      • The group
      • The fellowship
      • The service structure
      • The charity
        • Its corporations
        • Its sub-committees
      • Conventions accountable financially and operationally to the service structure
    • Outside AA:
      • Free-standing conventions not accountable financially and operationally to the service structure
      • Groups chiefly comprising AA members but with other or secondary purposes or non-alcoholics as members
    • If in doubt: is the entity abiding by the Traditions and the Concepts?
      • This must be demonstrable in fact
      • Simply stating that an entity is abiding by the Traditions and the Concepts does not mean it does
      • The abidance by the Traditions and the Concepts must be plain and require little or no explanation
      • If sophisticated or lengthy argument is required to demonstrate abidance, there might be a problem
      • There must be a spirit of abidance:
        • The right approach:
          • Examine the Traditions and the Concepts
          • Ask:
            • How can we achieve our goals within those?
        • The wrong approach:
          • Establish whatever facility or enterprise you like
          • Ask:
            • How can we argue that this abides by the Traditions and the Concepts?
  • Examples of actual problems arising
    • Conventions running up debts or otherwise being mismanaged financially
      • On occasion this has hit the local headlines
    • Conventions being mismanaged and damaging relations with venues or neighbours
      • On occasion this has caused venues to withdraw from long-standing arrangements with AA events
    • Clubhouses running up debts
  • Solution 1: manage the endeavour or entity within the service structure
    • E.g. a Region setting up an AA convention for that Region
    • The service structure:
      • Provides funds
      • Exercises oversight
      • Has the four levers available of:
        • Censure
        • Redirection
        • Reorganisation
        • Replacement
  • Solution 2: hive off the endeavour or entity outside the service structure
    • E.g. Alano clubs are separately incorporated
    • Hold a convention and run it how you want: just don't call it 'AA'

Application in life

  • Primary purpose:
    • Stay close to God
    • Perform His work well
      • Carry the message
        • Actively participate in a group
        • Sponsor others
        • Actively participate in the service structure
        • Carrying the message outside AA
      • Practise the principles
        • At work
        • At home
        • In the local community and in society
  • The seven false idols:
    • Sex, money, power, prestige, comfort, thrills, and appearance
        • 'Sex' can include hunting for it and having it
        • 'Money' can include acquiring it, hoarding it, and spending it
        • 'Power' can include rescuing, policing, bullying, stalking, reform and crusade, over-organisation, living by rules, restriction, asceticism, worry, scheming, and dominating others
        • 'Prestige' can include
          • Pride (what others think of us)
          • Self-esteem (what we think of ourselves)
          • Attachment to identity (ethnicity, nationality, religion including a specific branch thereof, background, social status, economic status, career status, sex, gender, sexuality, political beliefs, ideology)
          • Spiritual prestige (being good, nice, wise, calm, free of character defects, sought-after, 'recovered', useful, effective, efficient, harmonious, devout or pious, observant, learned, knowledgeable, skilled)
        • 'Comfort' can include food and beverages, numbing out with entertainment, news and other media, social media, compulsive use of electronic devices, computer games, and apps, surrounding ourselves with people, constant activity, constant talking, constant texting, talking about feelings to avoid feeling them, withdrawing from society, duvet-diving, obsessive thinking, meditating to disassociate or zen out ('being a bliss ninny'), and inducing physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social exhaustion
        • 'Thrills' can include risk-taking, danger-seeking, gambling, romance, exercise-related highs, fantasy, nostalgia, inducing physical injury or pain, engaging in aberrant, immoral, or antisocial behaviour in order to wallow in guilt and shame, creating crises, creating drama, and creating situations from which we require rescue
        • 'Appearance' can include the fostering of an image, clothes, cosmetic procedures and surgery, make-up & grooming, bodybuilding, body-sculpting, and weight control
      • We could increase the list ad infinitum
    • These are false gods: they are not be pursued for their own sake
    • Each of these seven areas has a place in life: but they are instruments and/or byproducts
      • ... they're the cutlery and the condiments: not the meal
    • If I take care of my primary purpose, these seven areas take care of themselves
  • The seven areas of self:
    • This 'cuts the cake' a different way
    • The third column of the Step Four resentment inventory shows me how demands in the seven areas of self give rise to resentment
    • I uncover these by asking, in relation to each resentment:
      • Personal relations: What script am I giving the person? How should he/she/they behave?
      • Sex relations: What script am I giving the person? How should he/she/they behave?
      • Pocketbooks: How does the situation affect my income, expenditure, assets (including property), or liabilities?
      • Security: What do I need that I have not got, might not get, or might lose?
      • Ambitions: What do I want that I have not got, might not get, or might lose?
      • Pride: How do I think he/she/they see(s) me? How do I want him/her/them to see me?
      • Self-esteem: How do I see myself? How do I want to see myself? 
    • I surrender these to God ...
    • ... so I can get on with doing God's will
  • The lending of one's name
    • One's name is one's identity
    • If my identity and purpose are attached to anything in the material realm
        • My physical body
        • My circumstances
        • My image
      • My identity will fluctuate as they fluctuate
      • The attainment of my purpose will fluctuate
      • I will therefore be insecure
        • '24 Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. 26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.' (Matthew 7)
  • The solution:
    • Identity
      • My identity resides in God
      • I am created by God
      • I am part of God
      • I am created in God's likeness and image
      • I am perfect spirit housed in a temporary accommodation: the human body
      • Death is a fairly major change of address
      • The human body comes equipped with an ego (the animal soul)
      • This is where the problems come from
      • My job is to choose between the voice for God and the voice of the ego
      • There is nothing wrong with me
      • But I sometimes believe and think things that are untrue and act accordingly
      • At worst I am mistaken
      • And mistakes can be corrected
    • Purpose
      • My purpose is to be a co-creator with God
      • I do this by hollowing myself out through the Twelve Steps
      • I then ask for
        • Knowledge of God's will for me
        • The power to carry that out
      • I then do that
      • My success is trying
        • 'When an occasion of practicing some virtue was offered, he addressed himself to God saying, "Lord, I cannot do this unless Thou enablest me". And then he received strength more than sufficient. When he had failed in his duty, he only confessed his fault saying to God, "I shall never do otherwise, if You leave me to myself. It is You who must hinder my falling and mend what is amiss." Then, after this, he gave himself no further uneasiness about it.' (Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence)
      • I am not in a position to judge success in terms of results
      • Apparent failure in the world's eyes could be success in God's
      • Apparent success in the world's eyes could be failure in God's
  • The seven blessings of doing God's will
    • Health, happiness, harmony, love, joy, peace, and connection
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