[navysteve]

Thought maybe we could kick this around a bit:

Practice These Principles . . .

Tradition One: Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.

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Am I in my group a healing, mending, integrating person, or am I divisive? What about gossip and taking other member's inventories?
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Am I a peacemaker? Or do I, with pious preludes such as “just for the sake of discussion,” plunge into argument?
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Am I gentle with those who rub me the wrong way, or am I abrasive?
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Do I make competitive AA remarks, such as comparing one group with another or contrasting AA in one place with AA in another?
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Do I put down some AA activities as if I were superior for not participating in this or that aspect of AA?
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Am I informed about AA as a whole? Do I support, in every way I can, AA as a whole, or just the parts I understand and approve of?
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Am I as considerate of AA members as I want them to be of me?
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Do I spout platitudes about love while indulging in and secretly justifying behavior that bristles with hostility?
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Do I go to enough AA meetings or read enough AA literature to really keep in touch?
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Do I share with AA all of me, the bad and the good, accepting as well as giving the help of the fellowship?

Tradition Two: 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.

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Do I criticize or do I trust and support my group officers, AA committees, and office workers? Newcomers? Old-timers?
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Am I absolutely trustworthy, even in secret, with AA Twelfth Step jobs or other AA responsibility?
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Do I look for credit in my AA jobs? Praise for my AA ideas?
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Do I have to save face in group discussion, or can I yield in good spirit to the group conscience and work cheerfully along with it?
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Although I have been sober a few years, am I willing to serve my turn at AA chores?
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In group discussions, do I sound off about matters on which I have no experience and little knowledge?

Tradition Three: The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

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In my mind, do I prejudge some new AA members as losers?
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Is there some kind of alcoholic whom I privately do not want in my AA group?
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Do I set myself up as a judge of whether a newcomer is sincere or phony?
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Do I let language, religion (or lack of it), race, education, age, or other such things interfere with my carrying the message?
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Am I over impressed by a celebrity? By a doctor, a clergyman, and ex-convict? Or can I just treat this new member simply and naturally as one more sick human, like the rest of us?
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When someone turns up at AA needing information or help (even if he can’t ask for it aloud), does it really matter to me what he does for a living? Where he lives? What his domestic arrangements are? Whether he had been to AA before? What his other problems are?

Just the first three for now. More to come down the road