The Fourth Tradition
 

I like tradition meetings. We have one every month. Today, of course, being April, was the fourth...


Tradition 4. .short form

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


Tradition 4. -Long Form

With respect to its own affairs, each A.A. group should be responsible to no other authority than its own conscience. But when its plans concern the welfare of neighboring groups also, those groups ought to be consulted. And no group, regional committee, or individual should ever take any action that might greatly affect A.A. as a whole without conferring with the Trustees of the General Service Board. On such issues our common welfare is paramount.

How does the fourth tradition work in your life, in your recovery?

Pg 149 of the 12 X 12, tradition 4, Rule # 62...

"don't take yourself too DAMN seriously..."

Tradition Four

Tradition Four is a specific application of general principles already outlined in Traditions One and Two. Tradition One states : "Each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. AA must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence our common welfare comes first. But individual welfare follows close afterward." Tradition Two states: " For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience."

With these concepts in mind, let us look more closely at Tradition Four. The first sentence guarantees each AA group local autonomy. With respect to its own affairs, the group may make any decisions, adopt any attitudes that it likes. No overall or intergroup authority should challenge this primary privilege. We feel this ought to be so, even though the group might sometimes act with complete indifference to our Tradition. For example, an AA group could, if it wished, hire a paid preacher and support him out of the proceeds of a group nightclub. Though such an absurd procedure would be miles outside our Tradition, the group's "right to be wrong" would be held inviolate. We are sure that each group can be granted, and safely granted, these most extreme privileges. We know that our familiar process of trial and error would summarily eliminate both the preacher and the nightclub. These severe growing pains which invariably follow any radical departure from AA Tradition can be absolutely relied upon to bring an erring group back into line. An AA group need not be coerced by any human government over and above its own members. Their own experience, plus AA opinion in surrounding groups, plus God's prompting in their group conscience would be sufficient. Much travail has already taught us this. Hence we may confidently say to each group, "You should be responsible to no other authority than your own conscience."

Yet please note one important qualification. It will be seen that such extreme liberty of thought and action applies only to the group's own affairs. Rightly enough, this Tradition goes on to say, "But when its plans concern the welfare of neighboring groups also, these groups ought to be consulted." Obviously, if any individual, group, or regional committee could take an action that might seriously affect the welfare of Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole or seriously disturb surrounding groups, that would not be liberty at all. It would be sheer license; it would be anarchy, not democracy.

Therefore, we AAs have universally adopted the principle of consultation. This means that if a single AA group wishes to take an action that might affect surrounding groups, it consults them. Or, it confers with the intergroup committee for the area, if there be one. Likewise, if a group or regional committee wishes to take any action that might affect AA as a whole, it consults the trustees of the Alcoholic Foundation, who are, in effect, our overall general service committee. For instance, no group or inter group could feel free to initiate, without consultation, any publicity that might affect AA as a whole. Nor could it assume to represent the whole of Alcoholics Anonymous by printing and distributing anything purporting to be AA standard literature. This same principle would naturally apply to all similar situations. Though there is no formal compulsion to do so, all undertakings of this general character are customarily checked with our AA general Headquarters.

This idea is clearly summarized in the last sentence of Tradition Four, which observes, "On such issues our common welfare is paramount."


Copyright © The A.A. Grapevine, Inc., March 1948

Video's of Bill Wilson and The Serenity Prayer

Click on Tradition 3, and Bill talks about 3 and 4...

The link for 4, is actually 5!

Be patient!

Every group has the right to be wrong.

This is a great tradition....

Pretty good website- thx for that!

LOL, don't worry Boleo, I don't take my self seriously enough most of the time, LOL

I find that this tradition is very powerful in my own life in my recovery... It lets groups have their own identity... and I become a part of the group that "fits"... I form friendships, support groups, have accountability and perform service.

I like this tradition... but like all of them, it doesn't stand alone, it is interdependent with them all.

I've been AA for a long time and watched neiboring groups struggle with this one.

There are alot of ways to look at each tradition, but i'm gonna say something about the very logical..concrete daily interactions of neiboring groups.

We had 5 very different types of AA groups in our area 20 years ago. For a while we were all ego driven. Each group was offended by the existance of the others, my way or the hyway was the tone. It seems like a small thing, but we would all schedule "AA events" over the top of each other...this was ego.

The same groups that so "hated" each other (though none of them would have admitted to that at the time), began to see in their group inventories the harm they were doing by their actions. In the aniversery celebrations of local groups today there is alot of laughter over all the ways we got it wrong back then.

These groups live in mostly harmony (of course not complete lol) today. A very basic thing we do is not schedule over each other. We plan events so people don't have to choose one group event over another.

I also here things today from groups who function very differently about acceptance and respect for other AA groups.

Today, in my town, we all attend meetings together. We are small. We cannot isolate from each other and survive as a whole or as an individual. We don't pretend to believe differently than we do, but we accept that others may believe diffrently, and the groups pretty much all go back to basics. We agree to disagree, but work together to help the town alkies regardless of wich particular group and version they adhere too.

It's been a real learning journey.

I recently listened to a man with 7 yrs of sobriety explain to me that under this tradition, OD meetings/groups can exist and discuss topics that either cannot be reconciled with or take exception with the Big Book.

So...we take a part from the book, use it so that we can meet under the name that came from said book, but never ever have to discuss said book, and it's fine and dandy because it came from the book?

Sounds like attempted murder.

LOL

Ah but that's the beauty of this tradition... I happen to enjoy open discussion meetings. I get a lot out of them. I have seen times when someone who shares strays from the message, but we are able to move back onto the AA beam pretty quick... and sometimes those misfires are actually useful and help those who don't understand... And for those who don't appreciate OD meetings, in our region there are plenty of Speaker Meetings, Big Book Study, etc...

The other traditions are there to safeguard us from those who would attempt murder...

Mark

P.S. It appears in my OP that I neglected to credit my quotes... They are from the 1st Edition of the big book... I had them, but lost them when I edited the OP after I posted it...

:redface:

My home group and the other group in town both have
way more OD but both groups voted in GC to use
only the BB for topics....:)

This has nothing to do with the fact some consider
both to be middle of the road
on the broad high way of AA.

Of course....we did not ask permission from other AA groups or anyone
:)

How this tradition works in my recovery and in my life has evolved from the group level into my home, and workplace. I have a right to be an individual, as does my wife. And we are free to seek our path. We are free to make mistakes, in fact we have a right to be wrong. Up and until it harms the other, or the household as a whole. Keeping in mind that traditions 2-12 support the 1st tradition, unity. This tradition taught my wife and I that co-dependence is no path to freedom. The 7th tradition supported this in that we are implored to be self supporting through our own contributions. I am responsible for my own recovery. She is responsible for her own.

yep :c043: The founders of AA learned that we don't have to fear those who believe differently, we simply continue to say our truth. AA is not as fragile as some would have us think :)

I have found, with no exceptions that I can recall, that the Traditions need not contradict each other. A group can be run in accordance with all the Traditions, not just a select few.

The actual application of Tradition 4, the actual coming to an informed group conscience directed by a loving God, results in action that is in accordance with the other Traditions. Namely, the actions taken by the application of Tradition 4 will result in increased, not decreased unity.

When Tradition 4 is used as justification for 'doing what I want', then the resulting actions lead to decreased unity.

That's been my practical, applied experience.

I try to avoid going on "reading" days, as I tend to ruffle some feathers with my keen commentary. People usually remember me. :-)

Sometimes I forget to check, though, and I showed up at a meeting on tradition reading day this month.

I actually like this Tradition, though, so I was able to say something positive. I think Bill Wilson's insistence on the adoption of decentralized anarchist principles for AA's organization was most insightful.

AA would not have spread as far and wide where it not for this. There are simply too many regional variations in culture and taste, not to mention different religions, languages, and even countries.

I've gone to meetings in Synagogues, and they have a slightly different feel than the ones held in Churches. I've also gone to Agnostic, GLBT, and Spanish language meetings.

I like the variety, and I like the options.

That said, as the old saying goes, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do," so if I'm in a new meeting for the first time, I tend lie low, observe, and not cause trouble.