Tradition 03

(short) The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.
(long) Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.

1. Primary principle(s): Inclusiveness, identification, responsibility
2. Other principles: Acceptance, anonymity, compassion, confession, consideration, generosity, honesty, humility, integrity, selflessness, surrender, tolerance, trust, truthfulness

Readings:

• Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions pp. 139-145
• The Twelve Traditions Illustrated Tradition 3
• Problems Other Than Alcohol - AAWS Pamphlet
• Is AA For You? - AAWS Pamphlet
• AA Tradition - How It Developed - AAWS Pamphlet pp. 10-12
• “A Desire to Stop Drinking” - November 1988 AA Grapevine
• “Using Tradition Three within the AA Fellowship” - March 2004 AA Grapevine
• “Tradition Three: No Jail Terms Required” - May 2000 AA Grapevine
• “Communication and Culture” - September 1993AA Grapevine
• “A Doctor Speaks” - May 2001 AA Grapevine

Some would argue (as I have certainly agreed in the past), that the short form of the 3rd tradition has done much to harm our fellowship and caused great mischief as to who is and is not an AA member and, by implications, what rights and privileges are granted as a consequence of membership.  For example, should one person or another be allowed to share at a particular meeting?  What is an appropriate topic for an open or closed meeting of AA?  Why do we have open and closed AA meetings?

Yet, it’s pretty clear that this organization is based on  a highway of permission rather than a constraining  straitjacket of conformity to my or anyone else’s belief as to what it means to be a member of our fellowship. As long as we have no outside affiliation, we can be first, foremost and only an AA group.

Grapevine traditions checklist:

1. In my mind, do I prejudge some new AA members as losers?
   • Principles: trust (in God, AA), humility, tolerance, acceptance
2. Is there some kind of alcoholic whom I privately do not want in my AA group?
   • Principles: acceptance, grace, kindness, generosity
3. Do I set myself up as a judge of whether a newcomer is sincere or phony?
   • Principles: willingness, humility, honesty, responsibility, kindness
4. Do I let language, religion (or lack of it), race, education, age, or other such things interfere with my carrying the message?
   • Principles: responsibility, willingness, kindness
5. Am I overimpressed by a celebrity? By a doctor, a clergyman, an ex-convict? Or can I just treat this new member simply and naturally as one more sick human, like the rest of us?
   • Principles: humility, equality, democracy, trust
6. 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?
   • Principles: singleness of purpose, acceptance, diversity, equality