Ryan Schmidt, alcoholic. Also past delegate for Area 23, Southern Indiana, panel 70, which was the lucky panel that had to be Zoom for both conferences. So that is something that I hold together with all my panel 70 people. But anyway, we still got the work of uh AA taken care of via Zoom. What I've done is I've looked at what either talking about how in my life traditions, you know, help keep me on a narrow path, on the right path. But I thought also that we need to look at maybe how we got here. So what I've got here is called the AA Tradition, How It Developed by Bill W. And if you want to get the pamphlet, it's pamphlet number 17. You can go online and get that or read it online or however. But this pamphlet tells the story of NAA co-founder Bill's own words of the emergence and development of the essential principles central to AA unity and survival. Bill W.'s Forward presents in their original form the 12 points to assure our future. In all but the second tradition, the original language has been modified or shortened. There are two pieces by Bill W. on the anonymity traditions, one written when the fellowship was 11 years old, the other nine years later. Together they buttress our best known and perhaps least understood Tradition 11 and 12. All right, this is the foreword from Bill. This is Bill's words. We shall how shall we AAs best preserve our unity? That is the subject of this booklet. When an alcoholic applies the 12 steps of our recovery program to his personal life, his disintegration stops and his unification begins. The power which now holds him together in one piece overcomes those forces which had rent him apart. Exactly the same principles applies to each AA group and Alcoholics Namas as a whole, so long as the ties with which bind us together prove far stronger than the forces which would divide us if they could. We all will be well. We shall be secure as a movement or our essentially unity will remain a certainty. So I'm going to start off with his first point. Okay. This is number one. Our AA experience has taught us that 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. And that is tradition one, which is our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity. Two, for our group purpose, there is one ultimate authority. A loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. For our group 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. Three, our membership ought to be to include all who suffer alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover, nor ought AA membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation. And that turned into three, the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. Four, with respect to its own affairs, each AA group should be responsible to no other authority than its own conscience. But when it 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 AA as a whole without conferring with the trustees of the Alcoholic Foundation. On such issues, our common welfare is paramount. And that turned into each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. Five, each alcoholic anonymous group ought to be spiritual entity having but one primary purpose, that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. And that came became each group has but one primary purpose to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. 6. Problems of money, property, and authority that easily divert us from our primary spiritual aim, we think there are therefore that any considerable property or genuine use to AA should be separate, separately incorporated and managed, thus dividing the material from the spiritual. An AA group, as such, should never go into business. Secondary age to A, such as clubs or hospitals, which require much property and administration, ought to be incorporated and set apart, that it is necessary that they can be freely discarded by the groups. Hence, such facilities ought not use the AA name. Their management should be 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 a cooperation ought never go so far as affiliation or endorsement, actual or implied. AA group can bind itself to no one. And that shortened down became AA group ought to 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. Then, seven, the AA group themselves ought to be fully supported by the voluntary contributions of their own members. We think that each group should soon achieve this ideal that any public solicitation of funds using the name of Alcoholics Anonymous is highly dangerous. Whether by group, clubs, hospitals, or other outside agencies, that acceptance of large gifts from any source of contributions carrying any obligations whatever is unwise. Then, too, we view with much concern those AA treasuries which continue beyond prudent reserve to accumulate funds for no stated AA purpose. Experience has often warned us that nothing can so surely destroy our spiritual heritage as a futile dispute over property, money, or authority. That means every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. So a lot of thought has gone into these as Bill has worked on these points. Eight, alcoholics anonymous should remain forever non-professional. We define professionalism as the occupation of counseling. Alcoholics for fees are higher. But we may employ an alcoholic where they are going to perform the service for which we might otherwise have to engage non-alcoholics. Such special services may be well recompensated, but our usual AA-12 step, which is never to be paid for. So network alcoholics anonymous should remember forever, should remain forever non-professional. But our service centers may employ special workers. Nine, each AA group needs to be needs the least possible organization. Rotating leadership is the best. The small group may elect its secretary, the large group its rotating committee. The groups of a large metropolitan area, their central intergroups committee, which which often employs full-time secretary, the trustee of the Alcoholic Foundations, are in effect. Our AA General Service Committee, they are the custodians of our AA tradition and the receivers of voluntary AA contributions, by which we maintain our AA General Service Office at New York. They are authorized by groups to handle the overpublic, overall public relations, and they guarantee the integrity of our principal journal. The AA group Grapevine, all such representatives are to be guided in the spirit of service, for true leaders in AA are never are but trusted and experienced servants of the whole. They derive no real authority from their titles. They do not govern. Universal respect is the key to their usefulness. From that, Bill got the AA as such ought never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. And number 10, no AA group or member should ever in such a way to implicate AA express any opinions on outside controversial issues, particularly those of politics, alcohol reform, or secretarian religion. The Alcoholics Anonymous Group opposes no one concerning such matters. They can express no views whatever. And that became Alcoholics Anonymous, has no opinion on outside issues, hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy. 11. Our relations with the general public should be characterized by personal anonymity. We think that AA ought to avoid sensational advertising. Our name and pictures as AA members ought not be broadcast, filmed, or publicly printed. Our public relations should be guided by the principles of attraction rather than promotion. There is never need to praise ourselves. We feel it better to let our friends recommend us. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need alcoholics, we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and film. And finally, 12, and finally, we of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the principle of anonymity has immense spiritual significance. It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities, that we are actually to practice genuine humility. This is to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us, that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of Him who presided over all. So anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our perditions. Ever remind us to place principles before personalities. So that was Bill wrote this in 1955. And as you go through the rest of this booklet, which we could spend quite a few hours doing this, but in any event, you know, 1946, who is a member of Alcoholics Ananimous is appointed here. And Tradition 3 grew out of this place by Bill in A.A. Grapevine. Hospitals in AA. Excerpts from Bill W.'s Adequate Hospitalization article in A.A. Grapevine. In 1947, background for Tradition 6. Clubs in are the are with us to stay. That was in 1947. More background for Tradition 6. So there is pages upon pages in regards to that. Although dangers in linking AA to other projects, also in 1947. Dangers that Tradition 6 and 8 recognize. So there was a lot of input at that time early on. Here's 1946. What led up to the writing of Tradition 7? Money. Always a big factor. Anytime you get a bunch of alcoholics together and you bring up money, it's a hell of a long discussion. All right. And I think that's about all the headlines. Oh no, anonymity. 1946. One of the first articles in our vital anonymity traditions. So that front was right in place to be sacred and kept. Why is Alcoholics Anonymous? Why Alcoholic Anonymous is anonymous? How Bell felt about anonymity 20 years after AA was formed. This was in 1955. As never before, the struggle for power, importance, and wealth is tearing civilizations apart. Man against man, family against family, group against group, nation against nation. Nearly all those engaged in this fierce competition declare that their aim is peace and justice for themselves, their neighbors, and their nations. Give us power and we shall have justice. Give us fame and we shall have great example. Give us money and we shall be comfortable and happy. People throughout the world deeply believe that an act according to this appalling dry bender society seems to be staggering down a dead end road. The stop sign is clearly marked. It says disaster. So, like I said, there is a lot in here to give you some of the background on when Bill was putting together the traditions. If you read any of the other books that are out there, the history of the of our pro of our program, when they were writing the big book, the actual discussions on how and what was going to be going in the big book, and Bill writing things up and them tearing it apart. So there was a lot of emphasis put on uh what was going to go in there. And Bill knew that what he experienced in writing the big book, that if he didn't do something as far as our traditions, which for me is our kind of our Bible for our program and for our for our uh groups out there to keep us from destroying the unity and the uh need for having Alcoholics Anonymous. Uh I prefer myself to read the 12 traditions in the long form, but I I think I don't think there's any meeting that I'm going to at the moment that's reading the the long form. But to me, it kind of spells out a little bit more like this did here with Bill, taking the points that was available to him, available to him at that time to come up with the 12 traditions. And for hopefully will keep us forever on the right path. So I think that's all I wanted to do is get this down on the group's and the AA's history with the traditions.