I almost forgot to include a brief AA recovery thing this month in my blog that I came across during my International AA Conference weekend in Atlanta, GA. My friend and I were visiting the 8111 Clubhouse in Sandy Springs, GA, taking a break from the busy convention, when we both noticed two interesting things hanging on the wall there. One was titled “12 Step Principles”, while the other was titled “12 Tradition Principles”. While normally it’s quite common to see the full 12 Steps and the full 12 Traditions hanging at every AA meeting place, here they were summarized into a word or two for each step or tradition. This is how they actually appeared:
12 STEP PRINCIPLES
- HONESTY
- HOPE
- FAITH
- COURAGE
- INTEGRITY
- WILLINGNESS
- HUMILITY
- BROTHERLY LOVE
- SELF DISCIPLINE
- PERSERVERANCE
- AWARENESS OF GOD
- SERVICE
And here is a link to the full 12 Steps: 12 Steps
12 STEP TRADITIONS
- UNITY
- FAITH
- ACCEPTANCE
- RESPECT
- UNANIMITY
- INTEGRITY
- RESPONSIBLITY
- SERVICE
- GRATITUDE
- TOLERANCE
- HUMILITY
- ANONYMITY
And here is a link to the full 12 Traditions: 12 Traditions
I’m sure there’s a lot I could say about each one of these principles, but I think it might be best to leave that for anyone in a 12 Step recovery program who’s reading this to ponder for themselves. I would like to mention though that the two I connected to the most are the summarized principles for Step 3 and Step 11, because having faith and awareness of God are the sole things that have saved me from returning to a life of addiction time and time and time again.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson