Whether you are the husband, wife, lover, parent or child of a problem drinker, your understanding of the nature of the problem can play a vital part in helping the alcoholic to achieve and maintain sobriety. Hope is the ever-present theme in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
Many members, once considered hopeless drunks, now have years of sobriety behind them.
Be reminded that hope need never be abandoned and that you can help through your understanding of the illness and of AA itself through your willingness to apply the programme in your own daily life. You will not be alone. The hopes and good wishes of more than one and a half million sober alcoholics accompany you all the way.
The 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous
1. AA’s common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.
2. For the AA’s group purpose there is but one ultimate authority- a loving God as He may express Himself in the group conscience. The leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
6. An AA group ought 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.
7. Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. AA, as such, ought never to be organised; but may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never to be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and film.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
The AA Estcourt branch hosts meetings every Tuesday at Forderville Primary School from 7pm to 8pm. Contact Desigan on 082 849 3014.
