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ABSTRACT

This quotation speaks of the perennial difficulty of providing information to the public about organizations whose Tradition eleven states "our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion" on one hand, and continues by "we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV and film." Such anonymity is prescribed not only to protect the individual members of the fellowship, but also to protect the fellowship itself from public controversy. It is, last but not least, suggested as a device of ego deflation or transcendence, one of the key prizes of recovery and self realization. It is therefore important, from the onset, to state that the following discussion of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions is neither made by a member of Alcoholics Anonymous or on behalf of any other fellowship bound by the eleventh Tradition. By mid 1987, 83 different associations had asked permission to adopt or to adapt the Twelve Steps of A.A. (Kurtz, p. 287). Consequently, it has become easier to experience the wisdom of the Steps and share aspects of that experience with others without explicitly or implicitly identifying any specific organization. The careful avoidance of signs of affiliation offers also the opportunity to extract from the Steps and the Traditions what is universal. This may contribute to cross-fertilization between totally separate organizations and be useful to younger fellowships which, unlike A.A. or Al-Anon, do not have the benefit of a regular population of "old-timers" embodying a living example of the spirit behind words that were written half a century ago. The extensive experience available in the two mature fellowships of A.A. and Al-Anon keeps the spirit of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions alive even if the original wording of these texts has been somewhat rigidly enshrined as love letters and mementos from family elders.

For new members reaching the doors of mutual aid fellowships and for professionals willing to learn about available resources in personal and social health, the Steps and the Traditions may, at first, appear as uninspiring texts containing some controversial words. The reference to a God addressed as a patriarchal "Him", in particular, causes difficulties to survivors of a rigid religious upbringing and to those, particularly women, painfully reminded of patriarchal power.

The objective of this paper is to inform and to clarify in order to prevent the terminology used in the Steps and Traditions from hiding the concepts and the spirit they were meant to convey. The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions are the blueprint of a journey into wholeness. The Steps are appropriately written in a past tense and in the plural because they embody the cumulative experience and wisdom of a past experience which can be paraphrased by: "This is what We did, and it worked for us. Now, do as you wish." Mutual aid is born when one individual respectfully shares with another his experience and, as Ernest Kurtz puts it, when both "share honestly a mutual vulnerability openly acknowledged" (Kurtz, pp. 221, 304). The terminology of the Twelve Steps and Traditions is discussed below, along with the principles they embody, in terms of psychological self realization and in terms of spiritual integration. The essence of mutual aid is then examined, with emphasis on how it constitutes an important medium for achieving self realization and integration through the reciprocal effect of identification and service. The pros and cons of enshrining the texts of the Steps and the Traditions and the role of language in their large scale acceptance are also reviewed. Underlying this discussion, a clear invitation is also directed to younger fellowships to draw more readily from the impressive source of wisdom embodied in the Steps and Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon and in the literature they have inspired.

The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous were written by Bill W. and published in a long form in The AA Grapevine in 1946 and their short form was published in 1949. They constitute a thorough definition of Unity, the second legacy of A.A.. They answered the needs of an expanding fellowship seeking to maintain its cohesion at a time of spectacular growth, by answering all basic questions of newly formed groups, such as: Who are we, what are our boundaries, prerogatives and obligations, how do our groups relate to one another and to the outside world. The first Step begins with the word We and one can understand the role of the Traditions by imagining that this first word is marked by an asterisk referring to a footnote, under the Steps, that would say: for a clear understanding of "We" as used in the Steps, please study and practice the Twelve Traditions.

The third legacy of A.A. is Service, meaning a personal commitment to serve the fellowship by undertaking to help its operation at the local, regional, national or international levels. Having, quite fortuitously, found a symbolic and redeeming value in number "twelve", one is hardly surprised to find the guidelines for service described also in Twelve Concepts written and edited several times by Bill W. between 1959 and 1960 and adopted by A.A. in 1962 (Kurtz, p. 257, and Wing, 1993). History has it that Bill W. when he finally counted the Steps he had written, associated twelve with the twelve apostles (Kurtz, p. 70). Iconoclastic humour would suggest that, at least in the jargon of beer drinkers, if the liquid spirit of addiction comes in packs of twelve, why not also the Spirit of recovery. The Concepts deal with matters of administration of the fellowship, definitions of leadership, distinction between legal authority of trustees and traditional authority of group representatives and are beyond the scope of the present discussion. This is not to minimize their significance since they are essential to the practical operation of organizations, especially those composed of several groups. The Concepts can be seen as explaining the Traditions, especially when they talk about authority (Tradition 2), service centres (Tradition 8), service boards or committees (Tradition 9).

From the beginning, A.A.'s story is one of diversity, if not plain apparent contradictions, especially regarding the question of religion. For example attending A.A. meetings was, on one hand banned by some Catholic priests in the Cleveland-Akron area while, on the other hand, every effort was made in New York, by Bill W. and others, to avoid being perceived as associated with the Catholic Church (Kurtz, p. 76). Bill W.'s position towards organized religions seems, however, quite clear when he writes in 1948: "The thing that still irks me about all organized religion is their claim how confoundedly right all of them are" (Kurtz, p. 52). These words echo quite strikingly the quote given above about "the spirituality of not having all the answers" and should suffice, in the present discussion, to draw the line between what is meant as religious and what is meant as spiritual, even if, ideally, the two should be and are related. The Steps are written in terms that borrow from religion without losing their dimension as a spiritual prescription. They are "suggested steps" of enquiry, they do not claim to provide all the answers. The 200 words of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are given in Table 1. For the sake of comparison, the Twelve Steps of Al-Anon are listed in Table 3. Both A.A. and Al-Anon provide extensive discussions of the Steps in their literature. Numerous "outside" publications also cover the subject and the reader is referred to leading publishers on the topic such as Hazelden (Hazelden, 1991).

In contemporary psychological terms the Twelve Steps can be interpreted as follows:

• 1- We admitted we were powerless over our compulsive behaviour and that our lives had gone out of control;
• 2- We came to believe that there was a way out of our misery: surrendering to change rather than holding to our will to control;
• 3- We decided to open ourselves to the healing powers of Life;
• 4- We examined thoroughly our personalities in order to recognize the kind of persons we had become;
• 5- We genuinely accepted the results of our findings and fully disclosed our true personalities to another human being;
• 6- We became ready to change;
• 7- We gave ourselves entirely to a process of personal repair and transformation;
• 8- We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all;
• 9- We made amends to all people we had harmed, wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others;
• 10- We adopted a discipline of self awareness and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it;
• 11- We adopted a discipline of spiritual growth, seeking harmony in our relations with the visible and the invisible world, within us and outside of us;
• 12- Having had a spiritual awakening, as a result of these Steps, we tried to carry the message
• to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

In succinct terminology, the Twelve Traditions can be interpreted as follows:

• 1- Unity: in case of conflicting needs, the safety of the boat has priority over the individual needs of the passengers;
• 2- Authority: we are all manifestations of Life and its most sacred mystery which many call God, serving Life is the essence of our being alive, we serve Life whether we act as leaders or as regular members in our mutual aid fraternity;
• 3- Group identity: we identify around a single common purpose, freedom from bondage;
• 4- Group autonomy: each group is autonomous as long as unity of the whole fraternity is maintained;
• 5- Our single purpose is mutual aid in order to overcome our specific problem;
• 6- We have a spiritual goal and do not endorse any outside organizations or causes;
• 7- We are financially self supporting;
• 8- Our mutual aid is non-professional, i.e. not remunerated and knows no hierarchy; our service centres may employ special workers.
• 9- We have no structure except to administer our service functions;
• 10- We stay out of public controversy;
• 11- We practice attraction rather than promotion, and anonymity is a needed protection for all;
• 12- Anonymity is also a way to induce transcendence of the ego and to promote spiritual growth.

The Steps, Traditions and Concepts are the principles by which A.A. and its sister fellowship of Al-Anon have been able to establish their healing influence in over 180 countries and to provide recovery guidelines to countless individuals whose disease is still often scorned as a perversion, increasing their load of toxic shame. In the words of Edward Dowling quoted by Kurtz: "A.A. has proven that democracy is therapy." One could even go one step further and suggest that in the Steps, Traditions and Concepts of A.A. lies also a therapy for ailing democracy. One may indeed dream of recovery groups for politicians having admitted powerlessness over their addiction to power. Such groups would likely be very anonymous. Their members could use their proficiency in the art of writing laws and constitutions to review the Traditions, upgrading to number one a second Tradition which states that "our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern". In all fairness, they may also promote a much neglected "Concept four" suggesting that "Participation is the key to harmony" and all of us would do well to listen.

The story of Bill W.'s boomerang

Some thirty years later, one finds the same Willie as a co-founder of A.A., the pioneer and landmark of Twelve-Step-based mutual aid and the inspiration of over a hundred similar movements in the late twentieth century. How befitting to discover that the boomerang concept of mutual aid, of giving away to get, of serving to receive, was prefigured in Bill W.'s first success in an otherwise difficult childhood. And how ironic that the metaphor for mutual aid, a boomerang carved in the headboard of a bed having witnessed the young boy's most intimate dreams and his craving rooted in felt-rejection, had its first revolutions over a graveyard!

Ralph Waldo Emerson provides a very clear definition of how mutual aid works when he says: "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself in the process." It is also one of the paradoxes of life that one often has to fall victim of a debilitating pain in the form of compulsions, or of overwhelming feelings resulting from traumatic events, to resort to mutual aid and to benefit from its life-giving rewards. It has often been said that one has to learn to die in order to live (e.g. Singer, 1991). The corollary of this affirmation is that many who have known the spiritual death of compulsive disorders count among the most grateful and enthusiastic witnesses of life one can ever meet, going as far as expressing gratitude towards their painful past, a sure sign of personal integration and wholeness. This leads to what Romeder describes as the "extraordinary human warmth" of mutual aid groups (Romeder, chapter 3).

Examples of such a shift are found in several mutual aid groups for Adult Children of Alcoholics and for codependents. Such groups often require that members identify with a reading called "The Problem" which defines the state of emotional confusion and felt-rejection that characterizes adults raised in compulsive homes or educated in rigid institutions. The adult child of alcoholic and the adult child of a workaholic or of a food addict or of any other obsessive- compulsive personality, share the emotional illiteracy and distortion of personal boundaries they learned from adult models. Various compulsive behaviours develop in such children to cope with emotional abandonment and continue to inhibit their self realization as adults, whence the generic name of adult children, both diminutive for adults, children of ... and ambivalent name for former children not yet grown into adults and adults repressing the child within. Such adult children identify with one another not necessarily because of the particular compulsion they wish to gain freedom from, but because of the common emotional crippleness they recognize in their lives (Woititz, 1990; Laguitton, 1992). Alateen is a Twelve-Step fellowship for teenagers of alcoholic families operating within the fellowship of Al-Anon which serves families and friends of alcoholics.

Describing his "dependence", Bill W. writes in 1953: "I know that my underlying difficulty from which all others stem and are merely symptomatic, is that inner insistence which demands that I either be absolutely dependent upon someone, or else dominate them. [...]. I am beginning to see that all my troubles have their root in a habitual and absolute dependence upon my personal prestige, security, and romantic attachment. When these things go wrong, there is depression. Now this absolute dependence upon people and situations for emotional security is, I think, the immense and devastating fallacy that makes us miserable" (Kurtz, p. 214).

Without forgetting that Bill W. identified first and foremost with other alcoholics, can one find a better identification under the broader umbrella of what is, today, called codependence, i.e. dependence on others? One may ask, in light of this account, how much commonality would Bill W. have also found in the "shared honesty of mutual vulnerability openly acknowledged" in the fellowships of adult children of alcoholics or codependents as briefly described above and what contribution he could have made in their development.

The Twelve Steps movement of mutual aid is a grassroot response to the alienation felt by modern man. Interestingly enough, the religious terminology for alienation is sin, whose root signifies also separation, estrangement. Therefore, expressed in modern psychological terms or in traditional religious terms, the Twelve Steps are a suggested path towards the reunification of fragmented lives, i.e. a return to sanity. Reconciliation with oneself implies reconciliation with the entire body of mankind and a harmonious relationship with all things and beings, in awe and reverence for the power and mystery of Life.

Words as messengers of spirit

The What criterion of a communication is a matter of motive and content, it is the spirit of what is expressed. Sensory communication is only one narrow and noisy channel we commonly use to communicate and which requires a How, a form in which the spirit can become manifest, e.g. a sound, an image, a shape, a word. Words are usually associated with conventional meaning but it takes the context of other words to clarify and reveal their precise spirit, not unlike relationships with others reveal one's own spirit in mutual aid. Quoting words out of context is like breaking Tradition one, the guardian of unity, threatening the integrity of the meaning expressed by the author. What was meant by the author of a word may not always be understood by the most attentive reader or listener. Besides the linguistic or cultural differences in the meaning of a word at a given time for different people, a change of meaning takes also place with time in any given culture. Obsolescence and archaism make the meaning of some words hard to grasp. One rarely reads Shakespeare or MoliŠre in the original texts, and only a few scholars can return to the source to propose a new "interpretation". Communication always requires some interpretation. One trustee director of A.A. quoted by Kurtz said, speaking of A.A. key documents: "The authors of this priceless material knew what they were doing. Their word requires study, not interpretation" (Kurtz, p. 405, note 143). At the risk of misinterpreting the words of this well meaning trusted servant, one can assume that he meant "their word requires practice before interpretation." What he meant by "study" has indeed probably very little to do with cognitive knowledge. The profound uneasiness of Bill W. with "absolutes", an underlying theme in Kurtz's history of A.A., comes to mind to support interpretation over dogmatism.

The Where and When criteria of quality communication require that one take into consideration the environment at large in order to minimize interference, dilution and corruption and to maximize chances of preserving the meaning. The critical importance of choosing the proper place and time for words of humour is well known. Interestingly enough, words of humour are also called spirited, loaded with spirit. What can be found hilarious and most comical in a given context can be tasteless or "out of place" in another. Time plays a critical role in the erosion and in the cultural dampening of inspired words. The chief quality of an inspiring page of literature or scripture is that it evokes human archetypes and invites frequent reinterpretations that keep it alive as a perennial source of wisdom. Stephen Mitchell, in the introduction of his new English version of Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching says "I also consulted dozens of translations into English, German, and French. But the most essential preparation for my work was a fourteen- years-long course of Zen training which brought me face to face with Lao-tzu and his true disciples and heirs..."(Mitchell, 1991). Interestingly, the cover of the book carries a quote from Huston Smith saying "[this translation] comes as close to being definitive for our time as any I can imagine". Without reinterpretations, the spirit of this text, like any other, would undergo a process of decay and sclerosis.

Bill W. was very aware of this, as noted by Kurtz: "One motive impelling Wilson to write Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions [an explanatory manual on the Steps and the Traditions published in 1953] had been the realization that the original text of the "Big Book," Alcoholics Anonymous had become "frozen"- too "sacred" for even its principal author's taste." Another reason was that someone else had started writing an interpretation of the Twelve Steps and that Bill W. was urged to do it himself since he had been the driving force behind them in the first place (Wing, 1993). In 1952 Wilson wrote to Charles W.: "As to changing the Steps themselves, or even the text of the A.A. book, I am assured by many that I could certainly be excommunicated if a word were touched. It is a strange fact of human nature that when a spiritually centred movement starts and finally adopts certain principles, these finally freeze absolutely solid. But what can't be done respecting the Steps themselves- or any part of the A.A. book, I can make a shift by writing these pieces which I hope folks will like"(Kurtz, p. 132). Almost ten years later, in 1961, commenting on the aging of the same Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions book he writes: "As time passes, our book literature has a tendency to get more and more frozen- a tendency for conversion into something like dogma. This is a trait of nature which I'm afraid we can do little about. We may as well face the fact that A.A. will always have its fundamentalists, its absolutists, and its relativists" (Kurtz, p. 356, note 67).

The policy of using only Conference-approved literature in large fellowships like A.A. and Al-Anon, requires that documents be approved by the World Service Office or Conference (WSO or WSC), or by national committees responsible to them. It has the paramount objective of maintaining a worldwide spirit of unity and a focus on undiluted and non-distorted themes of recovery. The anguish of those committed to maintaining the integrity of such valuable texts as the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions transpires in the comments of a General Service Director in 1986: "How might we prevent distortion or even simple erosion of our message without copyright protection?" (Kurtz, p. 299). One could add to this legitimate concern a similar one that laments the impact of time and space on any text, protected by copyright or not. English being the mother language of A.A. and an international language, the drawback of the policy of Conference-approved literature is that members of a different mother tongue must forever be content with translations. They must especially overcome nationalistic and cultural colorations and prejudices that often inhibit or delay literature penetration. The examples that come to mind are French from Canada, France, Belgium or Switzerland, Russian from various republics, Spanish from Spain, Mexico, Chile, etc.

One may ask whether unity really demands that millions always "watch their movies in a dubbed version or with subtitles". It seems natural that, if it is not already so, original documents written in various languages will some day be approved and will reach members in the intimate nuances of their mother tongues and cultures. One can easily understand the legitimate concerns of those opposing such evolution, considering the horror stories and distortion that will likely follow such liberalization. However, the point can also be made that trying to avoid these "growing pains" resembles the resistance of parents overprotecting their children from being hurt in the process of living. The spirit on which fraternities like A.A. have been founded will surely find a solution in accordance with the archetype of a Spirit speaking in many tongues. Some lesson may be drawn, in that respect, from the model of the nursing-log. In the rain forest of Washington state, nature interpretation trails feature impressive examples of the phenomenon of the nursing-log. When one of the giants of the forest falls, its huge carcass slowly decays on the forest floor and provides nutrients to the seeds that fall on it. Hundreds of years later, the forest has been renewed, the carcass of the nursing log has disappeared, its mission totally fulfilled, but one can still see it, in spirit, in the thriving life of the impeccably aligned siblings whose roots still rise like arches over the elder they once straddled.

The story becomes even more fascinating when, reading Richard Fox, one finds that a Theodor Wilhelm, after seeing Niebuhr's prayer, claimed to be the author of a word-for-word German version that was popular at the time and which he had written under the pseudonym of Oetinger, a 18th century German theologian to whom it had been credited. Others have written Niebuhr asking whether his prayer had come from Marcus Aurelius or others. Fox goes on describing how a pained Niebuhr "must have wondered if he had subconsciously recorded a prayer used by his father [a German] or one that he had read somewhere years before."

The August-September 1992 issue of a newsletter from the General Service Office of A.A. carries an article entitled: The elusive origins of the Serenity Prayer (Anonymous, 1992) which, a week before the present article was to be delivered, adds significant material to this story and names yet more suggested sources for these words, including a 14th century "General's Prayer". The author of the article indicates how, according to a researcher, the "first form of the prayer originated with Boethius, a Roman philosopher (480-524 A.D.) in a book called Consolations of Philosophy", and concludes a series of interesting anecdotes about the "elusive" prayer as follows: "...the prayer has become so deeply imbedded into the heart and soul of A.A. thinking, living, as well as its philosophy, that one could almost believe that the prayer originated in the A.A. experience itself."

The theme of the current discussion is precisely the magic property of some words to reflect the heart of the human condition when they are rooted in flesh and blood and allowed to evolve to better capture the spirit of that experience. The story of the Serenity Prayer, as far as reflecting A.A.'s heart and soul is concerned, is one of reinterpretation and of non-enshrinement. Strict enshrinement, if it ensures some short term continuity, is a step towards the "absolute" which, sooner or later, is deserted by the Spirit of Life. One will find solace by turning once more to the words of historian Kurtz as he himself reflects on the future of Alcoholics Anonymous. "It is conceivable, I suppose, because all institutions degenerate, that individuals who call themselves "Alcoholics Anonymous" might some day ignore service, violate tradition, and scorn the Steps- or worse, accord them only lip service. But should that happen, I am sure that somewhere, perhaps under a battered bridge, or in a dingy alcove, perhaps even in an atmosphere free of cigarette smoke and lacking coffee, some alcoholic who is trying to stay sober will sidle up to some other alcoholic who may even be drinking and say: "Psst, buddy. You must be awfully thirsty, but let me tell you how it was with me when I used to need a drink..." And in that moment an A.A. meeting will begin, and the story of Alcoholics Anonymous will continue. [...]. For A.A.'s story is one of those stories that will never end so long as there are human beings who discover, however painfully, having tried to play God, that they are not-God - -that they can both be "sober" and "alcoholic", both whole and flawed" (Kurtz, p. 306).

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