Each month we focus on a Step, Tradition, and Concept, and provide a quote from Bill W.
Step 10
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
“One unkind tirade or one willful snap judgment can ruin our relation with another person for a whole day, or maybe a whole year. Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen.”
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 91
Tradition 10
Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
”Our best defense? This surely lies in the formation of a tradition respecting serious controversy so powerful that neither the weakness of persons nor the strain and strife of our troubled times can harm Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Language of the Heart, p. 90
Concept 10
Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined.
“The condition to be avoided at all costs is double-headed business or policy management. Authority can never be divided into equal halves. Nowhere does such split authority or double-headed management so bedevil a structure as in its executive departments.”
Twelve Concepts for World Service, p. 36
All quotes from Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and Twelve Concepts for World Service are reprinted with permission from A.A. World Services, Inc. Language of the Heart is published by A.A. Grapevine Inc.
