Each month we focus on a Step, Tradition, and Concept, and provide a quote from Bill W.
Step 9
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Above all we should try to be absolutely sure that we are not delaying because we are afraid. For the readiness to take the full consequences of our past acts and to take responsibility for the well-being of others at the same time, is the very spirit of Step Nine.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 87
Tradition 9
A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
A.A. has always violently resisted the idea of any general organization. Yet paradoxically, we have ever stoutly insisted upon organizing certain special services; mostly those absolutely necessary to effective and plentiful Twelfth Step work.
The Language of the Heart p. 88
Concept 9
Good service leaders, together with sound and appropriate methods of choosing them, are at all levels indispensable for our future functioning and safety. The primary world service leadership once exercised by the founders of A.A. must necessarily be assumed by the Trustees of the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Good leadership never passes the buck. Once assured that it has, or can, obtain sufficient general backing, it freely takes decisions and puts them into action forthwith, provided of course that such actions be within the framework of its defined authority and responsibility.
Twelve Concepts for World Service p. 29
