AG Speaker Meeting Tiffany K. Jun. 30, 2026

Thanks, Meryl.

Hi, my name is Tom, and I'm an alcoholic.

My sobriety date is March 2, 2016, and I'm a member of the Atlanta group.

Jordan, thank you for asking me to speak on the seventh tradition.

So in a moment, I'll read through the long version of the tradition.

But just to get grounded for a second, what are the traditions? You know, this all started when our founders, Dr.

Bob and Bill W., got sober in the mid-30s.

Our text, Alcoholics Anonymous, which we call the big book, was published in 1939.

And AA kind of took off after that, you know, both by word of mouth and some favorable publicity into the 40s.

And it was noticed that some disputes started to arise because with the program and the groups expanding, meetings were no longer held in living rooms.

We needed space like this.

And there were arguments and tension about things like publicity, religion, finances, which is kind of the big part of this tradition.

In the mid-40s, Bill W. started to lay out and draft some guidelines, which became our traditions.

He tested the water, publishing one per month in the late 40s in Grapevine, our magazine.

They became kind of official in 1950 with the AA's first convention.

I think the easiest way for me to understand this is the steps are the recovery part of our program.

The traditions provide unity and how we operate both as groups, GSO, intergroup, other support organizations in our service structure.

So these traditions got a mixed reaction when they first came about because some people Some people thought, you know, they went too far.

Like, you're telling us what to do.

Most people, this alcoholic especially, doesn't really like to be told what to do.

Some other groups had more stringent guidelines and thought maybe they didn't go far enough.

But here they are.

I think they're simply written, but I think they're important.

I'll have to admit, I didn't care about the traditions when I first came in.

I just wanted to get sober.