The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions – Textbook to the Steps
January 12, 2006 by admin
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, aka 12 and 12, is the textbook to the Steps. Written in 1952, mostly by Bill W., this slim volume gives details about working all 12 Steps. It also tells us about the Traditions. Although it was written long after the Big Book, the 12 and 12 is also part of the original source material for any 12 Step Program
The Steps are how we work our program; the Traditions are how our fellowships work. This book will answer many questions about both, and provide you a way to work with each.
With love, blessings and gratitude,
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions is NOT the textbook to the steps. That fact can be found right within the book itself. On p. 17, it says, “The book ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ became the basic text of the Fellowship, and it still is. The present volume proposes to broaden and deepen the understanding of the Twelve Step as first written in the earlier work.”
The dustcover of Alcoholics Anonymous lists other literature of the Fellowship with a brief description. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions is explained there as “An interpretive commentary on the A.A. program by a co-founder.” Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions contains essays about the steps, written by Bill Wilson alone (as opposed to Alcoholics Anonymous, which the Fellowship weighed in on). It came out thirteen years after people were getting and staying sober based on the directions in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions can be a helpful book if used as an aid to understanding. But it does not contain the directions. If you’re looking for a textbook, you’re going to want to turn to the book that was written to serve that function:
“To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book.”
- Alcoholics Anonymous, p.xiii, Foreword to First Edition
“You may already have asked yourself why it is that all of us became so very ill from drinking. Doubtless you are curious to discover how and why, in the face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. If you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking – ‘What do I have to do?’
It is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically.”
- Alcoholics Anonymous, p.20, There Is a Solution
Hope someone finds this helpful!
Peace & Love,
Damon