resources

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

© Al-Anon’s Twelve Steps, copyright 1996 by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity.

2. For our group purpose there is but one authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants—they do not govern.

3. The relatives of alcoholics, when gathered together for mutual aid, may call themselves an Al-Anon Family Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend.

4. Each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting another group or Al-Anon or AA as a whole.

5. Each Al-Anon Family Group has but one purpose: to help families of alcoholics. We do this by practicing the Twelve Steps of AA ourselves, by encouraging and understanding our alcoholic relatives, and by welcoming and giving comfort to families of alcoholics.

6. Our Family Groups ought never endorse, finance or lend our name to any outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary spiritual aim. Although a separate entity, we should always co-operate with Alcoholics Anonymous.

7. Every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

8. Al-Anon Twelfth Step work should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9. Our groups, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

10. The Al-Anon Family Groups have no opinion on outside issues; hence our name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, and TV. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all AA members.

12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles above personalities.

© Al-Anon’s Twelve Traditions, copyright 1996 by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.

1. The final responsibility and the ultimate authority for AA world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole fellowship.
2. When, in 1955, the AA groups confirmed the permanent charter for their General Service Conference, they thereby delegated to the Conference complete authority for the active maintenance of our world services and thereby made the Conference—excepting for any change in the Twelve Traditions or in Article 12 of the Conference Charter—the actual voice and the effective conscience for our whole Society.
3. As a traditional means of creating and maintaining a clearly defined working relation between the groups, the Conference, the AA General Service Board and its several service corporations, staffs, committees and executives, and of thus insuring their effective leadership, it is here suggested that we endow each of these elements of world service with a traditional “Right of Decision.”
4. Throughout our Conference structure, we ought to maintain at all responsible levels a traditional “Right of Participation,” taking care that each classification or group of our world servants shall be allowed a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge.
5. Throughout our world service structure, a traditional “Right of Appeal” ought to prevail, thus assuring us that minority opinion will be heard and that petitions for the redress of personal grievances will be carefully considered.
6. On behalf of AA as a whole, our General Service Conference has the principal responsibility for the maintenance of our world services, and it traditionally has the final decision respecting large matters of general policy and finance. But the Conference also recognises that the chief initiative and the active responsibility in most of these matters should be exercised primarily by the trustee members of the Conference when they act among themselves as the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous.
7. The Conference recognises that the Charter and the Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments: that the trustees are thereby fully empowered to manage and conduct all of the world service affairs of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is further understood that the Conference Charter itself is not a legal document: that it relies instead upon the force of tradition and the power of the AA purse for its final effectiveness.
8. The trustees of the General Service Board act in two primary capacities:
   (a) With respect to the larger matters of overall policy and finance, they are the principal planners and administrators. They and their primary committees directly manage these affairs.
   (b) But with respect to our separately incorporated and constantly active services, the relation of the trustees is mainly that of full stock ownership and of custodial oversight which they exercise through their ability to elect all directors of these entities.
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 AA must necessarily be assumed by the trustees of the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous.
10. Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority—the scope of such authority to be always well defined whether by tradition, by resolution, by specific job description, or by appropriate charters and bylaws.
11. While the trustees hold final responsibility for AA’s world service administration, they should always have the assistance of the best possible standing committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs and consultants. Therefore, the composition of these underlying committees and service boards, the personal qualifications of their members, the manner of their induction into service, the systems of their rotation, the way in which they are related to each other, the special rights and duties of our executives, staffs and consultants, together with a proper basis for the financial compensation of these special workers, will always be matters for serious care and concern.
12. General Warranties of the Conference: In all its proceedings, the General Service Conference shall observe the spirit of the AA Tradition, taking great care that the Conference never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds, plus an ample reserve, be its prudent financial principle; that none of the Conference members shall ever be placed in a position of unqualified authority over any of the others; that all important decisions be reached by discussion, vote, and, wherever possible, by substantial unanimity; that no Conference action ever be personally punitive or an incitement to public controversy; that, though the Conference may act for the service of Alcoholics Anonymous, it shall never perform any acts of government; and that, like the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous which it serves, the Conference itself will always remain democratic in thought and action.

Note: The AA General Service Conference has recommended that the “long form” of the Concepts be studied in detail. “Twelve Concepts for World Service”, in which AA co-founder Bill W closely examines all these principles of AA service, may be ordered from the General Service Office or from your local Central Service Office.

These are the “official” slogans of Al-Anon. Short, simple, and sometimes all you need.

How Important Is It?

Easy Does It

Keep an Open Mind

Think

Progress Not Perfection

Keep Coming Back

But for the Grace of God

One Day at a Time

Listen and Learn

Together We Can Make It

Keep It Simple

First Things First

Let It Begin with Me

Just for Today

Let Go and Let God

Live and Let Live

Sponsorship is a mutual and confidential relationship between two Al-Anon members. The focus is on using Al-Anon principles for growth.

Experience shows that having a Sponsor is a valuable aid to personal understanding and use of the Al-Anon program of recovery. There are no requirements for Al-Anon sponsorship.

Here are a few more tools for a “recovery” toolkit, to be used when needed!

3 A’s = Awareness, Acceptance, Action

3 C’s = We didn’t Cause it, can’t Control it, can’t Cure it.

3 P’s = Perfection, Procrastination, Paralysis

DENIAL: Don’t Even kNow I Am Lying

DETACH = Don’t Even Think About Changing Him/Her

EGO = Edging Out God

FAIL: First Attempt In Learning

FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real; Future Events Aren’t Real

HALT = Am I . . . Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?

LOVE = Let Others Voluntarily Evolve

NUTS = Not Using The Steps

PAUSE = Postpone Action Until Sanity Emerges

QTIP = Quit Taking It Personally

SHAME = Should Have Already Mastered Everything

THINK = Is it. . .True? Helpful? Informative? Necessary? Kind?

WAIT = Why Am I Talking/Typing?

YAHOO = You Always Have Other Options

If you have more, let us know so we can add it!

Sometimes we hear something at a meeting that is helpful. It’s not “official” CAL but if it’s memorable we have added them here to be useful! This list comes from our member—if you have more please send them so we can add to the list.

“The Slogans are the bannister for the Steps.”

“Butt in the chair, hand in the air.”

“Does this serve my recovery?”

“For every year I have in program, I get one second of ‘pause’ before I speak.”

“If I’m hysterical, it’s historical”

“Figure it out is NOT a slogan.”

“Unwanted advice is criticism.”

“Feelings are not defects of character.”

“Its’ a disease of isolation and the cure is connection.”