The AA Warranties

Members Opinion

As important as Steps & Traditions

My home group just got a Concepts banner. For the first time last Saturday it hung there next to the Steps and Traditions, allowing all present to view the 3 AA Legacies with equal ease. Not that all twelve Concepts are in fact equal to Steps and Traditions! In fact, technically only one of them is.

What do I mean by this?

Well, AA Australia’s Conference Charter (one of my all-time favorite AA ‘easy-reads’) reminds us that there are 3 conference-approved publications that cannot be altered in any way without 75% of the global fellowship’s say-so:

• The Steps
• The Traditions
• The… Warranties!

“The what?”, you say? The Warranties are in fact only one of our Concepts – the twelfth to be exact. This means the other eleven can be changed at by the AAWS Conference if they so choose.

Just as spiritually significant

Here’s the question that this throws up for me; why are the Warranties held up in the same regard as our sacred Steps and Traditions? My answer? It’s because they are just as spiritually significant!

They are the big, fat how of our fellowship’s conference:

• How we resolve conflicts and issues
• How the GSO relates to the groups
• How Conference can’t ever take too much control and screw the fellowship over
• How we make decisions as members of groups at any level, from groups down to the board
• How invested we are in democracy as a spiritual approach to facilitating growth throughout our conference structure.

A masterclass

I’d go so far as to say that each of our 6 Warranties is a life-lesson; a masterclass in playing nice with others.Now, I don’t know about you, but I struggled with that out there when I was drinking, free of both my sanity and sense of real morality. To say that these Warranties have taught me how to grow and advance my step work, both in and out of the fellowship, is a massive understatement indeed!

For example:

• I now encourage substantial unanimity in all of the decisions I make with others.
• I never call people out for perceived wrong-doings publicly. These days, it’s all about quiet chats behind closed doors.
• If my actions might cause a stir, I steer away from that possibility. The Warranties truly reinforce that whole ‘Does it need to be said now, and by me’ scenario.
• I save up for things if I can, and in general, avoid getting into debt (beyond my mortgage) of any kind.
• I avoid exercising power and dominance, especially when I have the opportunity to do so.
• I take time to think about things, discuss things etc, for longer than I used to. You’d be surprised how often this leads to way better decisions.

Spiritual Principles Work Everywhere

Now, I know that the Warranties relate only to AA and how our Conference needs to accord itself, but spiritual principles are just that – spiritual principles. They work really well, in and out of the fellowship!

The point is though, I had to read them first, and for that to happen, I needed to know they existed. Now you do too. I hope you take a look.

Willing to go to any lengths, right?

AA Member Albury NSW