I felt enormous relief when I discovered secular meetings. As many of us at these meetings have noted, the linguistic gymnastics required to sit through a traditional meeting are exhausting. There is one word used in traditional meetings that I have embraced: spirituality. Spirituality, to me, has to do with how we interact with others, with living more contemplatively, and with appreciating nature and the natural world. When I use this word, it is with that definition.
I’m a huge fan of Tradition Seven and its history. I've worked in the A.A. archives for many years, helping to set up the first archives in District 52, here in Santa Maria, and later, as Archives Chair, establishing the first archives in Area 93, down by Los Angeles. I’ve listened to and read many early members’ letters and tapes, which often describe the sometimes raucous “loving discussions” held between the early members over the tiniest potential detail of a step or a tradition. After distilling all of this, I am profoundly astounded that this thing survived. Bill W. agreed, writing in 1949: “When you consider the vast army of screwballs that we really are, I think we have done astonishingly well." Our survival is due, in no small part, to the Seventh Tradition.
A.A. history is a dark, murky swamp. We can’t be sure of a lot that happened, or when it happened. As Jim Burwell, an early member of A.A., said: “We were saving lives, not taking notes.” But we know a bit about the origins of Tradition Seven.
The early members of A.A. were an unlikely lot to refuse outside contributions. Bill W., after all, was a salesman - extracting money from others was his comfort zone. These early members eagerly sought money from outside sources to fund their dreams, which included paid missionaries and a chain of profitable hospitals. In 1937, with these dreams in mind, Bill W. and other early members began meeting with several wealthy philanthropists associated with John D. Rockefeller, Jr., hoping for a windfall. Although these philanthropists were intrigued by an organization devoted to helping alcoholics, they declined to offer funding, disappointing the A.A. members. Bill W. wrote that the head man told them, “I am deeply impressed and moved by what has been said here, but aren’t you boys afraid that if you had money you might create a professional class, aren’t you afraid that the management of plants, properties and hospitals would distract you from your purely goodwill aims?” In the end, Rockefeller himself gave only $5,000, with the instruction that they not ask for more.
During this time, concerns about the dangers of outside contributions were also arising among the early members. Some felt that if corporations and wealthy nonmembers contributed, soon rank and file members would think “Why should I contribute? We’ve got a huge treasury.” So in 1948, when the question of accepting a large bequeath came before the A.A. Foundation, the A.A. trustees declined to accept it. This section of the book “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions”explains their thinking: “The pressure of that fat treasury would surely tempt the board to invent all kinds of schemes to do good with such funds, and so divert A.A. from its primary purpose. They declared for the principle that A.A. must always stay poor. Bare running expenses plus a prudent reserve would henceforth be the Foundation's financial policy. Difficult as it was, they officially adopted a formal, airtight resolution that all such future gifts would be similarly declined. At that moment, the principle of corporate poverty was firmly and finally embedded in A.A. tradition.” The traditions were adopted at the First International Convention in Cleveland in 1950. They were published in 1953, in the book “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.”
The donations we give, and the refusal to accept outside contributions, serve several purposes. They benefit the individual member’s spiritual growth. By deciding to decline outside contributions and to rely solely on the contributions of our members, the early A.A.s showed the spiritual importance of individual members contributing to A.A. The member too shy to speak, or with a physical problem speaking, such as myself, can put money in the hat to keep her group’s rent paid, its lights on, and coffee always available. By doing this, she becomes an important part of something larger than herself. As Bill W. wrote: “There was a place in A. A. where spirituality and money would mix, and that was in the hat.”
Donations allow the individual to think of someone other than herself. We learn to give instead of take. We learn the value of accomplishing something on our own. We learn to be responsible for ourselves and for the existence of our meeting. We understand our responsibility to local service entities, such as the Central Office and the District, as well as to individual meetings, to keep them flourishing for the newcomer and the oldtimer, and all of us in between. And because the donations are not mandatory, those who can donate can stand up for those who are currently unable to. There is emphatically no pressure for newcomers to donate - this is stressed in A.A.’s newcomers pamphlet.
Donations also help to carry the A.A. message far beyond local meetings. The money often goes to the General Service Office, which publishes Big Books, meeting schedules, and 8 million pieces of literature a year; responds to the 90,000 emails, letters and phone calls from members, the public, and suffering alcoholics; maintains a Website providing information about A.A.; responds to letters from incarcerated alcoholics and connects them to outside members; communicates with treatment centers and other professionals; produces Public Service Announcements; and documents the activities of A.A. through its archives.
I’ll end with this: my first year of college in Paris, my history class was held on the second floor of an old church, up a very rickety staircase. When my husband and I went back to Paris, fifty years later, we climbed up that same rickety staircase to that same room, this time to attend an A.A. meeting. I am so grateful that a meeting was there, and that A.A. is still here, thanks to the foresight of our early members, who adopted the Traditions.