When we practice Tradition Four while remembering Step Three, everybody wins
TRADITION FOUR: Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
What does Tradition Four mean to me? This Tradition reminds me of Tradition One. Tradition One deal’s with the relationship between the value of personal recovery and AA unity. Since personal recovery depends on AA unity, then our common welfare must come first. Now Tradition Four comes along and deals with the relationship between the group and AA as a whole. Here again maximum liberty and respect is to be given to the group. But the group, and the individuals in it, are asked–for their own survival and sobriety–to adjust, temper, and discipline that freedom when it begins to affect other groups or AA as a whole. If each group runs amuck and does what it pleases, Alcoholics Anonymous will be destroyed and in short order the group and individual sobriety will be destroyed in turn.
We alcoholics are plagued by a thousand forms of fear. We are easily moved to overcompensate and to indulge in grandiosity and megalomania! Once we let our discipline go lax, our humility and sense of obedience diminish and our foolish pride and blind ego take over. Then we can be a negative influence in a group, do harm to the individuals in it–even contribute to the destruction of the group.
How is this Tradition working in my life? It reminds me of Step Three. The group is given a reasonable and decent independence, but then it is called upon to turn its will and life over to AA as a whole, as an expression of the will of God for us. The Third Step works this way on the individual level, Tradition Four on the group level.
If I don’t listen to my sponsor and get rebellious, am filled with pride and self-will, it is only a matter of time for me to get the “crazies” again and fall into the practice of my addiction once more. But if I reject my foolish, blind pride, have a healthy distrust for my own opinions and motives, and submit myself to a sponsor and do what he says, then experience has shown me that things go well and I really live out the turning over of my will and my life to God. It’s the same with the group in Tradition Four. When our group’s collective arrogance and pride and self-will take over, the group moves collectively away from turning its will and life over to God. But when it submits itself to the good of other groups and of AA as a whole, it will experience that peace and growth that comes with submission to the will of the Higher Power. It will flourish. When it doesn’t do that, it will wither away and die, just as I will if I neglect Step Three.
What does this Tradition call on me to do? It calls on me, it invites me, it obliges me to be vigilant in the group for collective pride and self-will, just as I have to be always vigilant in my own life for the same poisons. It doesn’t mean I have to be the resident guru or “bleeding deacon.” It only means that in a humble, prudent, caring way I be aware of the dangers to our group and to other groups and to AA as a whole, if we let ourselves get carried away in self-seeking, arrogance, pride, and self-will.
What’s in it for me? Plenty. If I live Step Three, it will stimulate and encourage Tradition Four. If I live Tradition Four, it will in turn stimulate and encourage the living out of Step Three in my life. There is a reciprocal dynamic between these two principles. And I come out a winner because I’ll stay sober. If I submit my will and live in Step Three, I lose the dominion of my exaggerated arrogance and self-willed pride. I gain freedom. If I live that way in the group and encourage the group to live that way in Tradition Four, the same thing will happen to the group. In submitting itself to the welfare of other groups and AA as a whole, in the very act of submission, the group will lose slavery to its lower instincts and gain freedom. And I, as a member of the group, will share in that freedom and at the same time contribute to it. Step Three and Tradition Four inspire and strengthen each other. I win and the group wins and AA wins.