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Tradition 11 · November 26

May Have Signed

Daily Traditions · November 26

The threat

August 1939. "At this time, Dr. Bob wrote and may have signed an article on A.A. and the Big Book that appeared in the August 1939 issue of a magazine called Faith." May have signed. A.A.'s own history of its co-founder (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers) cannot establish whether his name was on it — and then it does something very few organisations would do. It writes down what that would mean. "The possibility that Dr. Bob signed this article means that he may have been among the first to break his anonymity at the public level—before there were any A.A. Traditions." Sit with the shape of that sentence. An official history, published by the Fellowship, raising in print the possibility that one of its two founders was among the first to do the thing the Fellowship now asks everyone not to do. It is not defended. It is not explained away. It is set down with the qualifier intact, because the qualifier is the honest state of the evidence. There was no rule in August 1939. The rule came out of what happened next.

Sit with

A.A.'s own history raises the possibility that a co-founder was among the first to break this, records it with the uncertainty intact, and defends nothing. What do I know about myself that I have never simply written down without attaching an explanation?

Grounded in: Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers (the Faith article, August 1939).

Tradition 11

"Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films."
Read the Long Form (pp. 563–566). The short form on pp. 561–562 is the one everybody quotes — but the Long Form is where the Traditions actually say what they mean. Tradition 3's "no other affiliation" clause, for instance, exists only in the Long Form. That single clause is why no treatment centre can own an A.A. group. Most of what circulates online skips it.

And a distinction worth keeping straight: the Traditions are governance, not theology. They bind A.A. groups and the Fellowship — not individuals, and not outside businesses. They were adopted in 1950 to keep A.A. from being owned or co-opted. They are not a rulebook for your personal life.
What the Traditions actually say → The Long Form, p. 563 → Search the Big Book → Every day this month →
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Daily Traditions is an independent educational resource from Recovery Starts — not official A.A. literature, not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, and not medical advice. The Twelve Traditions are the property of A.A. Page references are to Alcoholics Anonymous (the Big Book), 4th Edition: short form 561–562, long form 563–566. If you're in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline).