All Excepting the Name

A.A. gives away everything it has with exactly one exception, and the exception is the point. The Service Manual puts it as a saying: "A.A. is prepared to give away all the knowledge and all the experience it has — all excepting the A.A. name itself." The Steps can be used by anyone. The Traditions can be copied. The methods are free and always have been. What A.A. will not hand over is the word — and that is not stinginess, it is arithmetic. Any outside body describing its own programme in A.A.'s vocabulary begins to inherit A.A.'s reputation while carrying none of A.A.'s obligations. It has not agreed to hold no opinion. It has not agreed to decline outside money or to stay out of public fights. But the public cannot see the seam. So when that body takes a position — and it will, because agencies and businesses and causes exist to take positions — the position arrives wearing a name that promised never to hold one. The Tradition itself is not damaged. It is simply no longer standing where the public is looking.