Slogans, Steps, Traditions and Concepts

In Al-Anon we have the Slogans, 12 Steps, 12 Traditions and 12 Concepts.

Slogans

“Today the slogans offer me healthier ways to reflect. Along with the other Al-Anon tools, the slogans allow me the option of being serene and happy whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not. ” Hope For Today, p.318

  • Easy Does It
  • First Things First
  • How Important Is It?
  • Just for Today
  • Keep It Simple
  • Keep an Open Mind
  • Let Go and Let God
  • Let It Begin With Me
  • Listen & Learn
  • Live and Let Live
  • One Day at a Time
  • Principles above personalities
  • Progress not Perfection
  • Think
  • Together We Can Make It

12 Steps

  1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
  2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
  4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
  5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
  6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
  7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
  8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
  9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
  10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
  11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
  12. Having had a spiritual awaking as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

12 Traditions

These guidelines are the means of promoting harmony and growth in Al-Anon Groups and in the World-wide Fellowship of Al-Anon as a whole. Our group experience suggests that our unity depends upon our adherence to these Traditions.

  1. Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity.
  2. For our group purpose there is but one authority — a loving God as He may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants — they do not govern.
  3. The relatives of alcoholics, when gathered together for mutual aid, may call themselves an Al-Anon Family Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend.
  4. Each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting another group or Al-Anon or AA as a whole.
  5. Each Al-Anon Family Group has but one purpose: to help families of alcoholic. We do this by practicing the Twelve Steps of AA ourselves, by encouraging and understanding our alcoholic relatives, and by welcoming and giving comfort to families of alcoholics.
  6. Our Family Groups ought never endorse, finance or lend our name to any outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary spiritual aim. Although a separate entity , we should always co-operate with Alcoholics Anonymous.
  7. Every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
  8. Al-Anon Twelfth Step work should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
  9. Our groups, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
  10. The Al-Anon Family Groups have no opinion on outside issues; hence our name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
  11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, and TV. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all AA members.
  12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles above personalities.

12 Concepts

The Twelve Concepts are guide for service. They show how Twelve Step work can be done on a broad scale and how members of a World Service Office can relate to each other and to the groups, through a World Service Conference, to spread Al-Anon’s message worldwide.

  1. The ultimate responsibility and authority for Al-Anon world services belongs to the Al-Anon groups.
  2. The Al-Anon Family Groups have delegated complete administrative and operational authority to their Conference and its service arms.
  3. The right of decision makes effective leadership possible.
  4. Participation is the key to harmony.
  5. The rights of appeal and petition protect minorities and insure that they be heard.
  6. The Conference acknowledges the primary administrative responsibility of the Trustees.
  7. The Trustees have legal rights while the rights of the Conference are traditional.
  8. The Board of Trustees delegates full authority for routine management of the Al-Anon headquarters to its executive committees.
  9. Good personal leadership at all service levels is a necessity. In the field of world service the Board of Trustees assumes the primary leadership.
  10. Service responsibility is balanced by carefully defined service authority and double-headed management is avoided.valu
  11. The World Service Office is composed of selected committees, executives and staff members.
  12. The spiritual foundation for Al-Anon’s world services is contained in the General Warranties of the Conference, Article 12 of the Charter.