The Twelve Concepts
(Long Form)
I. The final responsibility and ultimate authority for A.A.
world services should always reside in the collective conscience
of our whole Fellowship.
II. When, in 1955, the A.A. groups confirmed the permanent
charter for their General Service Conference, they thereby
delegated to the Conference complete authority for the active
maintenance of our world services and thereby made the Conference
- excepting for any change in the Twelve Traditions or in Article
12 of the Conference Charter - the actual voice
and the effective conscience of our whole Society.
III. As a traditional means of creating and
maintaining a clearly defined working relation between the groups,
the Conference, the A.A. General Service Board and its several
service corporations, staffs, committees and executives, and of
thus insuring their effective leadership, it is suggested that we
endow each of these elements of world service with a traditional
"Right of Decision."
IV. Throughout our Conference structure, we ought to maintain at
all responsible levels a traditional "Right of Participation,"
taking care that each classification or group of our world
servants shall be allowed a voting representation in reasonable
proportion to the responsibility that each much discharge.
V. Throughout our world service structure, a traditional
"Right of Appeal" ought to prevail, thus assuring us
that minority opinion will be heard and that petitions for the
redress of personal grievances will be carefully considered.
VI. On behalf of A.A. as a whole, our General Service Conference
has the principal responsibility for the maintenance of our world
services, and it traditionally has the final decision respecting
large matters of general policy and finance. But the
Conference also recognizes that the chief initiative and the
active responsibility in most of these matters should be
exercised primarily by the Trustee members of the Conference when
they act among themselves as the General Service Board of
Alcoholics Anonymous.
VII. The Conference recognizes that the Charter
and the Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments:
that the Trustees are thereby fully empowered to manage and
conduct all the world service affairs of Alcoholics Anonymous.
It is further understood that the Conference Charter itself is
not a legal document: that it relies instead upon the force of
tradition and the power of the A.A. purse for its final
effectiveness.
VIII. The Trustees of the General Service Board act
in two primary capacities: (a) With respect to the larger matters
of over-all policy and finance, they are the principal planners
and administrators. They and their primary committees
directly manage these affairs. (b) But with respect to our
separately incorporated and constantly active services, the
relation of the Trustees is mainly that of full stock ownership
and of custodial oversight which they exercise through their
ability to elect all
directors of these entities.
IX. Good service leaders, together with sound and appropriate
methods of choosing them, are at all levels indispensable for our
future functioning and safety. The primary world service
leadership once exercised by the founders of A.A. must
necessarily be assumed by the Trustees of the General Service
Board of Alcoholics Anonymous.
X. Every service responsibility should be matched by an
equal service authority - the scope of such authority to be
always well defined whether by tradition, by resolution, by
specific job description or by appropriate charters and bylaws.
XI. White the Trustees hold the final responsibility for A.A.'s
world service administration, they should always have the
assistance of the best possible standing committees, corporate
service directors, executives, staffs, and consultants.
Therefore the composition of these underlying committees and
service boards, the personal qualifications of their members, the
manner of their induction into service, the systems of their
rotation, the way in which they are related to each other, the
special rights and duties of our executives and staffs, and
consultants, together with a proper basis for the financial
compensation of these special workers, will always be matters for
serious care and concern.
XII. General Warranties of the Conference: in
all its proceedings, the General Service Conference shall observe
the spirit of the A.A. Tradition, taking great care that the
conference never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power;
that sufficient operating funds, plus an ample reserve, be its
prudent financial principle; that none of the Conference Members
shall ever be placed in a position of unqualified authority over
any of the others; that all important decisions be reached by
discussion, vote, and, whenever possible, by substantial
unanimity; that no Conference action ever be personally punitive
or an incitement to public controversy; that, thought the
Conference may act for the service of Alcoholics Anonymous, it
shall never perform any acts of government; and that, like the
Society of Alcoholics Anonymous which it serves, the Conference
itself will always
remain democratic in thought and action.