Guarding Our Fourth Tradition

Tradition 4 is a powerful catchall which creates full inclusivity within AA. It allows each group to ‘manage its affairs exactly as it pleases’, no group can be excluded for having a different format, or different customs regardless of whether other fellows ‘approve’ or not. Allowing us to use our experience to learn from the trial and error of group growth and improve without being cast out of the AA directory. As the literature describes, each group has the right to be wrong.

Most of us would have seen tradition 4 in play from day 1 in the fellowship. Some meetings use the Lord’s Prayer, some sit in a circle, some have customs to dress up smart, some give out AA birthday chips, all these and more are examples of each group practising tradition 4. In simple terms, we are all making decisions about how we want to run our meetings, whilst not impacting AA as a whole.

I’ve been to a few different meetings over the years and seen tradition 4 in action at every one. It allowed me to experience different AA practices and find which I resonated with the most and ultimately which homegroup I felt showcased the type of recovery I was looking for.
Naturally there are limitations which our founders had the foresight to include, ensuring AA is protected and not brought into disrepute, reiterating that naturally our common welfare must come above all else (Tradition 1). The fellowship must survive or we will surely not. We have been provided such examples throughout our literature, for example, ensuring we only complete PI work within our local area, so as to not impact other groups.

These limitations also included AA not being affiliated with any outside organisation, thus ensuring we maintain our fifth tradition and keep focused on our primary purpose of helping the still suffering alcoholic.

The freedom afforded us within tradition 4 also ensures we keep within our fellowship’s structure, no other group, intergroup, region or the General Service Board can tell a group how to run. The AA group is the top of the food chain within AA and all other delegated bodies within AA are servants to the groups.

There is a current movement within AA which has begun to shift away from tradition 4 towards directions being given by the GSB which reduce our autonomy and have AA entangled with outside issues such as legal ‘safeguarding’ proposals which aren’t a requirement for the fellowship of AA, including the Groups.

Ensuring we maintain our fourth tradition and push back against these out of structure requests is vital to our long term survival as a fellowship.

Caitlin M, Road To Recovery, Plymouth, January 2026