History Behind AA’s Responsibility Statement
July 24, 2019
Identification Is
August 28, 2019
Don’t take yourself so damn seriously.
The story is described in Alcoholics Anonymous book The Twelve Step and the Twelve Traditions (known in AA as the 12 and 12). The basic story is that early in the history of AA, a group out in the hinterlands somewhere convinced the local town to fund a recovery/treatment/AA facility. This was going to be an elaborate facility with space for medical treatment, residential recovery, and AA meetings. The local group setting all this up started coming up with rules on how the place would be run, who could be admitted etc. And naturally, there was much disagreement over all this.
To try to resolve their differences, they sent a copy of their 61 rules to the NY office of AA. The volunteers at NY had no idea on how to run a large facility or what to say to this group about their rules. While they were discussing it, another message from the group was delivered saying simply: Rule 62, don’t take yourself so damn seriously. Apparently, they had decided that the potential ego-driven rewards of running a big facility were not worth the risk of tearing their group apart.
This episode is used to illustrate the development of AA’s fourth tradition: Each group should be autonomous…
Staff
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the AA Cleveland District Office.
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8 Comments
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Steve R. says: I’ve been battling with this issue within myself and my local AA community/home group. There are a handful of members who seem to have never heard about rule 62. Once they as a sliver of the main group decided they were in charge of keeping the group in line with certain rules they had decided in their unofficial group meetings. If anyone were to say any of the swear words, even a simple hell or damn; they would all in unison blast the individual with “NO SWEARING”. Another of their pet peeves was the Double Dipper. They even had a quip in the opening statements to address the double dipping and swearing as the church was very strict about our language and the time in which the meeting must end. The same individuals would erupt into an enormous outburst of “NO DOUBLE DIPPING “!!! That night I had had enough and decided to research where this double dipping all originated. All I could find is there is actually an AA Group out in Tennessee I believe who has named themselves Double Dippers. It had me rolling on the floor laughing. But after some serious thought I considered the group’s primary purpose. To carry the message to the newcomers, the alcoholic who still suffers. If there is a newcomer at meeting who might have missed the part of the announcement in the beginning about double dipping or the swearing and gets chopped down by this authoritarian regime of AA members would they ever come back? Would they call someone that night and ask if they really did anything so blatantly wrong to be chastised by this handful of men and women? Or maybe they were not the one who even did the swearing or the double dipping; they only witnessed the unspeakable act. They didn’t even realize it was such a offense that would create such an uproar among the group members. Luckily for me I live in a large enough town where there are plenty of meetings to pick from.
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Karen O says: Agree with you 1000%! I definitely would have been one of those people that would not have been back if that happened to me as a newcomer.
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Dean H. says: In Person: https://www.aacle.org/find-a-meeting/
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Jim H says: I always carry a “rule 62” coin in my pocket to remind me that the message “don’t take yourself too dam seriously” is an important message for me to remember. My ego is not my friend and can get me in situations that I don’t want to be. The basic A.A. messages apply don’t drink and go to meetings, and stay connected with my home group and other alcoholics,
Rufus J. Sobriety 
Linda & Em 
Robert M. 
James C. 
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