“Alcoholics Anonymous is a Fellowship of men and women…” We all recognize those words. We recite them at every meeting we attend and we see the Preamble on a placard at the front of every room. There is another placard that most people pay less attention to and that no one recites from; it reads: “I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that: I am responsible.” This is AA’s Responsibility Declaration. In a very few words, the Responsibility Declaration embodies what it means to extend the principles of the First and Fifth Traditions to our personal lives.
In Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill remarks that self-sacrifice for the common good is a constant theme of the Traditions. It is not self-sacrifice without reward, however. The First Tradition notes that, without other AA’s, most of us, if not all of us, would drink again. It is through our AA Group that we maintain the contact with other alcoholics that we need to Ë
