Elder Statesman

AFTER YEARS of living the AA way of life and practicing the principles contained in AA's Three Legacies--Recovery, Unity, Service--there comes a time for each of us to become either an elder statesman or a bleeding deacon. Realizing this, our co-founder Bill W. (with the other AA pioneers) turned over the Three Legacies to the AA Fellowship at the Convention in St. Louis in 1955, at the age of fifty-nine, and became AA's senior elder statesman. As an elder statesman, he was always willing to share his matchless AA experience--and equally willing to let others take on responsibility, unlike the kind of old-timer that he called a "bleeding deacon" and many call "Mr. AA."