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April 1998

Autonomy Is Not an Excuse

Tradition Four - Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.

The Fourth Tradition seems to me to be one of the least understood and most misinterpreted. During discussions of Tradition Four I've heard opinions expressed all the way from "Autonomous means we can do whatever we want" to "AA as a whole is affected by everything a group does--it's just a matter of degree." In my experience, the truth lies somewhere in between these two.

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