About TSM – Twelfth Step Magazine India

The Twelfth Step Magazine Statement of Purpose

The Twelfth Step Magazine is the official journal of Alcoholics Anonymous, India. Written, edited, illustrated, and read by AA members and others interested in the AA program of recovery from alcoholism, the Twelfth Step is a lifeline linking one alcoholic to another.

The Twelfth Step Magazine communicates the experience, strength, and hope of its contributors and reflects a broad geographic spectrum of current AA experience with recovery, unity, and service. The Twelfth Step Magazine does not receive group contributions, but is supported entirely through magazine subscription sales.

The awareness that every AA member has an individual way of working the program permeates the pages of the Twelfth Step, and the magazine has been a forum for the varied and often divergent opinions of AAs around the world. As such, articles are not intended to be statements of AA policy, nor does publication of any article imply endorsement by either AA or the Twelfth Step.

The Twelfth Step will be the voice of the Alcoholics Anonymous movement in India. Its editors and staff will be primarily accountable to the AA movement as a whole…. Within the bounds of friendliness and good taste, the Twelfth Step will enjoy perfect freedom of speech on all matters directly pertaining to Alcoholics Anonymous.

The central purpose of The Twelfth Step is to carry the AA message to everyone interested in alcoholism and practice the AA principles in all its affairs through its magazines, websites, and related items, which reflect the experience, strength, and hope of its members and friends on topics related to recovery, unity and service. It strives in all its activities to operate in accordance with the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions, and the Twelve Concepts of AA.

What the Twelfth Step Does Not Publish

Poems, Prayers, event flyers/announcements, song lyrics, tributes to individuals, plays/drama, or anything unrelated to AA or that violates the principles of AA.

A.A. PREAMBLE

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.
There are no dues or fees for A.A. membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes.
Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
Copyright © The AA Grapevine, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
RESPONSIBILITY DECLARATION
DECLARATION OF UNITY
NEED HELP WITH A DRINKING PROBLEM?

A Call for Articles

The twelfth step magazine is your meeting in print.

Please share your articles of experience, strength and hope. Let’s make our magazine feature sharings/articles/audio sharings only from Indian AA members!

The Twelfth Step Magazine welcomes articles on every aspect of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous. The only thing we ask of you is to not speak too much of your drinking exploits or “drunkalogues”. We maintain a focus on recovery and your experience, strength and hope in recovery.

The 12 Steps
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our livesover to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Copyright © A. A. World Services, Inc.
The 12 Traditions
Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.
Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Copyright © A. A. World Services, Inc.
The 12 Concepts
Final responsibility and ultimate authority for A.A. world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole Fellowship.
The General Service Conference of A.A. has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole Society in its world affairs.
To insure effective leadership, we should endow each element of A.A.—the Conference, the General Service Board and its service corporations, staffs, committees, and executives—with a traditional “Right of Decision.”
At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional “Right of Participation,” allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge.
Throughout our structure, a traditional “Right of Appeal” ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.
The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Conference acting as the General Service Board.
The Charter and Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees to manage and conduct world service affairs. The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the A.A. purse for final effectiveness.
The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of overall policy and finance. They have custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active services, exercising this through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities.
Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, once exercised by the founders, must necessarily be assumed by the trustees.
Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined.
The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs, and consultants. Composition, qualifications, induction procedures, and rights and duties will always be matters of serious concern.
The Conference shall observe the spirit of A.A. tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and, whenever possible, by substantial unanimity; that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that it never perform acts of government, and that, like the Society it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action.

Copyright © A. A. World Services, Inc.