IDENTIFICATION & UNITY

---

Short Form

“The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.”

---

Long Form

“Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.”

---

Key Points

• Early intolerance based on fear.
• To take away any alcoholic’s chance at A.A. was sometimes to pronounce his death sentence.
• Membership regulations abandoned.
• Two examples of experience.
  • The man with the double stigma – “What would the Master do?”
  • Atheist salesman called Ed
• Any alcoholic is a member of A.A. when he says so.

---

Tradition 3 Inventory Questions

---

As Bill Sees It Readings

	24	Alike When the Chips Are Down
	41	Membership Rules?
	46	True Ambition – and False
	186	“The Only Requirement. . .”
	237	No Orders Issued

---