What is anonymity? Why do we need to maintain anonymity? What is the Eleventh Tradition all about?
The Eleventh Tradition states “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”. I’m going to focus on the highlighted part that states “we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films”.
Why do we need to maintain anonymity? There are a few reasons. For the best discussion, it’s best if you go read the Eleventh Tradition in the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. But briefly, imagine if a movie star or rock star goes on TV and talks about getting sober. Then imagine if that star then quickly relapses. You can imagine that someone at home might think “getting sober doesn’t work-it didn’t work for Johnny Rockstar”. In addition, if you weren’t a fan of Johnny Rockstar anyway, you might think “maybe that sobriety thing isn’t for me- I never liked that guys music very much”.
So one potential way of breaking with the Eleventh Tradition is not staying anonymous enough.
Another potential way of breaking with the Eleventh Tradition is staying too anonymous. I don’t hear as much about this (compared to not staying anonymous enough) in my recovery community. There is a good discussion of this topic on pages 264-265 of the book “Dr. Bob & The Good Oldtimers”. I won’t repeat it all, but Dr. Bob was quoted as saying “If I gave my name as only “Dr. Bob” without my last name, people who needed my help would have a hard time getting in touch with me”. He was quoted as saying “there were two ways to break the Eleventh Tradition: by giving your name at the level of press or radio, or being so anonymous that you can’t be reached by other alcoholics”.
In my recovery community, people know my name. I’m on my home group’s telephone list. I have a unique name, and I’m easy to contact.
What about anonymity in the Internet Age? The Eleventh Tradition only states “….anonymity at the level of press, radio and films”. It doesn’t mention the internet, because the Eleventh Tradition (and all of the Traditions) were developed in the late 1940’s and published for the first time in 1953.
AA published a Guideline on the Internet (https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/mg-18_internet.pdf), which notes that “the internet and social media are implicit in the last phrase of Tradition Eleven which states at the level of press radio and films”. In other words, anonymity should apply on social media and the internet. A bit further in the Guideline, the authors note that “AA’s do not publicly identify themselves using full names or full-face photographs”.
Because of that, you won’t find my name on this site. I decided to use a pseudonym: The Recovering Urchin.
So there you have it. It is possible to be not anonymous enough and break the Eleventh Tradition. It is also possible to be too anonymous and break the Eleventh Tradition.
With Love,
The Recovering Urchin
