Origin and History of the 12 Concepts

[janbear]

Origin and History of the 12 Concepts

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a short history of the 12 Concepts going back to their roots....

Bill Wilson, co founder of AA first publicly discussed the 12 Concepts for World Service in 1960.....

He proposed the Twelve Concepts For World Service at the 10th General Service Conference

The proposal, delivered by Bill W. at the closing of the 10th General Service Conference is of great historical significance as it was the first time that Bill had spoken to the Fellowship on the subject of the Twelve Concepts.

Here are some excerpts from that address....

"These Twelve Concepts therefore represent an attempt to put on paper the why of our service structure in such a fashion that the highly valuable experience of the past and the conclusions that we have drawn from it cannot be lost.

Hence, a prime purpose of these Twelve Concepts is to hold the experience and lessons of the early days constantly before us. This should reduce the chance of hasty and unnecessary change. And if alterations are made that happen to work out badly, then it is hoped that these Twelve Concepts will make a point of safe return."
OK, now that you know the earliest origins, here is how we got them in NA

The origin of the 12 Concepts for NA Service dates to the 1982 World Service Conference (WSC), when the outgoing WSC Admin Committee was directed to investigate aspects of the AA service structure that might be beneficial to NA and adaptable to our particular needs. The vice-chair of that committee (Bo S) wrote a report that included material on AA's "Twelve Concepts for World Service" that he delivered to the 1983 WSC.

The project of rewriting our structure remained in the Policy Committee's hands until later assigned to the Select Committee on the Service Structure.
In the fall of 1987 the Select Committee began drafting what are today our Twelve Concepts, and they delivered a draft of 8 principles to the 1988 WSC.
Copies of this draft and the accompanying report were sent out to Regions and Areas.
Work continued, and at the 1989 WSC the committee provided a draft of "Twelve Principles for NA Service".

In the following years there were revisions and six weekend workshops were held around the fellowship, where the renamed Concepts and draft of "A Guide to Service" were discussed.

A draft of The Twelve Concepts for NA Service was published in the 1992 Conference Agenda Report. A final draft was presented to the WSC in 1992 and adopted by more than a two-thirds margin.


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