From the AA "12 Steps and 12 Traditions"

"Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole"

"Over the years, every conceivable deviation from our 12 Steps and Traditions has been tried. That was sure to be, since we are so largely a band of ego-driven individualists. Children of chaos, we have defiantly played with every brand of fire, only to emerge unharmed and, we think, wiser. These very deviations created a vast process of trial and error which, under the grace of God, has brought us to where we stand today.

"... In charting this enormous expanse of freedom, we found it necessary to post only two storm signals: A group ought not do anything which would greatly injure AA as a whole, nor ought it to affiliate itself with anything or anybody else. There would be real danger should we commence to call some groups 'wet', others 'dry', ... and yet others Catholic or Protestant. The AA group would have to stick to its course or be hopelessly lost. Sobriety had to be its sole objective. In all other respects there was perfect freedom of will and action. Every group had the right to be wrong...."

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