Download The Twelve Traditions

Tradition 1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon CEA-HOW unity.

Tradition 2. 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.

Tradition 3. The only requirement for CEA-HOW membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively.

Tradition 4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or CEA-HOW as a whole.

Tradition 5. Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the compulsive eater who still suffers.

Tradition 6. A CEA-HOW group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the CEA-HOW name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

Tradition 7. Every CEA-HOW group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

Tradition 8. Compulsive Eaters Anonymous-HOW should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

Tradition 9. CEA-HOW, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

Tradition 10. Compulsive Eaters Anonymous-HOW has no opinion on outside issues; hence the CEA-HOW name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

Tradition 11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, television, and other public media of communication.

Tradition 12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

The Twelve Traditions are reprinted and adapted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. Permission to reprint and adapt this material does not mean that AA is in any way affiliated with this program. AA is a program of recovery from alcoholism only. Use of the Twelve Traditions in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after AA, but which address other problems, or in any other non-AA context, does not imply otherwise.