This is IA 

An introduction to the IA Recovery Program

 Service Materials

Imperialists Anonymous is an international fellowship of people who have built, maintained or benefited from Empire. It is without categoricity, self-supporting, apolitical and available everywhere. There are no requirements for membership other than wanting to do something about your contributions to Empire.

The Thirteen Steps of Imperialists Anonymous

IA's Thirteen Steps are a group of principles, economic in their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession with material growth which contributes to Empire and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.

1. We admit we are powerless over Empire – that our growth-oriented lives have become unmanageable.
2. We believe that a Power more human than material growth, that of our hearts, can restore us to sanity.
3. We understand that by being heart-aware we can easily chose unity over material growth and thereby end the cycle of benefit at the expense of others.
4. We have decided to turn our will and our lives over to unity and the development of heart awareness.
5. We have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
6. We have admitted the exact nature of our wrongs to the Earth, our Ancestors, ourselves, our Fellowship and someone who does not yet belong to the Fellowship.
7. We are entirely ready to remove all these distortions of heart and do whatever work is required of us to make it so.
8. We have humbly gathered an understanding of what work is required of us to take our Power back from Empire and give it to our hearts.
9. We have made a list of all the people, places, things and groups we have harmed and are willing to make amends to them all.
10. We have made direct amends to all those on our list.
11. We have taken feedback during our amends and throughout our daily lives so that we can continue our personal inventory and promptly admit when we are wrong.
12. We seek through gathering and meditation to improve our conscious contact with our hearts and each other so we can constantly strive to know what needs to be done to restore unity and have the power to carry out that change.
13. Having had a heart awakening as the result of these steps, we carry this message to Imperialists and practice these principles in all our affairs.

The Thirteen Traditions of Imperialists Anonymous (Short Form)

IA's Thirteen Traditions apply to the life of the Fellowship itself. They outline the means by which IA maintains its unity and relates itself to the world around it, the way it lives and develops.

1. Our common welfare comes first; personal recovery depends upon IA unity.
2. As those who have benefitted from Empire, we are by definition without capacity to create new institutions which require growth. We solely focused on removing our contributions to Empire and not in rebuilding.
3. For our group purpose the authority lies outside of the Fellowship and we must stay connected with those who Empire has damaged as our guides to how to right it. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
4. Imperialists Anonymous will forever remain without categoricity; the only requirement for IA is a desire to stop benefitting from Empire.
5. Each group is autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or IA as a whole.
6. Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the Imperialist who still suffers.
7. An IA group will never endorse, finance or lend the IA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest Imperialist problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
8. Every IA group is fully self-supporting, each person's contributions based on their own depth of benefit from Empire. All outside contributions are declined.
9. All proceeds in surplus of organizational needs will be given to those who have been harmed by Empire without any oversight whatsoever as to their use.
10. IA, as such, will never be organized, institutionalized, legally recognized or otherwise formalized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
11. Imperialists Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the IA name should never be drawn into public controversy.
12. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, internet and all other forms of media.
13. Anonymity is the foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.