PDF Summary:Alcoholics Anonymous: The Big Book, by AAWS

With nearly two million members across 180 countries, Alcoholics Anonymous is the most well-known program for sobriety and the default treatment for alcoholism in US healthcare. The Big Book is the organization’s primary text. Published in 1939, it developed the “12-step program” now commonly used to treat a wide variety of addictions. In this summary, we lay out some of the core principles behind AA and outline the book’s persuasive techniques.

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The 12 Steps

AA maintains that the only way to succeed is to follow the 12 steps without exception. No steps can be skipped; they are all essential for recovery.

Largely speaking, the steps fall into three themes:

• Steps 1-5: Acceptance and soul-searching: You accept the principles of the program, and you make a complete list of your shortcomings.
• Steps 6-9: Righting past wrongs: You seek to remove your shortcomings, and you make amends with people you’ve hurt in the past.
• Steps 10-12: An ongoing process: Having overcome your past, you move into the future, continuing to improve yourself and becoming an agent of good by helping others.

Step 1

Admit you’re powerless over alcohol: Recognizing that you’re too weak to solve your alcoholism by yourself is the first step. This forces you to avoid denying you have a problem, which is necessary if you want to be open to the rest of the steps.

Step 2

Believe in a higher power: AA teaches that an individual alcoholic cannot become sober, but an alcoholic with the power of a greater force behind him can recover.

Step 3

Commit to turning your life over to this higher power: This step is about surrender. You decide to turn your individual will over to a higher power, and you accept the faith that this higher power will help you recover.

Step 4

Take inventory of yourself: This step is about soul-searching. Take inventory of yourself in the same way you’d take inventory of a retail store if you were its owner. Find the damaged and unsellable goods—your flaws that drive you to drink, like your anger, guilt, resentment, and other emotions. If you free yourself of these flaws, you’ll free yourself of your need to drink.

Step 5

Confess your wrongdoings: The goal of this step is to confess every single dark corner of your past to another person. This will shift you out of the mindset of keeping secrets. When you admit your shortcomings out loud to someone else, it will relieve you of the burdens you’ve been carrying and you’ll feel as if a great weight has been lifted. Choose someone you can trust to keep your secrets, and don’t choose someone who could be hurt by them, such as your spouse.

Step 6

Become ready to let go of your shortcomings: In Steps 4 and 5, you investigated your shortcomings and confessed them to someone else. Step 6 is about being willing to let them go—to let your higher power remove them from your character. This is important, because if you try to become sober but still have shortcomings in your inventory, you’re much less likely to succeed.

Step 7

Ask your higher power for help: Now that you’ve prepared yourself to let go of your shortcomings, ask your higher power to relieve you of them. This step is about humility—it’s when you recognize that you’re unable to remove your shortcomings by yourself, no matter how high your willpower or determination. You need your higher power to do this for you.

Step 8

Make a list of everyone you’ve harmed: This step and the next are about repairing your misdoings from the past. Where you had previously harmed others, you must now be willing to apologize for that harm and relieve your guilt. In Step 8, make a list of all people you’ve harmed. You don’t need to make amends yet—you just need to be prepared to do so. Consult your moral inventory, which you made in Step 4 and confessed in Step 5, for a list of people.

Step 9

Make amends to those you’ve hurt: Your goal in this step is to correct your mistakes directly with the people you hurt. An amendment isn’t just an apology—it’s an act to solve a problem from the past. Often, when hearing your vulnerability, the other person will admit their own fault in this situation. This can melt away years of resentment for both of you.

Be sincere about righting your past wrongs—recognize that you won’t change unless you’ve straightened out your past. Don’t tell the other person you’ve gone religious—you risk being branded a religious fanatic and not being taken seriously. Don’t criticize or argue with them. You’re not there to discuss the other person’s faults. Stick to your own. If your past misdeeds involved other people, secure their consent to being part of your making amends. For instance, if you’ve committed adultery, get consent from the person you were involved with.

People are more forgiving than you think. However, recognize that there are some wrongs you can never fully right. Don’t worry about them if you can honestly say to yourself that you would right them if you could.

(Shortform note: One reason Steps 8 and 9 are effective in recovery is that they reduce guilt over your past misdoings. Guilt fuels a vicious cycle for alcoholics—feeling guilty over past actions, they drink; after drinking, they commit more mistakes, which causes them to feel guilty later; they now feel more guilt, and are more likely to drink. Relieving this guilt by coming to terms with people you’ve harmed should reduce future temptations to drink.)

Step 10

Continue to take personal inventory: Recovery is an ongoing process, not a one-time step. Old habits die hard, and at times you may slip into your old behavior. Continue to watch yourself for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. If they come up, ask your higher power at once to remove them. If you make a mistake, promptly admit it and make amends.

Step 11

Reflect: In this step, think about the plan that your higher power has for you, and commit to carrying it out. For spiritual people, this step often involves prayer and meditation. For secular people, this involves stopping and reflecting on your thoughts. Either way, review your day constructively every night. Did you have any shortcomings, like being resentful, afraid, or selfish? Do you need to make amends to anyone? What could you have done better?

Then, every morning, plan your day as you wake up. Ask your higher power for help to see what your next step is. Don’t feel self-pity, and avoid selfish motives.

Step 12

Help other alcoholics: A major part of the AA program is to reach out to other alcoholics and help them recover. This work is more than just helping other people—it helps you stay sober as well. By helping others adhere to the principles, you reinforce them in yourself.

Before approaching a prospect, find out all you can about them. Talk to the person who knows them best, like their spouse. Find out his behavior, problems, background, the seriousness of his condition, and his religious leanings.

To approach someone, try to find them when they’re alone. Hold a general conversation before talking about drinking. When the time is right, share your drinking habits and experiences. Share your experiences getting cured, and share the principles of AA—in particular, how you found that willpower wasn’t enough, how alcoholism is an illness, and how you were doomed by yourself.

Make it clear they’re not under pressure—they don’t have to see you again if they don’t want to. Only try to work with people who want to stop drinking: Don’t chase someone who cannot or will not work with you. Instead, spend your time on someone you can actually help, and let the others come to you when the time is right.

Looking Forward

Over time, you’ll realize you’re seldom interested in liquor. You haven’t been fighting temptation. Instead, the problem has been removed. You feel safe and protected.

However, don’t get complacent about your recovery. You are never cured of alcoholism. You can only maintain control of it by continuing to hold your triggers at bay, day after day. This doesn’t mean you have to avoid every place that has liquor, but only go to those places if you have a good reason, and be prepared to counter the temptations that will greet you there. If you do visit these places, though, don’t proselytize to others and adopt a holier-than-thou attitude as a recovering alcoholic, and don’t show intolerance of drinking as an institution—this attitude isn’t helpful to anyone.