AA Promises for Each Step: Big Book Promises With Every Step

Today we understand alcohol addiction and other substance use disorders as medical conditions, not moral failures. For many people living with alcohol dependence, the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous offers a steady path forward.

Alcoholics Anonymous is built on promises. Not all of them are stated directly. Some are implied, yet they are just as real.

Bill W., a co-founder of AA, wrote about what he called a common solution. The tremendous fact, he said, is that ordinary people found a way out together.

These promises live at every stage of the AA program. As AA members know, they are achievable. Here are the promises woven through each of the twelve steps.

For each step, the promise text appears as a quotation, followed by a plain-language explanation of what it offers. Except where noted, all quotes come from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

First Step Promise

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. (pg. 59)

1. It is okay to admit powerlessness, and admitting it is the first step of claiming life back from alcohol.
2. The promise of an alternative. When a person reaches the point of admitting defeat, they are reaching for something better.
3. The promise of a rise from rock bottom. Rock bottom is the lowest point for a given individual. Once it is reached, the only way is up, the rise to a better alternative.
4. The Big Book says not to be discouraged (p.60). The promise of better means we can advance confidently.

Second Step

That God could and would if He were sought. (p. 60)

1. There is a solution to a drink problem.
2. God is the solution. Our Higher Power can do what we could not do for ourselves.
3. All we need to do is reach out, and God will respond. This is the great fact of this program of recovery.

No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. (p.60)

1. We do not need to be perfect. We need to be willing to grow, and then we are promised progress.

We have found much of heaven, and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed. (p. 25)

The central fact of our lives today, the Big Book says on the same page, is a quiet kind of certainty.

The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. (p. 25)

These deep and effective spiritual experiences revolutionize our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows, and toward God’s universe.

1. There are possibilities beyond anything we had imagined.
2. There can be a sense of heaven as we live a life of sobriety.
3. We will experience a spiritual awakening.
4. We can reach a higher plane.

Third Step Promises

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. (p. 59)

1. We can each hold an understanding of God that differs from how others see the Deity, and that is okay.
2. The nature of our spiritual beliefs does not matter. What matters is turning toward God.

Many of us tried to run the show with our own little plans and designs. We come to see that willpower and good ideas alone were never enough. The Third Step Prayer puts the surrender into words.

God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. (p. 63)

As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow, or the hereafter. We were reborn. (p.63)

The promises implied here are striking.

1. We will know and feel a new power.
2. We will become conscious of our Higher Power’s presence.
3. There will be peace of mind.
4. We will be able to face life effectively.
5. We will stop being afraid.
6. We will experience a rebirth.

Being all-powerful, He provided what we needed. (p. 63)

1. God is more powerful than anything, even our drinking.
2. God provides our needs, not always our wants, unless what we want is what we truly need. Needs and wants are not always the same thing.

An effect, sometimes a very great one, was felt at once. (p. 63)

1. Handing ourselves over to God’s care can bring an immediate change. An effect is often felt right away.

Fourth Step Promises

If we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we have written down a lot. We have listed and analyzed our resentments. We have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality. We have begun to learn tolerance, patience, and goodwill toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people. We have listed the people we have hurt through our conduct and are willing to make amends for the past if we can. (p. 70)

1. Mental health can be restored.
2. We can begin to change.
3. We see the pointlessness of past resentments and how damaging they can be.
4. We see that we can prepare to make amends.

Fifth Step Promises

We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe. (p. 75)

1. We move from a belief in God to an experience of God.
2. We will experience perfect peace.
3. Fear will disappear.
4. We can become confident.

Sixth Step Promises

Delay is dangerous, and rebellion may be fatal. (12 and 12, p. 69)

Step Six asks only for willingness to have even a single defect of character removed.

1. This is an inverse promise. It warns that hesitation and rebellion are risky and may lead to failure.

Seventh Step Promises

By this time, in all probability, we have gained some measure of release from our more devastating handicaps. We enjoy moments in which there is something like real peace of mind. To those of us who have known only excitement, depression, or anxiety, in other words, to all of us, this newfound peace is a priceless gift. (12 and 12, p. 74)

1. There is the possibility of release from what made us sick people.
2. Release from our handicaps is possible and may already have begun, yet even more is possible.
3. Real peace can be found, and it is a gift beyond measure.

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. (p.59)

1. Our shortcomings can be removed by our Higher Power.
2. We can become humble, which is not the same as being humiliated.
3. Humility is a path to recovery.

Eighth Step Promises

It is the beginning of the end of isolation from our fellows and from God. (12 and 12, p. 82)

1. Isolation can come to an end.
2. Reunion with family members is possible.
3. Those wonderful ties we used to have can be resumed.
4. We will know the Fellowship of the Spirit.
5. We will be aware of God’s nearness.

As we make our list, we also gain a new understanding of our families and the people we love. Amends are approached in a spirit of forgiveness, toward others and toward ourselves.

Ninth Step Promises (The 9th Step Promises)

These are the best known of all the promises of AA. Making amends is part of Step Nine, and the rewards are described right after. They are read aloud at meetings everywhere, from a small home group to the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The Big Book introduces the 9th-step promises in a single line.

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. (p. 83)

• We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
• We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
• We will comprehend the word serenity.
• We will know peace.
• No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
• That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
• We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
• Self-seeking will slip away.
• Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change.
• Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.
• We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
• We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. (p. 84)

The fifth promise on this list, that our experience can benefit others, sits at the heart of recovery. As self pity loses its grip, a new life opens up.

Fear of people and economic insecurity ease. Some people rebuild trust with a current boss, and others find a new employer willing to give them a chance.

Tenth Step Promises (The 10th Step Promise)

For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor afraid. (pp. 84 to 85)

1. Sanity will return, and our mental faculties clear.
2. Normal responses return.
3. As time passes, interest in drinking fades, and if it surfaces, we reject it automatically.
4. Our new attitude toward liquor takes hold.
5. Turning down a drink becomes natural, almost a reflex.

People in recovery see all sorts of remarkable things happen as this step takes hold.

Eleventh Step Promises

Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from Him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us. To some extent we have become God-conscious. We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense. (p.85)

1. We become aware of the dictates of a Higher Power.
2. We will experience a new sense of power.
3. We are guided by effective spiritual experiences.
4. God can strengthen us.

The 12 and 12 suggests that with daily prayer and meditation there is less danger of excitement, fear, or anger. This practice reaches the working part of the mind that willpower alone cannot.

What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. (p.85)

1. As long as we maintain a fit spiritual condition, we can avoid returning to substance abuse.

Twelfth Step Promises

Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. (p. 89)

1. Immunity is possible.
2. Each of us discovers the way of my usefulness.
3. In helping others stay sober, we help to keep ourselves sober.

Together the steps build an effective spiritual structure that holds when life gets hard.

When we look back, we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God’s hands were better than anything we could have planned. (p. 100)

1. Comparing our lives now with the chaos of drinking days, we see how huge the changes have been.
2. Alcohol is never a solution to a problem.

Follow the dictates of a Higher Power, and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstances. (p. 100)

1. We can transcend our situation.
2. Our new approach to life shapes our attitude in any circumstance.
3. Drinking only makes a problem worse.

The Pre-step Promise

One thing kept striking me as I wrote this post. Before the steps of AA are listed in the Big Book, they are introduced by a promise. To make this complete, it belongs here.

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as part of a recovery program. (p.59)

1. This promises, almost miraculously, that recovery is possible.
2. By following this 12-step recovery program, the drink problem can lift.
3. There are other people like us who have overcome alcohol addiction.

Each step builds on the last in this step program, a natural extension of promise into daily practice.

In Conclusion

Every part of this journey is governed by promises. Some are stated plainly. Others we find between the lines of the AA books.

Together these promises point to larger ones. Even in the face of collapse, a recovery process exists.

1. An end to substance abuse.
2. Present circumstances when entering AA need not be the final circumstances.
3. A new way of life.
4. A wonderful world.
5. A life in communion with the God of our understanding, a Higher Power that acts to keep us sober.
6. God can and will transform our lives if sought and earnestly asked.

The great news is that these promises are not reserved for people who have spent much time in the program. Even in a little time, change begins. If you are still suffering, you are not alone, and a new way of life is within reach.

This post shares the spiritual promises of Alcoholics Anonymous and is not medical advice. If you or someone you love is living with a substance use disorder, please reach out to a qualified healthcare professional or a local recovery community for support.

Note: Except where specified, all quotes are from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.