At a first meeting, the ninth step promises can sound impossible to believe. After years of chaos, hearing that this much freedom is within reach can feel out of reach.
It helps to read these promises as a contract. The first and last sentences set the condition that allows the promises to be fulfilled.
They do not happen simply because someone stops drinking. They take work, painstaking work.
That is the key, and it applies not only to the ninth step but to all twelve steps. The effort has to continue for the promises to materialize.
But what promises these 9th-step promises are. Here is what each one means.
Where the Ninth Step Promises Come From in the Big Book
The 9th step promises appear on pages 83 and 84 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, in the chapter “Into Action.” They are sometimes called the extravagant promises, a phrase the book itself uses while gently insisting they are not extravagant at all.
The Big Book was first published in 1939 by the early members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill Wilson, known in the fellowship as Bill W., wrote most of the text, drawing on his own recovery and on the experience of the first AA members.
Dr. Bob, the other co-founder, helped shape the program of action described in the promises.
It helps to remember the difference between the steps and the traditions. The twelve steps are the program of personal recovery, while the twelve traditions guide how groups stay healthy. The promises live within the steps, capturing the very spirit of step nine and the work that surrounds it.
1. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.
The amazement often arrives long before the halfway point. Many people notice the program working well before they reach the 9th step, because the effects begin to show up early. Some of those effects include:
- A spiritual awakening
- A clear mind
- Seeing the recovery process at work in daily life
- Taking a fearless moral inventory of oneself
- Living a life of sobriety that once seemed impossible
2. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
This can begin even before Step 9. As you gain freedom from your substance use disorders and connect with a Higher Power, a new freedom and a new happiness start to grow.
How does it happen? You are no longer trying to run the whole show. You still make decisions and live your life.
Now you are guided by your Higher Power, and you learn to wait and think before acting.
3. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
Closing off memories of the past creates a risk of forgetting what life was once like, which can lead back to relapse. Regret can curdle into self-hatred, and that is also a threat to sobriety.
This promise means you can face your past experiences honestly. Self pity will no longer have a hold.
4. We will comprehend the word Serenity, and we will know peace.
Much of this connects to the previous promise. God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change.
The past cannot change, but who you become can. That is what these AA promises offer: a new attitude and the assurance that you can change what you become.
5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
Everyone arrives from a different depth, yet every experience of anyone who enters this 12-step program with a substance use problem can help someone else. People meet each other right where they are.
Some are homeless, some are holding down a successful job. Any experience can connect with another person, and that experience has real value in reaching the still-suffering person.
6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
Recovery gives you a purpose: to help others who still suffer. With that purpose, the feeling of uselessness and self-pity begins to lessen.
The more you help others, the deeper your spiritual experience becomes and the more contentment you find.
7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-obsession fades as you experience the nearness of our Creator. You begin to want to help the people who need it.
The bondage of self loosens, and your focus shifts toward finding and keeping a fit spiritual condition.
8. Self-seeking will slip away.
As the right attitude develops, you start wanting what is best for other people. You keep working to become a better person as a new power flow moves through you and you begin to live by spiritual principles.
9. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change.
New attitudes become normal. You take personal responsibility for your life.
This is a new life, and you become the rightful owner of your days instead of someone governed by active addiction.
10. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.
Many people spend years afraid of others and their reactions. As you learn to correct mistakes as they happen, you can move through the confusion of daily life without that constant worry.
For anyone worn down by past experiences, this is often the most powerful promise. The fear of today begins to loosen its grip.
11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
Maybe you were short with a clerk at the grocery store. You learn to go back and make amends.
Maybe a family member you have never gotten along with calls out of the blue, and for the first time you know how to talk with them. These are examples of how you learn to handle difficult situations that once baffled you.
12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Once the will is handed over to a Higher Power, these promises become the full manifestation of what Bill W. called the fourth dimension of existence. He described being lifted into a way of life that grows more wonderful with time.
This is the spiritual dimension, where life is guided differently as a new power flows in.
Step 9 and the Process of Making Amends
The promises grow out of action, and the action of step nine is the process of amends. Step nine reads: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Direct amends mean going to a person face-to-face, acknowledging the harm, and making it right. Indirect amends apply when reaching someone directly is impossible or would cause more harm, so the change shows up in changed behavior instead.
Financial amends are their own category. When money is owed, a realistic plan to repay people over time is part of facing the full consequences of our past actions.
Some longtime members describe the three R’s of this step: taking responsibility, making restitution, and seeking reconciliation when safe. Some situations call for full amends right away, while others call for patience. Either way, the goal is to keep your side of the street clean, not to demand forgiveness.
Working through this process brings a neutral position toward the past. You are no longer running from the people you harmed, and that freedom is exactly what the promises describe.
Why the Eighth Step Comes First
The ninth step never stands alone. The eighth step asks you to make an amends list of everyone you have harmed and to become willing to make amends to them all.
That list usually grows out of the honest work of the fourth and fifth steps, where you take inventory and share it with another person. By the time you reach step nine, you are not guessing about who was hurt. You are acting on a carefully compiled list.
This order matters. Doing the eighth step first protects you and the people you approach because willingness is the preparatory part of step nine, and it comes before action.
Staying in Fit Spiritual Condition After the Promises
The promises are not a finish line. They are markers along the road of spiritual progress, and staying on that road takes daily practice.
Many people in recovery use daily spot-check inventories to catch resentment or fear as they rise, then correct them quickly. Morning and evening prayer helps you ask for guidance toward correct thought rather than self-will.
This is how you live the principles of this way of life. You ask to be shown the way of my usefulness, you take positive action, and you try to serve the well-being of others. Some close the day with a Step Eleven prayer, asking to become an instrument of thy love and to walk in thy way of life.
Over time, this practice brings a real peace of mind, and some describe moments of perfect peace they never imagined in active addiction. It also deepens the true meaning of powerlessness because you stop trying to control outcomes and start trusting a power greater than yourself.
The old craving can still flare up like a hot flame, but daily spiritual maintenance keeps it from taking over. Whatever your spiritual beliefs, the practice stays the same: keep doing the next right thing, today and into next year.
In Conclusion
Remember that this is a contract, and your part must be fulfilled for the promises to be fulfilled. Without action, these stay unrealistic promises, just wishful thinking. When you work this step, and indeed all the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, the promises become real and abundant.
Remember what step 9 is. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
This is the work to stay painstaking about so each of these promises can come true. The twelve promises of A.A. will materialize when you are painstaking about this phase of our development.
Frequently Asked Questions About the 9th Step Promises
No. Many AA members notice the promises early, often during their step work on the fourth and fifth steps. They tend to deepen the longer you stay in the process.
The promises were written for people with every kind of drink problem and substance use disorder. People get sober in different ways, and the program still meets each person where they are.
There is no set timeline. For many people, sanity returns over time, and the fear of today eases as they keep showing up to a home group and stay connected with others.
No. People with many spiritual beliefs, and some with very few, find that the promises come true. The action matters more than the words.
Simple anchors help: working with a sponsor, marking milestones with a sobriety coin, treating others as sick people rather than enemies, and remembering that recovery looks different ways for different people.