Understanding the Promises of A.A.
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The Promises of A.A. describe changes that may take place as a person honestly works the Twelve Steps and continues to live the spiritual program of action. Chapter 6 of the Big Book, “Into Action,” connects these changes to personal inventory, admission of wrongs, willingness, amends, continued self-examination, prayer, meditation, and service to others.
What A.A. means by “the Promises”
The Big Book does not contain a formally titled or numbered list called The Promises. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services explains that A.A. members commonly use that name for the passage found on pages 83–84 of Chapter 6, “Into Action.” The same passage is also commonly called the Ninth Step Promises because it appears during the chapter’s discussion of Step Nine and the work of making amends. It should therefore be understood as part of the Step process rather than as a separate teaching detached from it. (Alcoholics Anonymous)
Chapter 6 covers Steps Five through Eleven. It begins with the results of personal inventory, moves through the admission of the exact nature of one’s wrongs, willingness to have defects of character removed, the making of amends, continued personal inventory, and the practice of prayer and meditation. Throughout this progression, the chapter describes changes that can occur when spiritual principles are put into practice. (Alcoholics Anonymous)
The Promises belong to action
The chapter’s title—Into Action—is essential to understanding the Promises. They are not presented as rewards for merely agreeing with A.A. ideas, attending meetings, identifying as an A.A. member, or waiting for life to improve. They arise from action: honesty, willingness, humility, restitution, continued self-examination, reliance upon God, and service to other people.
Chapter 6 states the principle plainly: “The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.” A.A. recovery is therefore presented as a way of living rather than a collection of beliefs. Spiritual ideas must become conduct: admitting wrongs, repairing damage, changing harmful behavior, becoming useful, and applying spiritual principles in ordinary relationships and responsibilities. (Alcoholics Anonymous)
The Promises are conditional in this practical sense. They are introduced by the condition that members be “painstaking about this phase of our development.” Their timing is described as “sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly,” and they are said to “materialize if we work for them.” The language does not establish a timetable or promise that every member will experience every change in exactly the same manner. It says that the changes develop through continued work. (Alcoholics Anonymous)
The familiar statement that members may be amazed before they are halfway through appears in the middle of the Step Nine amends discussion. In context, “halfway through” most naturally refers to this phase of amends and reconstruction—not halfway through a lifetime of recovery and not halfway through the Twelve Steps as a numerical sequence.
A changed relationship with the past
The Promises begin with “a new freedom and a new happiness.” This freedom does not mean that the past has been erased, excused, or declared unimportant. Chapter 6 requires the member to face the past, admit personal responsibility, and repair damage wherever possible. Freedom comes from no longer having to conceal, deny, rationalize, or continually flee from what happened.
The past is no longer treated only as a source of humiliation. It becomes experience that can benefit others. Regret is transformed into usefulness. The door is not shut on the past because the recovered alcoholic can draw upon it when identifying with another alcoholic, making amends, practicing humility, and carrying the A.A. message.
This is not denial of consequences. Some losses may remain, some relationships may not be restored, and some wrongs may never be fully repaired. The change is that the past no longer has to govern the present through secrecy, resentment, guilt, self-pity, or fear.
Serenity and peace
The promise of serenity and peace does not describe a life without difficulty. Chapter 6 contains creditors, damaged families, broken trust, legal consequences, wounded relationships, fear, jealousy, resentment, and prolonged reconstruction. Serenity therefore means a different way of meeting reality—not the removal of reality.
Peace develops when the member stops running from personal responsibility, stops attempting to control every outcome, and takes the actions that can properly be taken. A person may still face uncertainty, but no longer has to meet it entirely through self-will, concealment, panic, or alcohol.
The chapter’s idea of peace is active rather than passive. It is connected to cleaning house, setting right mistakes, asking for direction, using common sense, and becoming willing to accept results that cannot be controlled.
From self-pity to usefulness
Several of the Promises describe a movement away from self-centeredness. Uselessness and self-pity begin to disappear. Interest in selfish things gives way to interest in one’s fellows. Self-seeking loses its controlling position.
This does not mean that a member ceases to have legitimate personal needs. It means that personal wants, injuries, fears, and ambitions are no longer the only basis for action. Chapter 6 repeatedly redirects the alcoholic toward usefulness: repairing harm, considering the welfare of other people, helping someone, and becoming of maximum service to God and the people around them.
This change is central to A.A.’s understanding of recovery. The alcoholic moves from asking how every person and circumstance can serve the self toward asking what can be contributed to life. Experience that once appeared useless becomes useful when it allows one alcoholic to understand and help another.
A changed attitude and outlook
The Promises describe a change in the person’s whole attitude and outlook upon life. This is broader than simply feeling better. It means that the individual’s basic way of interpreting people, problems, responsibilities, fear, and personal identity begins to change.
Situations that once produced bafflement may become manageable because the member now has a practical method:
- Examine personal motives.
- Watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.
- Admit mistakes promptly.
- Discuss problems with another person.
- Make amends when harm has been done.
- Ask God for direction.
- Turn attention toward someone who can be helped.
- Use common sense rather than impulsive self-will.
The resulting intuition is not presented as supernatural infallibility. Chapter 6 specifically warns against assuming that every thought is divine inspiration. The member is told to relax, seek direction, consult others where appropriate, and use the brains and common sense that God has given.
Freedom from governing fear
The Promises say that fear of people and economic insecurity can leave. This does not promise permanent financial security, approval from everyone, or immunity from practical trouble. Chapter 6 directly discusses debts, employment, reputation, domestic conflict, and possible legal consequences.
The promised change is that fear no longer has to determine every decision. The member can face creditors, difficult conversations, damaged relationships, and uncertain outcomes without automatically hiding, lying, blaming, drinking, or attempting to manipulate everyone involved.
Economic problems may still require budgets, repayment arrangements, employment, sacrifice, and patience. What changes is the alcoholic’s relationship to insecurity. Financial fear no longer has to remain an excuse for dishonesty or avoidance.
The Promises and Step Five
Promise language appears before the well-known Step Nine passage. In the Step Five discussion, Chapter 6 explains that the alcoholic must become entirely honest with somebody and disclose the exact nature of the wrongs uncovered in personal inventory.
The chapter connects this action with relief from the double life of secrecy, fear, tension, and the constant effort to maintain a stage character before other people. After withholding nothing, the member may begin to look the world in the eye, experience peace and ease when alone, feel fears falling away, and sense the nearness of the Creator.
These are early promises of honesty. They do not arise because the past was harmless. They arise because the alcoholic is no longer attempting to carry it alone or keep it hidden.
The Promises and Steps Eight and Nine
Steps Eight and Nine move the member from recognition to restitution. Chapter 6 instructs the alcoholic to identify those who were harmed and become willing to make amends. The purpose is to repair the damage done in the past and sweep off one’s own side of the street.
An amend is more than an apology. It is an effort to set right the wrong and change the conduct that caused it. The member is instructed to remain focused on personal faults rather than criticizing the other person, demanding forgiveness, defending past behavior, or using an amend to obtain a preferred response.
At the same time, Chapter 6 does not encourage reckless disclosure. The welfare of other people matters. Members are told to seek advice, avoid unnecessary injury, remain sensible, tactful, considerate, and avoid sacrificing innocent people merely to relieve their own guilt.
The Promises appear during what Chapter 6 calls a long period of reconstruction. They do not wait until every amend has been completed or every consequence has vanished. They begin to emerge while the member is honestly undertaking the work of repair.
The Promises and Step Ten
Immediately after the familiar Promises passage, Chapter 6 moves into Step Ten. This placement matters. The spiritual condition described by the Promises is not something achieved once and permanently possessed. It must be maintained.
Step Ten requires continued personal inventory and the prompt correction of new mistakes. Members are instructed to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear; ask God to remove them; discuss them with someone; make amends quickly when harm has been done; and turn their thoughts toward someone they can help.
The governing standard is: “Love and tolerance of others is our code.” (Alcoholics Anonymous)
Chapter 6 then describes another group of promises concerning alcohol itself: sanity returning, the struggle with alcohol ending, temptation losing its former authority, and the alcoholic being placed in a position of neutrality rather than constant combat. But the chapter immediately rejects complacency. “We are not cured of alcoholism.” What is available is a “daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.” (Alcoholics Anonymous)
The promise is therefore not permanent immunity. It is continued freedom maintained through continued spiritual action.
The Promises and Step Eleven
Step Eleven extends the program into daily prayer and meditation. Chapter 6 recommends reviewing the day, recognizing resentment, selfishness, dishonesty, fear, withheld matters, and apologies that are owed. It then directs the member to consider the coming day, ask for guidance, and seek freedom from self-pity, dishonest motives, and self-seeking.
The chapter describes strength, inspiration, and direction; growing God-consciousness; and the development of what it calls a vital sixth sense. These terms describe an increasing reliance upon spiritual guidance rather than the isolated direction of self-will.
The member is not told to abandon practical judgment. Prayer and meditation are joined with honest review, consultation, responsibility, and common sense. The individual is reminded that he or she is no longer running the show, but still remains responsible for taking the next right action.
What the Promises do not promise
Chapter 6 does not promise wealth, social status, perfect health, universal approval, the automatic restoration of every relationship, freedom from all grief, or a life without consequences. It does not promise that other people will forgive, cooperate, change, or respond favorably to amends.
It also does not promise an immediate cure. Recovery is described as continuing for a lifetime. The alcoholic remains responsible for maintaining spiritual condition, correcting mistakes, remaining useful, and avoiding the temptation to rest on past progress.
The Promises should not be used to judge another member’s recovery. Because they may be fulfilled at different rates and in different forms, one person’s experience is not the required pattern for everyone else. They describe a direction of change: from fear toward faith, from concealment toward honesty, from self-pity toward usefulness, from isolation toward fellowship, from self-will toward reliance upon God, and from damage toward reconstruction.
Summary
Understanding the Promises of A.A. means reading them exactly where the Big Book places them: inside a spiritual program of action. They describe what can begin to happen as an alcoholic becomes honest, admits wrongs, becomes willing to change, makes amends, repairs damage, continues personal inventory, practices prayer and meditation, and turns outward toward service.
The promise is not that life becomes easy or that the past disappears. The promise is that the alcoholic’s relationship to the past, to fear, to other people, to self-will, to God, and to alcohol can be transformed. Freedom, happiness, serenity, peace, usefulness, changed motives, practical intuition, and spiritual reliance develop through continued action—not through passive expectation. (Alcoholics Anonymous)