A.A. CONCEPTS AND VOCABULARY
Abstinence and sobriety
Not drinking is the immediate boundary. Sobriety is the continuing way of life A.A. members build around that decision.
Start with the distinction
Two words, one lived direction
A.A. uses these ideas together, but they do different work. One names what is stopped; the other names what is practiced.
Abstinence
The decision not to drink. It is the clear boundary around the present day and the starting point for a sober life.
Sobriety
Living without alcohol while continuing the work, support, and fellowship of recovery. It is more than a single decision because it is lived over time.
How A.A. presents it
The present day is the workable scale
A.A.’s 24-hour approach keeps sobriety from becoming a promise that must be imagined all at once. The question is brought back to the day in front of the member.
Do not take the first drink
Abstinence begins with the immediate decision that makes a sober day possible.
Stay with today
The 24-hour approach gives the decision a human scale: today is the day that can be lived.
Continue the way of life
Sobriety grows through the ongoing program and the help of other alcoholics in A.A.
Read the relationship clearly
Abstinence is the boundary. Sobriety is the practice inside it.
Abstinence answers the first question: Will I drink today? Sobriety opens the larger question: How will I live today without alcohol? In A.A.’s own account, the answer is not a private test of willpower alone. It includes a continuing program of recovery and the help and support of other alcoholics.
A useful boundary for this page
What the terms do—and do not—claim
Abstinence names not drinking; it is not a diagnosis or a promise to predict the entire future.
Sobriety describes an ongoing life without alcohol; local groups may use the word in slightly different ways.
The official A.A. material below is the authority for the A.A.-specific wording summarized on this page.
Official A.A. material
Read the primary sources
These links are to General Service Office material and are provided for the underlying A.A. descriptions.