Promises, Promises
May 1981
I love the so-called promises in the paragraph that begins at bottom of page 83 and continues at the top of page 84 of the Big Book. I frequently quote one or another of them. I often mention them in an AA qualification.
That’s why I was pleased recently to receive a scroll containing “The Promises,’’ inscribed in beautiful calligraphy, as a souvenir of an AA dinner I attended. And then, as I admired the scroll, it set me to thinking. We are certainly hearing more about “The Promises” these days. I’ve seen them printed in AA newsletters and bulletins and AA convention programs. I’ve heard members ask, “Why doesn’t AA offer ‘The Promises’ as a wall plaque like the Steps and the Traditions? And maybe on a wallet card?”
Is this a trend in our Fellowship—this lifting the promises out of context and inscribing them in bronze? Are we sanctifying the promises?
If so, it troubles me. I view such a trend with alarm. Why?
Because, first of all, if we go back to the source and read the paragraph of the Big Book containing the promises, it is immediately clear that they were not intended to be set apart. They are not written as a separate element as are the Steps (page 59) or the Traditions (beginning page 564).
They are buried in the text (and within the context), and for a reason: They are part of a discussion of how to work the Steps. Not even all the Steps, really, but specifically the first nine. The paragraph in question follows a long description of the mess our alcoholic lives are in and advice on how to work our way out.
Second, these are not unconditional promises as they seem to be when set apart. Quite the contrary. They are a spontaneous, almost euphoric expression of the experiences of the authors with the rewards that can be expected “if we are painstaking about this phase of our development.’’ What phase? The working of the first nine Steps as described in the preceding twenty-four pages!
And how many of us have actually worked the Steps that way? How many of us, for example, in doing our Fourth Step inventory, have followed the example in the Big Book?—a written “grudge list” in three separate columns, analyzing the causes of each resentment and how it affects us. Not I. How many of us took Steps Eight and Nine with the diligence and thoroughness recommended in detail from page 76 to page 83 in the Big Book? Not I. Yet we must recognize that that is what is meant by being “painstaking.”
What the Big Book is saying on page 83 is that if we have bared our souls, if we have completely reconstructed our shattered relationships with others, then we “are going to know a new freedom…,” then “we will not regret the past,” and so on through the rest of the promises. In fact it says “they will always materialize if we work for them” (the italics are mine). And the rest of that chapter is devoted to telling us how to continue to work for them by practicing Steps Ten and Eleven.
Finally, it seems to me that when I quote the promises so glibly and smugly (as I am inclined to do), I may actually be playing down the Steps. Am I glorifying end results while ignoring the footwork necessary to get there? Is it easier and more comforting to take refuge in the promises (lifting them out of context, of course) than to go through the purging and the pain of taking the first nine Steps—which are clearly the prerequisites of the promises? The alcoholic seizes upon the promises, consciously or unconsciously, as “an easier, softer way.”
So let’s read and reread Chapters Five and Six (along with the rest of the Big Book, naturally!). And when we get to the beautiful section on pages 83 and 84, let’s cherish the promised rewards set forth there. Let’s carry them in our minds and hearts as a joyous and inspiring part of our program of recovery.
But let’s not sanctify the promises.
R. P., Riverside, Conn.
What About This 24-Hour Plan?
January 1968
“This 24-hour plan is the slickest package of intellectual dishonesty and self-deception I’ve ever encountered! You tell me all I have to do is stay sober for one day—when I know darn well you expect me to give up drinking for life. Who’s kidding whom? And as to the 24-hour plan applied to ‘all my affairs,’ how the hell can I do a job if I don’t plan ahead?”
These were the words I would like to have shouted at one and all when I first came around AA. I didn’t shout them only because I didn’t have the nerve. But I did mutter them to myself—angrily and often.
In the intervening years, I have come to believe that the 24-hour plan is the most exquisite prescription for productivity, serenity, and therefore happiness that man has ever devised. So let’s, for a few minutes, examine its whats and whys and hows and wherefores.
First off, what does the 24-hour plan say? It says, “Take your life one day at a time. Whether it be staying away from a drink or conducting any other activity in life, don’t let yesterday or tomorrow distract you from what you can do today.”
In my drinking days, I had to live in the past or the future. I wallowed alternately in the glow of yesterday’s glories (mostly imagined), and in remorse and resentment over yesterday’s failures. Or I shored myself up with dreams of what I would do tomorrow, or tortured myself with fears of what I might fail to do. But I couldn’t live in today. That would have demanded more action and accountability than I could marshal.
The 24-hour plan has been my key to escape from this limbo. It is the art of living where we can act, of focusing our energies down to the only pinpoint of time in which we can perform—this living instant. This is the only instant in which I can do anything about drinking or refusing to drink, the only instant in which I can do anything about carrying the message or, for that matter, do anything about any activity in my life.
Does this mean that I can’t plan for the future? Assuredly not. It means that I can plan my actions, but not project the result. It means that if the most important thing I can do this instant (First Things First) is to plan something for tomorrow, next month, or next year, I should apply myself this instant and plan for tomorrow, next month, or next year.
Why does the 24-hour plan work? It has worked for me because it breaks life down into manageable segments—one at a time. You recall the old horse operas where the hero, beset by Indians, always retired to a narrow defile where he could take them on one at a time. And I recall that in my schooldays the rowing coach used to tell us, when we came to the last quarter-mile sprint, that we should forget about the quarter-mile still to go and just concentrate on getting that oar forward and back one more time.
The quarter-mile, the tribe of Indians, the span of life are not manageable. But the one stroke, the one Indian, the one day we can act on at this instant in time.
Another reason the 24-hour plan has worked for me is that it offers emotional rewards for success. If I say that I shall never take another drink as long as I live, I shall have to be on my deathbed before I know whether I made it. And if I get hit by a truck, I’ll never know. So life has become an endless reaching for a goal which I may never have the satisfaction of knowing I reached. But if I decide I will not have a drink today, I know at the end of the day that I made it. This is an achievement and, like all achievements, yields satisfaction. I do the same day after day after day, and I am piling achievement on achievement and building an equity that becomes more precious—and therefore one I am less likely to give up—with every passing day.
And achievement can be as addictive as alcohol. A little achievement feels good, so we stretch for a little more. The more we get, the more we want, and pretty soon we’re hooked—hooked into a habit that’s constructive, not destructive.
I had to make the 24-hour plan a habit. When I went at it haphazardly, it neither worked nor made sense. I didn’t know the old truism that, with a recovering alcoholic, action has to come before understanding and faith. I hadn’t learned that we have to act our way