AA is not for everyone. Some will be able to stay sober with other programs but not with AA. Many won't or can't be rigorously honest in all their affairs. Of those who really try, some will get sober immediately and stay sober, others will stay sober after a few relapses, and the rest will show improvement. That a real alcoholic can show even improvement is a miracle because most professionals would pronounce him hopeless.

What category you are in depends only on the zeal with which you approach the steps. In the sentiments of Doctor Bob, if you approach the steps with just half the zeal you went after your next drink they will always work. The trick is to focus on progress rather than perfection and do what you can one day at a time from the very start. Balking and half-measures don't work. Nothing happens until you let go absolutely, and without doing so most alcoholics will relapse within weeks and many will be drunk within twenty-four hours. If you are in this class, it is imperative that you be fearless and thorough from the very start.

Of course, you can't let go absolutely until you know exactly what you have to do. If you don't know a member and can read, you can learn what to do by reading the Big Book. There are only 164 pages in the main portion (personal experience stories are in the back of the book) and of these, the first 88 pages deal with the first eleven steps. A good reader can read a full page out loud in about a minute, and can read these 88 pages out loud in about 90 minutes. If you don't lip-read you can read them silently in 45 minutes or less.

It is non-technical and written in every-day, conversational language, and the first 88 pages are just like listening to a member telling his story and explaining the steps in person. The only difference is that the Big Book goes into a lot more detail. It gives good examples and clear-cut explanations of each step, and describes the same ideas over and over in different words and contexts. It is insane to analyze the analysis, and if you have to you are probably only balking and looking for loopholes. The Big Book is written to convince even the most skeptical alcoholic, and many will already be at least somewhat convinced. If you are patient most of your questions will be answered before you finish. Highlight difficult words and text as you read if you have to, but don't focus on them until you are finished. If you can't read, audiotapes are available. In fact, an audiotape would be easier to absorb and will keep you from focusing on unfamiliar words that you can't pronounce.

You won't get it all on the first reading but you don't have to. You only have to get enough to make you think about it. If you read the first 88 pages every week, after six to eight weeks you should be a guru at it and be able to recite long passages at random from memory. But why should you? Real alcoholics don't like being preached or read to; they want someone they can emulate who has done the same things, felt the same way, and has recovered, and they want to hear about it in your own words. If you give them the slightest hint that you were different or are still having trouble with even one step even after going months or years without drinking they will turn a deaf ear in a minute.

If it takes longer than it would take for them to read about it in the Big Book on their own you are wasting time and risk boring them. If you have to refer to prepared statements or books to do it, you risk losing their confidence.

Actually, the Big Book was written to help alcoholics recover on their own who didn't know a member. There were only 100 members in AA when it was published in the spring of 1939, spread out in small meetings between Ohio and New York. It had taken four years to get them. Yet, by the end of 1939 there were over 800 members. By the end of 1941 there were around 8,000 members and alcoholics who never met a member were already recovering and starting meetings on their own as far away as California. Some help was available by mail but for the most part alcoholics were left to recover on their own with only the help of the Big Book and inspiration from their Higher Power. Even Bill W wrote in the Big Book that with such resources anybody could duplicate what he and the original members had done.

In spite of this, many members claim that nobody can read the Big Book on their own and get anything out of it even if they have a college and religious education. Even if they can't read well themselves, they insist on taking you through the steps by reading it to you word for word, stopping every other paragraph or so to add their own experience and interpretation. Many even give you tests and homework to make sure you understand what is being read and have done what the Big Book asks.

If you do this you will be lucky to read four pages an hour, and it will take at least 22 hours just to read and study the first 88 pages. Over half the time will be spent just on the first three steps. Nobody will read this long, and typically the book study is broken into one-hour sessions once a week or so, depending on how much free time you can get with your sponsor. If you can meet for an hour every week and get you homework done on time it will take at least six months.

Most sponsors won't let you do anything until they get to that point in book study with you, and if you relapse they will make you start over at page one. Page 34 in the Big Book makes it clear that without doing all the steps from the very start most alcoholics won't stay sober for even a few weeks. Only higher-bottom types who could stay sober for a few days or weeks on their own will have any chance with a time-table like this.

When I did the steps this way it took over 18 months. Many said even that was fast and that most alcoholics aren't clear-headed enough or spiritually fit enough to even start taking inventory for six months to a year or more. Our free-time schedules didn't always match and sometimes we went weeks without seeing each other. It wasn't my fault because I thought it would only take a step per week. We spent over half the time just on the first three steps, and yet my sponsor bragged at meetings about my spiritual grounding and said it was a miracle that I had been able to stay sober with all my problems.

The miracle, of course, was that long before I did the steps with him I had stopped to read the Big Book on my own. I didn't see a timetable for reading it or doing the steps, turned it over that day, and started doing the twenty-four hour program on page 86. I stopped frequently during the day to meditate and reflect for five minutes, writing down what I was doing and how I felt. At night I began writing a list of defects and amends. I didn't try to stop drinking because I had been drinking daily for 25 years and tried every method to quit or control my drinking described in the third chapter of the Big Book except voluntary commitment and I wasn't about to admit I was crazy.

I drank only in bars, and the way I drank you can go for days without drinking and still be under the influence of alcohol enough to be arrested for drunk driving or being drunk in public. I could stay sober for a week or so sometimes if I were broke and couldn't get a bar tab, but the minute I had money in my pocket I was in the bars. That's Ok. The Big Book said that if I maintained a fit spiritual condition via the steps the drinking problem would be removed automatically.

Two weeks later, I had a drink, "took the bull by the horns", and started making amends. That was on February 14, 1986, and it was my last drink. A week later, I did the fifth, sixth, and seventh steps and went to my FIRST AA meeting.

The reality is that before the Big Book was written, newcomers or prospects were taken through the steps all at once by word of mouth, without preaching or referring to books. The story "He Sold Himself Short" in the Big Book describes how Doctor Bob did it. First, Doctor Bob helped the author make a startup list of defects by suggesting a few of the more common ones. Then Doctor Bob asked him if he wanted the defects removed and did the seventh step with him. Finally, Doctor Bob helped him develop a plan for making amends. The whole process only took three hours, and eventually Doctor Bob trimmed it down to an hour or less. The author, who started AA in Chicago, only had six weeks of sobriety at the time, and the next day he started making amends and working on ways to help other alcoholics. Doctor Bob is the co-founder of AA, and his approach should be a model for all AA members.

He himself went through the steps with Bill W in only six hours. He said in his story in the back of the Big Book ("Doctor Bob's Nightmare") that he had talked with many others about his drinking problems. The difference Bill made was that he was the first person who talked his language and spoke of drinking problems and a solution from experience and not from what he had picked up in books.

Doctor Bob was so inspired that he stayed "dry" for three weeks trying to avoid making amends that he feared would ruin his career and reputation. This assumes, of course, that he already knew at least some of the amends he would have to make and how to make them. Then he relapsed at a weekend medical convention. On June 10, 1935, he had a drink to settle his nerves and went to work to perform a scheduled surgery. He was expected to go straight home after it, but his relapse taught him a lesson and he didn't waste any more time thinking about it. Still trembling, he stayed out until midnight making amends. His wife thought he had gone on another binge. His sobriety birthday is the birthday of AA.

His story demonstrates some important principles. First, it only takes a few hours or less to take an alcoholic through the steps and get a commitment from personal experience without referring to books. Second, the alcoholic does not have to be sober for weeks, months or years to get into action. He can get into action that day, even if he has just had a drink or two. The important thing is that he think about it and then do it without balking.

You may have to help the alcoholic out of a relapse or dry drunk once in awhile, but that's life. You should not have to spend all your free hours helping him to grow up and do what is needed. Doctor Bob lived in Ohio and Bill W lived in New York, and I can't see any record where Bill stayed in Ohio to nursemaid Doctor Bob. He was called to help find him when he relapsed, but other than that Bill had his own life and business to attend to.

Although they may get sober immediately and stay sober, nobody will recover overnight. Many will have withdrawal symptoms for weeks or months, and the best way to overcome these is with medical advice. The Big Book does not say much about them, for good reason; it does not want to impose on the medical profession. Many will have physical problems from alcoholic drinking for years, and some of these may be irreversible. It may take months or years to finish making some amends and get around to others, and some may never be made. The point is that if you are anything like the kind of alcoholic Doctor Bob was and want to stay sober for even a month you need to be fearless and thorough from the very start, focus on progress rather than perfection, and do what inventory and amends you can do one day at a time.

It only takes a few hours or less to explain the steps, but it takes a lifetime to apply them, and one never "graduates." There is no point at which you can say you have done all the steps as if you don't have to keep doing them.