What does "willing to go to any length" refer to?
In short:
- The phrase appears three times in the Big Book's main text, each time tied to the Steps. It's on p. 58, just before the Steps are listed, and twice in the pages on amends: p. 76, opening Steps Eight and Nine, and p. 79.
- On p. 58 it's something the reader decides for himself: "If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it—then you are ready to take certain steps." (p. 58)
- In the amends pages it means accepting what it costs us: "We may lose our position or reputation or face jail, but we are willing." (p. 79)
- The very next paragraph limits it where other people would pay: we "are not to be the hasty and foolish martyr who would needlessly sacrifice others to save himself" (p. 79). Read in place, "any length" is about what we'll bear ourselves, not about what we may do to others.
The three places
1. Before the Steps (p. 58). The sentence opens with a decision the reader makes: "If you have decided you want what we have" (p. 58). Being willing to go to any length is what makes him "ready to take certain steps" (p. 58). The next paragraph says how the writers met that willingness: "At some of these we balked." (p. 58) They looked for an easier, softer way and "could not" find one (p. 58).
2. Starting the amends (p. 76). After Steps Six and Seven, the book turns to Steps Eight and Nine: "Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past." (p. 76) If we lack the will to do it, "we ask until it comes" (p. 76). Then it looks back to p. 58: "Remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol." (p. 76)
3. The hard amends (p. 79). For amends that could cost a job or bring legal trouble, the book reminds the reader "that we have decided to go to any lengths to find a spiritual experience" (p. 79). We ask for strength to do the right thing "no matter what the personal consequences may be" (p. 79). "We must not shrink at anything." (p. 79)
Notice the goal is named two ways: "victory over alcohol" (p. 76) and "a spiritual experience" (p. 79). The book uses both.
The limit, right after
The sentence after "We must not shrink at anything" begins: "Usually, however, other people are involved." (p. 79) So we are not to be the "foolish martyr" who sacrifices others to save himself (p. 79).
The book gives an example. A member had remarried and hadn't paid alimony to his first wife, and she got a court order for his arrest. He was just getting back on his feet. Walking up to the judge would have been "impressive heroics" (p. 79). The members thought he should be willing to do that if necessary, "but if he were in jail he could provide nothing for either family" (p. 79). So he wrote to his first wife, admitted his faults, sent a little money, and told her he was "perfectly willing to go to jail if she insisted" (p. 79). She didn't.
The next page adds a rule of thumb: "Before taking drastic action which might implicate other people we secure their consent." (p. 80) In its second example, the man who had ruined a business rival talked it over with his wife and partner before he made it right in public (p. 80).
The same limit runs through the chapter. Step Nine makes amends "except when to do so would injure them or others" (p. 59). On the Fifth Step, the book says "We have no right to save our own skin at another person's expense." (p. 74) It puts it in one line: "The rule is we must be hard on ourself, but always considerate of others." (p. 74)
Does context change the common reading?
It complicates it. Quoted alone, "any length" sounds unlimited. In the book it is real: losing a job, a reputation or even freedom is named, and the reader is told not to shrink. But it's a willingness about the cost to ourselves, limited wherever someone else would be hurt. And willingness isn't the same as doing the drastic thing: the man in the alimony story was ready to go to jail, and the members suggested a letter instead.
Read it yourself
- Chapter 5, "How It Works" (pp. 58–71): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (pp. 72–88), with the amends on pp. 76–83: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Related: How does the Big Book say to make amends? · What does "half measures availed us nothing" mean in context? · Who do I tell my Fifth Step to?
- The full book, Alcoholics Anonymous, is sold by A.A. World Services at https://onlineliterature.aa.org.
Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5, "How It Works" | 58–59 | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 6, "Into Action" | 74–80 | 1939 |
Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). The Preface says the program text "has been left largely untouched" since 1939 (p. xi); our sources have no first edition to compare page numbers against.
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © A.A. World Services, Inc.
These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.