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What does "faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish" refer to?

In short:

  • It is near the end of "Bill's Story," Chapter 1 of the Big Book (p. 16), in the 1939 text. It comes right after Bill admits there is "a vast amount of fun" in their way of life, and adds: "But just underneath there is deadly earnestness" (p. 16).
  • In the pages before it, the faith that has to "work" is tied to work with other alcoholics. Bill's friend told him "Faith without works was dead" (p. 14), and Bill explains: an alcoholic who doesn't "perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others" can't survive what's ahead; "If he did not work, he would surely drink again, and if he drank, he would surely die" (p. 15).
  • "Or we perish" reads as that same chain said in three words. In its sentence, "twenty-four hours a day" means all the time, around the clock; it isn't the "twenty-four hours at a time" idea.

Where it is, and what's right around it

The sentence is in the last paragraphs of "Bill's Story" (p. 16). In order:

  • "An alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature" (p. 16). Their struggles with them are "variously strenuous, comic, and tragic" (p. 16). One man killed himself in Bill's home: "He could not, or would not, see our way of life" (p. 16).
  • "There is, however, a vast amount of fun about it all" (p. 16). Some would be shocked at their "seeming worldliness and levity" (p. 16).
  • "But just underneath there is deadly earnestness. Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish" (p. 16).
  • Then: "Most of us feel we need look no further for Utopia" (p. 16), and Bill's friend's talk in the kitchen "multiplies itself in a widening circle of peace on earth and good will to men" (p. 16).

So the immediate point is a contrast: the laughter is real, but it sits on top of something life-and-death. The man who died in Bill's home is two sentences earlier.

What the faith had to be working at (pp. 13–15)

Bill's story has already said what the faith is for and what it has to do.

  • The faith itself. In the hospital Bill "humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would" (p. 13). His friend promised that when these things were done he would enter a new relationship with his Creator, and the essential requirements were "Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things" (pp. 13–14).
  • Working it. His friend "emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs" (p. 14). "Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. Faith without works was dead, he said" (p. 14).
  • Why it's life or death. "For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead" (pp. 14–15). "If he did not work, he would surely drink again, and if he drank, he would surely die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us it is just like that" (p. 15).
  • What it looked like in practice. Bill and his wife threw themselves into helping other alcoholics (p. 15). He was "plagued by waves of self-pity and resentment" that sometimes nearly drove him back to drink, "but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day" (p. 15). "It is a design for living that works in rough going" (p. 15).

Read with these pages, "faith has to work … in and through us" (p. 16) says the same thing as pp. 14–15 in a shorter form: faith that isn't working through the alcoholic, in his affairs and in his work with other alcoholics, doesn't keep him alive. The book doesn't spell out the link on p. 16 itself; it is the reading the surrounding pages support, since "perish" picks up "he would surely die" (p. 15) and "Faith without works was dead" (p. 14). See: Is "faith without works is dead" in the Big Book?

"Twenty-four hours a day"

In this sentence the phrase means constantly, around the clock. It isn't the "twenty-four hours at a time" idea that some members' stories later use (e.g. the story on p. 188, fourth edition, 2001, a member's story). The main text's own day-by-day language is elsewhere: "a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition" (p. 85) and, in Step Eleven, "On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead" (p. 86). Those passages say the same thing from the practical side: "Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities" (p. 85). See: What is the "daily reprieve," and what is it "contingent on"? and Is "one day at a time" in the Big Book?

The same idea elsewhere in the main text

  • Chapter 7: a newcomer who already has religious faith may show "that faith alone is insufficient. To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action" (p. 93).
  • Chapter 6 ends Step Eleven with: "There is action and more action. 'Faith without works is dead.' The next chapter is entirely devoted to Step Twelve" (p. 88).

A note on the next line

The line that follows, about Utopia (p. 16), was changed before publication. Bill wrote in 1957 that his draft had ended with a flourish to the effect that "we have found Heaven right here on this good old earth," and a reader on a Catholic publications committee suggested "Utopia" instead (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Nothing in our sources record any change to the "faith has to work" sentence itself.

Read it yourself

Sources

Source Pages Date
Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 1, "Bill's Story" 13–16 1939
Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapters 6 and 7 85–88, 93 1939
A member's story using "twenty-four hours" 188 fourth edition (2001)
A.A. Comes of Age — 1957

Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). The Preface says the program chapters have been "left largely untouched" since 1939 (p. xi).

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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.