Where is "God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves," and what is it about?
In short:
- It's the last of the Promises, on page 84 of Chapter 6, "Into Action": "We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves." (p. 84)
- The Promises are tied to the amends work of Steps Eight and Nine. They open with "If we are painstaking about this phase of our development" (p. 83), and after the list the book says: "They will always materialize if we work for them." (p. 84)
- The idea isn't only here. The book says it early on (p. 25), again at the end of the inventory, "faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves" (pp. 70–71), and on the next page, about drink (p. 85).
- Context confirms the plain meaning: God does what we couldn't. It adds where the line sits, which is after work we do. The book holds both. The work is ours, and the change, in its words about liquor, comes "without any thought or effort on our part" (p. 85).
Where it sits (pp. 83–84)
Chapter 6 has taken the reader through Steps Eight and Nine: creditors, enemies, legal trouble, the family, and wrongs that can never be fully righted (pp. 76–83). Then comes the promise: if we are painstaking "about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through" (p. 83). A list follows: a new freedom and happiness, peace, self-seeking slipping away, fear of people and of economic insecurity leaving us. The second-to-last item is "We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us." (p. 84) The last is the line.
Then: "Are these extravagant promises? We think not." (p. 84) "They will always materialize if we work for them." (p. 84) And on to Step Ten (p. 84). The whole passage is laid out in Where are "the Promises," and what do they promise?
So in place, "suddenly realize" belongs to the amends work: the book says we "will be amazed before we are half way through" (p. 83). It doesn't fix a time for each promise, though. They are being fulfilled "sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly" (p. 84).
The same idea across the book
- Chapter 2: the members' Creator "has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves" (p. 25).
- Chapter 5, on self: "Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power." (p. 62) "We had to have God's help." (p. 62)
- Chapter 5, end of the inventory: "In this book you read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves." (pp. 70–71) The next sentence: "We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him." (p. 71)
- Chapter 6, the next page: after Step Ten, the book says our new attitude toward liquor "has been given us without any thought or effort on our part" (p. 85). "It just comes! That is the miracle of it." (p. 85) It adds a condition: "That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition." (p. 85)
Does context change the common reading?
It confirms the line's meaning and adds its setting. Quoted alone, the sentence can sound like a general comfort, or as if God does it all and nothing is asked of us. The book does say God does what we couldn't. It says so again and again, and it says some of the change comes without effort. But in each place, the book ties it to something the reader has done: the decision and the inventory (pp. 70–71), the amends (pp. 83–84), the daily Step Ten (pp. 84–85). On p. 84 the promise is plainly conditional: "if we work for them."
Read it yourself
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (pp. 72–88), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Chapter 5, "How It Works" (pp. 58–71): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Related: Where are "the Promises," and what do they promise? · How does the Big Book say to make amends? · What is the "daily reprieve," and what is it "contingent on"?
- 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 6, "Into Action" | 76–85 | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5, "How It Works" | 62, 70–71 | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 2, "There Is a Solution" | 25 | 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.