Is helping others selfish if it keeps me sober?
In short:
- The Big Book says openly that helping other alcoholics protects the helper's own sobriety (pp. 89, 94, 97). It doesn't hide that, and it never calls it selfish.
- It also expects that motive to be outgrown. Of the first members it says that they knew they had to help others to stay sober, but "that motive became secondary" (p. 159).
- Chapter 7 keeps turning the helper toward the other man: leave him free and owing nothing (p. 94), think of what you can bring rather than what you'll get (p. 102), and tell him to put "the welfare of other people ahead of his own" (p. 94).
- Dr. Bob, speaking in 1948, admitted his own early helping was partly to keep himself from getting hurt, and said that if you called it selfish "you'd be quite correct."
This overlaps with What does Step 12 really say?, which covers the same pages more briefly.
What the book says about the helper's own sobriety
It says it more than once, without apology: - Chapter 7 opens: "nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics" (p. 89). - Tell the newcomer that "your attempt to pass this on to him plays a vital part in your own recovery" (p. 94). "Actually, he may be helping you more than you are helping him" (p. 94). - "Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery" (p. 97). - To wives: "he should work with other people to maintain his own sobriety" (p. 119), and to families, let him help other alcoholics, because in early days "this will do more to insure his sobriety than anything else" (pp. 129–130).
What it says about the motive
The same chapter that names the benefit pulls the helper's attention off himself: - The newcomer is told how important it is "that he place the welfare of other people ahead of his own" (p. 94). - The helper may lose sleep, money, his privacy and his peace at home (p. 97). - "Do not think of what you will get out of the occasion. Think of what you can bring to it" (p. 102). - Faith, to be vital, must come with "self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action" (p. 93).
Chapter 11 describes the change in the first Akron members. "Though they knew they must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that motive became secondary" (p. 159). "It was transcended by the happiness they found in giving themselves for others" (p. 159).
The book's diagnosis of the alcoholic makes this matter. "Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles" (p. 62). Work done only to protect yourself would leave that root alone, which is why the book doesn't stop at "it keeps you sober."
What Dr. Bob said (1948)
In his last major talk, Dr. Bob was candid. He found it hard to love other people, and at first went through "the motions of trying to be helpful to the other fellow" partly so he wouldn't get drunk himself (P-53). "Well, you could say that was just a manifestation of selfishness, and you'd be quite correct" (P-53). He went on to say the service that counts "is giving of yourself" (P-53), in effort and time, not a coin to be rid of someone.
So, is it selfish?
The text doesn't use that word for helping, and it doesn't pretend the helper gets nothing. What it does is treat the self-protective reason as a starting point that real work with drunks wears away. The book's own test is in Chapter 7: the newcomer owes you nothing (p. 94), and if he wants to call it off you shouldn't be offended (p. 94). Help that comes with a bill attached isn't what the chapter describes.
Read it yourself
- Chapter 7, "Working With Others" (pp. 89–103), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt7.pdf
- Chapter 11, A Vision for You (pp. 151–164): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt11.pdf
- The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (P-53), with Dr. Bob's talk: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/literature/P-53_0725.pdf
- Related: What does Step 12 really say?
Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5, "How It Works" | 62 | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 7, "Working With Others" | 89, 93–94, 97, 102 | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 8, "To Wives," and Chapter 9, "The Family Afterward" | 119, 129–130 | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 11, "A Vision for You" | 159 | 1939 |
| Dr. Bob's last major talk, in P-53 The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous | P-53 pp. 16–18 | talk given December 1948; first printed in the Grapevine, June 1973; pamphlet © 2017 |
Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001).
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited. The Big Book and P-53 are © A.A. World Services, Inc.; Dr. Bob's talk is © AA Grapevine, 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.