Is "keep coming back" in the Big Book?
In short:
- No. The words "keep coming back" are not in the 1939 program text, the forewords or the appendices, and not in any of the stories printed in the first edition.
- The exact words appear in two personal stories in today's (fourth) edition (three more say "kept coming back" or "keeps me coming back"), and in Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers (1980), where Anne Smith, Dr. Bob's wife, is remembered greeting newcomers at Akron meetings with "We hope you'll keep coming back."
- The program text's welcome runs the other way: it sends the sober member out to the newcomer, and tells him to leave the newcomer free to come back or not (pp. 94–96).
What the search found
The whole fourth-edition text was searched for "keep coming back," "come back" and "coming back," with page breaks joined, and so were the stories dropped from earlier editions (Experience, Strength and Hope, 2003).
- Program text (pp. 1–164), forewords, appendices: not there. "Come back" in the program text is about a wife who may "never come back" to a recovering man (p. 99).
- Personal stories (fourth edition, 2001): two. In "Because I'm an Alcoholic," a woman remembers her first meeting: "They said keep coming back. And I did." (p. 344). "Flooded With Feeling" ends, "I keep coming back because it works." (p. 374). Three more stories use the same idea in other tenses: "it is the peace and serenity I feel inside that keeps me coming back" (p. 381), "Fellowship and activity kept me coming back long enough to work the Twelve Steps" (p. 510), and "And I kept coming back." (p. 519).
- Stories printed in 1939 and later dropped: not there.
- Later books: Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers (1980) has Dan K., an Akron member, remember Anne Smith going from table to table after meetings to welcome new people, saying "We hope you'll keep coming back." (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980). That is a recollection printed thirty years after Dr. Bob's death.
What the program text says about a newcomer coming back
The 1939 text does talk about people returning, but the person doing the going is the sober member, and the newcomer is left free:
- On the first visit, the member is to make it clear that the newcomer "needn't see you again if he doesn't want to" (p. 94), and not to be offended if he calls it off (p. 94).
- "If he is sincerely interested and wants to see you again," ask him to read the book in the meantime, and then "he must decide for himself whether he wants to go on" (p. 95).
- If he isn't interested, or only wants money, "you may have to drop him until he changes his mind" (p. 95).
- "Do not be discouraged if your prospect does not respond at once. Search out another alcoholic and try again." (p. 96).
When he does come, the welcome is real. Chapter 11 says of the early gatherings: "No one is too discredited or has sunk too low to be welcomed cordially—if he means business." (p. 161). The same chapter adds that A.A. life "is more than attending gatherings and visiting hospitals" (p. 161). See: What if the person I'm helping doesn't want it?
People who did come back
The 1955 Foreword to the Second Edition gives the figure. Of those who came to a few meetings and decided at first they didn't want the program, "about two out of three—began to return as time passed" (p. xx).
Two stories printed in the 1939 first edition, and since dropped, are about men who drank again after a year or two sober and then came back. In "The Back-Slider," the fellowship "treated me as though nothing had happened" (Experience, Strength and Hope, 2003). In "The Seven Month Slip," he went back to friends "who never lectured me on my seven month failure" (Experience, Strength and Hope, 2003). Bill W.'s 1946 Grapevine essay on membership says of those who slip and others who trouble a group: "Some of these have become our most respected and best loved." (P-17). See: Does the Big Book say "relapse is part of recovery"? What does it say about a slip?
What this means
The saying is a welcome, and the welcome is in the early literature. The program text welcomes anyone who "means business" (p. 161) and tells a wife whose husband has drunk again that she "need not remind him of his spiritual deficiency" (p. 120); the 1939 stories and Bill's 1946 essay describe people being taken back without lectures. The phrase itself is not in the Big Book's program. And the program text puts the weight on the member who goes out to find the drinker (Chapter 7, pp. 89–103), more than on the newcomer who returns to a meeting.
Read it yourself
- Chapter 7, "Working With Others" (pp. 94–96): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt7.pdf
- Chapter 11, "A Vision for You" (p. 161): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt11.pdf
- Foreword to the Second Edition (p. xx): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_forewordsecondedition.pdf
- Personal stories, Part II (pp. 344, 374): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_personalstories_partII.pdf
- P-17, The Twelve Traditions ("Who Is a Member of Alcoholics Anonymous?", 1946): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/literature/assets/p-17_AATraditions.pdf
- Experience, Strength and Hope and Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers are sold by A.A. World Services: https://onlineliterature.aa.org
Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, whole fourth-edition text (searched) | — | 1939 program text; fourth edition 2001 |
| Chapters 7, 8, 11 | 94–96, 99, 120, 161 | 1939 |
| Foreword to the Second Edition | xx | 1955 (post-1950) |
| "Because I'm an Alcoholic," "Flooded With Feeling," "Winner Takes All" (Part II); two Part III stories | 344, 374, 381, 510, 519 | fourth edition (2001); first edition of each not shown in our sources |
| "The Back-Slider," "The Seven Month Slip" (Experience, Strength and Hope) | — | printed in the first edition, 1939; collected 2003 |
| P-17, "Who Is a Member of Alcoholics Anonymous?" | — | Grapevine, 1946 |
| Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers | — | 1980 (post-1950) |
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, Experience, Strength and Hope and Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers are © A.A. World Services, Inc.; P-17's articles are © 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.