# What does the Big Book say about honesty?

**In short:**
- The Big Book makes honesty a condition of recovery. Those who don't recover are usually people "constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves" ([p. 58](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-58/)), and the program is "a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty" ([p. 58](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-58/)). Of people with grave emotional and mental disorders, "many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest." ([p. 58](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-58/))
- Honesty with oneself comes first: diagnosing yourself honestly ([pp. 32](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-32/), 44), taking stock without fooling yourself ([p. 64](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-64/)), and searching out "selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened" conduct in the inventory ([p. 67](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-67/)).
- It doesn't stop at self-knowledge. The Fifth Step chapter says "We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world." ([pp. 73–74](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-73/)), and dishonesty is one of the four things the Step Ten passage says to keep watching for ([p. 84](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-84/)).
- The book does not make honesty a licence to hurt people. In the Fifth Step, the amends and family life it repeatedly limits what we disclose when it would harm someone else ([pp. 74](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-74/), 80–82, 125). It never uses the phrase "absolute honesty."

## The opening of "How It Works"

Chapter 5 begins with honesty. People who don't recover "cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program," usually because they are "constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves" ([p. 58](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-58/)). The book adds: "They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way." ([p. 58](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-58/)), and that they can't grasp "a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty" ([p. 58](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-58/)). "Their chances are less than average." ([p. 58](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-58/)) Then the hopeful line about people with grave emotional and mental disorders: "many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest." ([p. 58](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-58/)). See: *What does "Rarely have we seen a person fail" really say, and who does it say may not recover?*

## Honest with yourself

- **About whether you are alcoholic.** Try some controlled drinking: "It will not take long for you to decide, if you are honest with yourself about it." ([p. 32](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-32/)). Chapter 4 opens: "If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely," you are probably alcoholic ([p. 44](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-44/)). Chapter 3 says many real alcoholics will try "By every form of self-deception and experimentation" to prove they're exceptions ([p. 31](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-31/)).
- **About why you drank.** Asked why he started the last bender, the alcoholic offers alibis; "Once in a while he may tell the truth." and the truth is usually that he has no more idea why than you do ([p. 23](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-23/)).
- **In the inventory.** The business owner taking stock "cannot fool himself about values." ([p. 64](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-64/)), and so "We took stock honestly." ([p. 64](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-64/)). "Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty." ([p. 65](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-65/)). Each resentment is turned around to ask "Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened?" ([p. 67](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-67/)), and "We admitted our wrongs honestly" ([p. 67](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-67/)). The sex inventory asks the same: "Where had we been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate?" ([p. 69](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-69/)). The book's picture of the real alcoholic is that about liquor "he is incredibly dishonest and selfish." ([p. 21](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-21/))
- **About God.** The agnostic chapter asks the reader to be honest about spiritual terms too: don't let prejudice keep you "from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you." ([p. 47](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-47/)), and "He has come to all who have honestly sought Him." ([p. 57](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-57/)).

## Honest with another person

Chapter 6 argues that self-honesty alone usually isn't enough. Newcomers who kept certain facts to themselves almost always got drunk ([pp. 72–73](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-72/)): "they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all their life story." ([p. 73](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-73/)). Of their doctors the writers admit "We have seldom told them the whole truth" ([p. 73](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-73/)), and "Unwilling to be honest with these sympathetic men, we were honest with no one else." ([p. 73](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-73/)). The conclusion: "We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world." ([pp. 73–74](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-73/)). See: *Who do I tell my Fifth Step to?*

## Honest with people we've harmed

Steps Eight and Nine carry honesty out into the world. Amends are made with a manner that is "calm, frank, and open" ([p. 78](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-78/)). Creditors are told what we're trying to do, and "we make no bones about our drinking" ([p. 78](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-78/)). Some people can't be seen, so "we send them an honest letter." ([p. 83](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-83/)). The book tells of a man who had slandered a business rival and, after consulting his wife and partner, stood up in church and set the record straight ([p. 80](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-80/)).

## Honesty every day

Step Ten: "Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear." ([p. 84](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-84/)), asking God at once to remove them. Step Eleven's nightly review asks "Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid?" ([p. 86](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-86/)), and the morning asks that our thinking "be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives." ([p. 86](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-86/)). In Chapter 10 an employer is told our solution "demands rigorous honesty" ([p. 145](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-145/)), and that a man still trying to recover, if he does drink, will tell the employer "even if it means the loss of his job. For he knows he must be honest if he would live at all." ([p. 146](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-146/)).

## Where the book limits disclosure

The book that demands rigorous honesty also says, more than once, not to buy our own relief at someone else's cost:
- In the Fifth Step: "we cannot disclose anything to our wives or our parents which will hurt them and make them unhappy. We have no right to save our own skin at another person's expense." ([p. 74](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-74/)). Those parts go to "someone who will understand, yet be unaffected" ([p. 74](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-74/)). "The rule is we must be hard on ourself, but always considerate of others." ([p. 74](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-74/))
- In amends: before drastic action that might implicate others, "we secure their consent." ([p. 80](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-80/)). The step reads "except when to do so would injure them or others" ([p. 59](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-59/)).
- About an affair: a man should admit his fault, but "we have no right to involve another person" ([p. 81](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-81/)), and it's better "that one does not needlessly name a person" ([p. 82](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-82/)). The book says "Perhaps there are some cases where the utmost frankness is demanded." and "No outsider can appraise such an intimate situation." ([p. 82](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-82/))
- In the family: unless some good and useful purpose is served, "past occurrences should not be discussed." ([p. 125](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-125/)). And "we do not relate intimate experiences of another person unless we are sure he would approve." ([p. 125](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-125/))

So the honesty the book asks for is complete toward oneself, toward God and toward at least one other person, and careful toward everyone the truth could hurt. See: *How does the Big Book say to make amends?* and *Is "we're only as sick as our secrets" in the Big Book?*

## The appendix and the Foreword

Appendix II, written after the first printing ([p. 567](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-567/)) and in the book's appendices since the second edition of 1955 ([p. xi](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-xi/)), says "any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover" provided he doesn't close his mind to all spiritual concepts ([p. 568](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-568/)), and names three essentials: "Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery." ([p. 568](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-568/)). The 1939 Foreword gave membership's only requirement as "an honest desire to stop drinking." ([p. xiv](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-xiv/)); the short form of the Third Tradition now reads "The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking." ([p. 562](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-562/)), without the word. Bill W.'s 1946 Grapevine piece on membership quotes the 1939 wording and tells how the groups' many membership rules, had they all been enforced, would have kept out nearly every early member (P-17, "Who Is a Member of Alcoholics Anonymous?," 1946). See: *What is the only requirement for membership?*

## What isn't there

The phrase "absolute honesty" (one of the Oxford Group's Four Absolutes) is nowhere in the Big Book; it appears only in the history books and P-53. See: *What were the "Four Absolutes"? Are they in the Big Book?* In Bill's own story, honesty is one of the "essential requirements" his friend set out: "Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility" ([pp. 13–14](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-13/)).

## Read it yourself
- Chapter 5, "How It Works" ([pp. 58–71](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-58/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" ([pp. 72–88](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-72/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism" ([pp. 31–32](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-31/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt3.pdf
- Chapter 10, "To Employers" ([pp. 145–146](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-145/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt10.pdf
- Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" ([pp. 567–568](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-567/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendiceii.pdf
- Foreword to the First Edition ([p. xiv](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-xiv/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_forewordfirstedition.pdf
- The full book, *Alcoholics Anonymous*, is sold by A.A. World Services at https://onlineliterature.aa.org

## Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Foreword to the First Edition | xiv | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapters 1–6, 9, 10 | 13, 21, 23, 31–32, 44, 47, 57–59, 64–69, 72–86, 125, 145–146 | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Appendix I (short form Traditions) | 562 | short form by 1950; in the book from 1955 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience"; Preface | 567–568; xi | appendix written after the first printing; in the appendices since the second edition, 1955 |
| P-17, "Who Is a Member of Alcoholics Anonymous?" (Bill W.) | — | 1946 |

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 is © A.A. World Services, Inc. P-17's articles are © AA Grapevine, Inc.*