# Can your Higher Power be anything, a doorknob, the group?

**In short:**
- The Big Book leaves the idea of God to the reader: "we mean your own conception of God" (p. 47), and a newcomer "can choose any conception he likes, provided it makes sense to him" (p. 93).
- The program text (pp. 1–164) never offers a doorknob, an object or the group as an example. No book in our sources uses "doorknob" for a Higher Power. The group as a Higher Power comes up only in personal stories. In the earliest, about 1938, the writer calls it "at least a beginning" (p. 229).
- The book does set conditions: be willing to believe in "a Power greater than himself" and live by spiritual principles (p. 93), and don't close your mind to all spiritual ideas (p. 568). Its own writers call that Power God (p. 46) and expect a person's idea of it to grow (p. 47).
- So the text gives no list of what's allowed or ruled out. "Anything at all" is not its wording, and it doesn't settle the doorknob.

## What the search found

All our sources were searched for "Higher Power," doorknob and door knob, "light bulb," "power of the group," and the names the book gives the Power.

- **"Higher Power" in the program text** turns up twice: "His defense must come from a Higher Power" (p. 43) and "Follow the dictates of a Higher Power" (p. 100). Appendix III, doctors' comments on A.A. added with the second edition in 1955 (p. xi), has "a higher power" once more (p. 570). The program text's usual words are "a Power greater than ourselves" and "God as we understood Him" (p. 59).
- **"Doorknob"** appears only once, in a story in *Experience, Strength and Hope*, where it means an actual door handle.
- **"Light bulbs and Third Avenue buses."** *Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers* (1980) says the concept of a Higher Power held by some early A.A.s differed from the Oxford Groupers', who "were not prepared to accept light bulbs and Third Avenue buses" as examples of "God as I understand Him" (*Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers*, 1980). It names no one and says no more. The same passage, on the next page, adds that A.A.s were coming to let newer members find a concept of a Higher Power "in their own time and manner" (*Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers*, 1980).
- **The group.** In "The Vicious Cycle" (Part I), a man who found the Fellowship in January 1938, drank again that June, and came back sober on June 16, 1938 (pp. 228–229), writes that for a long time "the only Higher Power I could concede was the power of the group," and that it was "at least a beginning" (p. 229). In "Student of Life" (Part II), a later member, speaking at a meeting, saw understanding and love in the faces in the room: "Today I believe I saw my Higher Power for the first time in those faces." (p. 326). In "Tightrope" (Part II), another later member came to trust the A.A. group and the Fellowship's ideals "as a manifestation of a Power greater than myself" (p. 367). These are members' own experiences. The program text itself never names the group.

## What the program text says

Chapter 4, "We Agnostics" (pp. 44–57), is written for this reader. Read in order:
- About half the first members had thought they were atheists or agnostics (p. 44).
- As soon as they were willing to believe in a Power greater than themselves, they "commenced to get results," even though none of them could fully define or understand "that Power, which is God" (p. 46).
- They found they "did not need to consider another's conception of God" (p. 46). Their own, "however inadequate," was enough to begin (p. 46). The examples they give are a "Creative Intelligence, a Spirit of the Universe underlying the totality of things" (p. 46).
- "When, therefore, we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God" (p. 47). The writers add that they later came to accept "many things which then seemed entirely out of reach" (p. 47). The starting idea is a beginning, not a fixed point.
- The one question to ask yourself is whether you believe, or are even willing to believe, "that there is a Power greater than myself" (p. 47).
- The personal stories show "a wide variation" in how each writer conceives of that Power, and the book says these are questions "for each individual to settle for himself" (p. 50).

The same chapter goes on to press the case for God. Crushed by a crisis they couldn't put off or evade, they had to face "the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing" (p. 53). They also write that "deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God" (p. 55). The chapter starts a reader wherever he is, and it plainly expects him to move toward God.

Bill's own story shows the same thing (pp. 10–12). He could accept "Creative Intelligence, Universal Mind or Spirit of Nature" but not a personal God, until his friend asked, "Why don't you choose your own conception of God?" (p. 12). After that, being willing to believe in a Power greater than himself was all he needed to make his beginning (p. 12).

In Chapter 7 the instruction for the helper is plain. If the man is agnostic or an atheist, make it clear he doesn't have to agree with your idea of God: "He can choose any conception he likes, provided it makes sense to him" (p. 93). Two conditions follow in the same paragraph: "The main thing is that he be willing to believe in a Power greater than himself and that he live by spiritual principles" (p. 93).

Appendix II, added in 1955, says most members find an inner resource "which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves" (pp. 567–568). Any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems can recover, "provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts" (p. 568).

## Where "God as we understood Him" came from

*A.A. Comes of Age* (1957) tells how the wording got into the Steps just before the manuscript was finished. After long arguments with members of little or no faith, the writers described God in Step Two as "a Power greater than ourselves" and added "God as we understood Him" to Steps Three and Eleven. Bill's summary: "God was certainly there in our Steps, but He was now expressed in terms that anybody—anybody at all—could accept and try" (*A.A. Comes of Age*, 1957).

The writer of "The Vicious Cycle," the man whose Higher Power was the group, says his one contribution to the book was insisting that the word God be qualified with "as we understand Him," "for that was the only way I could accept spirituality" (p. 229).

## What the text doesn't settle

The book never lists acceptable or unacceptable ideas of God. It never mentions an object, and the program text never mentions the group. What it does say:
- The idea is yours, and it has to make sense to you (pp. 47, 93).
- It is an idea of "a Power greater than" yourself (pp. 47, 93). Every example the writers give is of that kind: a Creative Intelligence, a Spirit of the Universe (p. 46).
- It's a starting point that grows (p. 47), and the writers' own word for the Power is God (p. 46).

Whether a doorknob or the group fits those words, the book leaves to the reader. A page that says the Big Book allows "anything" goes further than the text, and so does a page that says it forbids any particular idea.

See also: *Does Step 12 require believing in God a certain way?* and *Do I have to be religious to work the Steps?*

## Read it yourself
- Chapter 4, "We Agnostics" (pp. 44–57): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt4.pdf
- Chapter 1, "Bill's Story" (pp. 1–16): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt1.pdf
- Chapter 7, "Working With Others" (p. 93): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt7.pdf
- Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" (pp. 567–568): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendiceii.pdf
- Personal stories, Part I, with "The Vicious Cycle": https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_personalstories_partI.pdf
- The full books, including *Alcoholics Anonymous* and *A.A. Comes of Age*, are sold by A.A. World Services: https://onlineliterature.aa.org

## Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, whole fourth-edition text (searched) | — | 1939 text; fourth edition 2001 |
| Chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 | 10–12, 43, 44–57, 59, 93, 100 | 1939 |
| Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" | 567–568 | added in the second edition, 1955 (Preface, p. xi); post-1950 |
| "The Vicious Cycle," Part I | 229 | personal story about 1938; the writer says his story was left out of the first edition (p. 229) |
| "Student of Life," "Tightrope," Part II | 326, 367 | personal stories in the fourth edition (2001) |
| *A.A. Comes of Age* (Bill W.) | how the Steps' wording was settled | 1957; after 1950 |
| *Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers* | the Oxford Group split in Akron | 1980; after 1950 |

Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition. The Preface says the program chapters have been "left largely untouched" since 1939, while the personal stories change with each edition (pp. xi–xii).

*Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, A.A. Comes of Age and Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers are © A.A. World Services, Inc.*