# What does the Big Book say humility is?

**In short:**
- The Big Book's program text ([pp. 1–164](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-1/)) never says what humility is. It uses the word "humility" twice ([pp. 13](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-13/), 73), and the forms of "humble" ten times, on [pp. 12](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-12/), 13, 57, 59, 63, 68, 72, 73, 83 and 88. It gives no definition.
- What it shows is humility as an attitude toward God: Bill "humbly offered myself to God" ([p. 13](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-13/)), the Seventh Step "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings" ([p. 59](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-59/)), and through the day "humbly saying to ourselves many times each day 'Thy will be done.'" ([pp. 87–88](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-87/)).
- Toward people it is about telling the truth about ourselves: newcomers who hid facts in the Fifth Step "only thought they had humbled themselves" ([p. 73](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-73/)). It also has a limit: "humble without being servile or scraping" ([p. 83](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-83/)).
- The only "Humility is…" sentence in the book is in a member's story ("Humility is the key," [p. 511](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-511/)). The Long Form of the Traditions ties humility to anonymity ([p. 566](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-566/)).

## What the search found

The main text ([pp. 1–164](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-1/)) was searched for "humility," "humble," "humbly," "humbled," "humbling" and "humiliation." "Humility is" appears only on [p. 511](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-511/), the last line of a member's story in the fourth edition: "Oh, and one more thing they told me: Humility is the key." ([p. 511](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-511/)). That's what the writer says "they told me," not a definition in the program text.

## Humility toward God

- **Bill at Towns Hospital.** "There I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would." ([p. 13](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-13/)). Just before, in the Cathedral years earlier, "There had been a humble willingness to have Him with me—and He came." ([p. 12](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-12/))
- **What Bill's friend said he would need.** "Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility" ([p. 13](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-13/)) to establish and keep the new order of things ([p. 14](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-14/)).
- **The agnostic's change.** Of the man who thought he was an atheist: "He humbly offered himself to his Maker— then he knew." ([p. 57](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-57/))
- **Step Three.** The decision and prayer had an effect, "if honestly and humbly made" ([p. 63](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-63/)).
- **Fear.** "Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity." ([p. 68](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-68/))
- **Step Seven.** "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings." ([p. 59](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-59/)). The book's Seventh Step prayer asks God to remove "every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows." ([p. 76](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-76/)). See: *What is the Seventh Step prayer, and where is it?*
- **Through the day.** "We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day 'Thy will be done.'" ([pp. 87–88](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-87/))

In these passages humility goes with willingness and with giving up the claim to run things ourselves. The book doesn't use the word "humility" in its Step Three discussion, but it says there that "First of all, we had to quit playing God." ([p. 62](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-62/)).

## Humility toward people

- **The Fifth Step.** Chapter 6 calls it "this humbling experience" ([p. 72](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-72/)). Newcomers who avoided it "Almost invariably" got drunk ([p. 73](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-73/)): "They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves. But 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/)). This is the book's other use of the word "humility," and it ties humility to being fully known by another person. See: *Who do I tell my Fifth Step to?*
- **"We pocket our pride."** In telling the Fifth Step, "We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past." ([p. 75](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-75/))
- **Amends, with a limit.** "We should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping. As God's people we stand on our feet; we don't crawl before anyone." ([p. 83](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-83/)). This is the closest the main text comes to saying what humility isn't.

## The "leveling of our pride"

Chapter 2 describes the process without using the word: almost none of them liked the self-searching, "the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation." ([p. 25](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-25/)). Chapter 9 calls the family's meeting on common ground "a process of deflation" ([p. 122](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-122/)).

## Outside the main text

- **The Long Form, Tradition Twelve (1946).** Anonymity "reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities; that we are actually to practice a genuine humility." ([p. 566](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-566/)), "to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us" ([p. 566](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-566/)). This applies to A.A. members and A.A. as a whole, under the Traditions. See: *Tradition Twelve: does anonymity mean keeping A.A. secret?*
- **Appendix V.** Father Edward Dowling, S.J., a friend of A.A., is quoted saying A.A. is natural "at the point where nature comes closest to the supernatural, namely in humiliations and in consequent humility." ([p. 572](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-572/)). That's an outside friend's view, printed in the appendices.
- **P-17 (1946).** Bill W. writes that the troublesome members groups once wanted to expel "oblige us to cultivate patience, tolerance, and humility." (P-17, "Who Is a Member of Alcoholics Anonymous?," 1946). In 1955 he lists among what the early members had to give up "our ambitions and our illegitimate pride," so as "To gain enough humility and self-respect to stay alive at all" (P-17, "Why Alcoholics Anonymous Is Anonymous," 1955).

## So what is it, by the book?

The program text doesn't say, and this page doesn't supply a definition it lacks. What can be said from the passages: the book links humility with willingness and honesty ([pp. 13](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-13/), 73), with relying on God instead of running the show ourselves ([pp. 68](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-68/), 87–88), with admitting our wrongs fully to another person ([p. 73](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-73/)), and with considerate behaviour that is still not servile ([p. 83](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-83/)).

## Read it yourself
- Chapter 1, "Bill's Story" ([pp. 12–14](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-12/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt1.pdf
- Chapter 5, "How It Works" ([pp. 59–68](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-59/)): 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 2, "There Is a Solution" ([p. 25](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-25/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt2.pdf
- Appendix I, the Long Form of the Traditions ([p. 566](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-566/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendicei.pdf
- Appendix V, "The Religious View on A.A." ([p. 572](https://recoverystarts.com/big-book/page-572/)): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendicev.pdf
- P-17, *The Twelve Traditions* (A.A.'s free copy): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/literature/assets/p-17_AATraditions.pdf
- The full books are sold by A.A. World Services at https://onlineliterature.aa.org

## Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapters 1, 2, 4–6, 9 | 12–14, 25, 57, 59, 62–63, 68, 72–76, 83, 87–88, 122 | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Appendix I, the Long Form | 566 | 1946 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Appendix V | 572 | in the appendices since the second edition, 1955 |
| P-17, "Who Is a Member of Alcoholics Anonymous?" and "Why Alcoholics Anonymous Is Anonymous" (Bill W.) | — | 1946; 1955 |
| "Gutter Bravado," a member's story | 511 | fourth edition (2001) |

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.*