# Are the Steps rules or suggestions?

**In short:**
- The Big Book calls the Steps suggestions. It introduces them as "the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery" (p. 59), and says on its last page that the whole book is meant only to suggest (p. 164).
- Nobody can make anyone take them. The book tells employers that no one should tell a man "he must abide by its suggestions" (p. 144).
- But "suggested" doesn't mean "optional and harmless to skip." The same pages report, from the writers' experience, that half measures got them nowhere and that newcomers who skipped the Fifth Step nearly always got drunk. The Steps are offered as what worked, not as rules anyone enforces.

## What the book calls them

The wording around the Steps is consistently the language of suggestion and experience:
- The list is introduced as the steps "we took," suggested "as a program of recovery" (p. 59).
- Right after the list, the book answers the reader who thinks it's too much: no one has kept "anything like perfect adherence to these principles" (p. 60). They are "guides to progress," and the aim is "spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection" (p. 60).
- Step Twelve is introduced as "our twelfth suggestion" (p. 89). Steps Ten and Eleven are each said to "suggest" (pp. 84–85).
- On a hard question about amends at home, the writers say they "wish to lay down no rule of any sort" (p. 81).
- The book's closing page says the whole book is meant only as a suggestion, and that the writers know only a little; more will be disclosed to the reader and to them (p. 164).
- To employers: when the man is given the book, no one should tell him he must follow it. "The man must decide for himself" (p. 144).

## What the book says about skipping them

The same text is just as plain that leaving Steps out has a cost. It reports what happened to its members; it doesn't threaten anyone.
- The chapter opens by saying the writers have rarely "seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path" (p. 58). The writers ask the reader to be "fearless and thorough from the very start" (p. 58), and say "Half measures availed us nothing" (p. 59).
- Some members looked for "an easier, softer way. But we could not" (p. 58).
- On the Fifth Step: "If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking" (p. 72). Newcomers who tried to keep certain facts about their lives to themselves nearly always got drunk (pp. 72–73).
- On self-centredness: "We must, or it kills us!" (p. 62).
- Appendix II, written after the first printing (p. 567), says willingness, honesty and open-mindedness "are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable" (p. 568).

## So which is it?

The text doesn't make the Steps into rules. No one in A.A. is given the power to enforce them, and the book insists the reader decides for himself (p. 144). It also doesn't treat them as optional extras. It offers them as a record of what a group of alcoholics did and what happened to those who did and didn't, and leaves the choice with the reader. Where the book uses "must," it's describing the alcoholic's situation as the writers found it, not giving an order from an authority.

## Read it yourself
- Chapter 5, "How It Works" (pp. 58–71), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (pp. 72–88): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Chapter 11 (pp. 151–164), "A Vision for You," for the closing page: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt11.pdf
- Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" (pp. 567–568): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendiceii.pdf
- The full book, *Alcoholics Anonymous*, is sold by A.A. World Services at https://onlineliterature.aa.org.

## Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapter 5, "How It Works" | 58–62 | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapter 6, "Into Action" | 72–73, 81, 84–85 | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapter 7, "Working With Others" | 89 | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapter 10, "To Employers" | 144 | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapter 11, "A Vision for You" | 164 | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" | 568 | written after the first printing (p. 567); the Preface says the appendices came into the book with the second edition, 1955 (p. xi) |

Page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). The Preface says the program chapters have been "left largely untouched" since 1939 (p. xi), but our sources have no first edition to compare page numbers against.

*Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © A.A. World Services, Inc.*