# What does "carry this message" mean — which message?

**In short:**
- Step Twelve doesn't spell the message out (p. 60). The book shows what it is by what it tells you to say.
- Chapter 2 calls it a solution: alcoholics have found "a common solution" (p. 17) to a problem nothing else had solved, through spiritual experiences that changed their lives (p. 25).
- Chapter 7 gives the content: your own drinking story, alcoholism as a fatal illness and how hopeless it is alone, and then, when he asks, exactly how you recovered, stressing the spiritual side, and the program of action (pp. 91–94). "You may talk to him about the hopelessness of alcoholism because you offer a solution" (p. 92).
- The 1939 Foreword says the book's main purpose is "To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered" (p. xiii).

## What the Step says

"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics" (p. 60). The word "this" points back to what comes before it in the sentence: a spiritual awakening that came from doing the Steps. That is a reading of the sentence, not something the book says outright. The book never gives a one-line definition of "the message." It does show it, in two places.

## Chapter 2: the news

Chapter 2, "There Is a Solution" (pp. 17–29), opens with people "who were once just as hopeless" and have recovered (p. 17). They have "discovered a common solution" (p. 17). "This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism" (p. 17).

The chapter then lays out both halves of the message:
- **The problem.** The real alcoholic has "lost the power of choice in drink" (p. 24) and is without defense against the first drink (p. 24).
- **The solution.** "There is a solution" (p. 25). The members have had "deep and effective spiritual experiences" which changed their whole attitude toward life (p. 25), described more fully in Appendix II.

It also says who carries it best: an ex-problem drinker who knows the facts about himself, with no "Holier Than Thou" attitude, no fees, "no axes to grind," nothing but a wish to help (p. 18). And it asks the question the rest of the book answers: "How then shall we present that which has been so freely given us?" (p. 19).

## Chapter 7: what you actually say

Chapter 7 turns that into a conversation, in an order (pp. 91–94):
1. Your drinking: enough of your own story that he starts telling his (p. 91).
2. The illness: how baffled you were, the mental twist before the first drink, alcoholism as "an illness, a fatal malady" (p. 92). Let him decide for himself whether he's alcoholic (p. 92).
3. The hope: you can talk about how hopeless it is "because you offer a solution" (p. 92).
4. How you got well, only when he asks: "Tell him exactly what happened to you. Stress the spiritual feature freely" (p. 93). He doesn't have to agree with your idea of God (p. 93).
5. What you did: "Outline the program of action" (p. 94), how you took stock of yourself, straightened out your past, and why you're now trying to help him (p. 94).
6. The fellowship: on the first visit tell him about A.A. (p. 94).

What the message is not: a lecture (p. 91), pressure (p. 94), or religious instruction. "Let him see that you are not there to instruct him in religion" (p. 93).

## One more line worth reading

Chapter 11 adds a condition on the messenger: "obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got" (Ch. 11, p. 164). The message is your own experience of recovery, not a set of ideas about it.

## Read it yourself
- Chapter 2, "There Is a Solution" (pp. 17–29), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt2.pdf
- Chapter 7, "Working With Others" (pp. 89–103): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt7.pdf
- Chapter 5, "How It Works," with the Steps (pp. 58–71): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Foreword to the First Edition (pp. xiii–xiv): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_forewordfirstedition.pdf
- Related: *What does Step 12 really say?* · *What is the "spiritual awakening" in Step 12?*

## Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Foreword to the First Edition | xiii | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapter 2, "There Is a Solution" | 17–29 | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapter 5, "How It Works" (Step Twelve) | 60 | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapter 7, "Working With Others" | 91–94 | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Chapter 11, "A Vision for You" | 164 | 1939 |

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.*