Is "one day at a time" in the Big Book?
In short:
- Not in the program. The phrase "one day at a time" is nowhere in the 1939 program text, pages 1 to 164, nor in the forewords or the appendices.
- It appears in ten personal stories in today's (fourth) edition, and in later history books.
- The program text has its own daily language: a "daily reprieve" that depends on keeping up a spiritual condition (p. 85), a morning look at "the twenty-four hours ahead" (p. 86), and a program walked "day by day" (pp. 99–100). In the program text the day is a unit of spiritual work and of helping others, not only a day without a drink.
What the search found
The whole fourth-edition text was searched for "one day at a time," "a day at a time," "day by day," "twenty-four hours," "24 hours" and "just for today," with page breaks and the chapters' drop-capital first words joined so a split phrase would still match.
- Program text, forewords, appendices: no "one day at a time" and no "a day at a time."
- Personal stories (fourth edition, 2001): the phrase is in stories in all three parts, for example "The Man Who Mastered Fear" (p. 255), "The Missing Link" (pp. 286–288), "Fear of Fear" (p. 293), "The Housewife Who Drank at Home" (p. 300), "Crossing the River of Denial" (pp. 333, 336), "Because I'm an Alcoholic" (pp. 345–346), "A Drunk, Like You" (p. 401), "Grounded" (p. 528) and "A.A. Taught Him to Handle Sobriety" (p. 559). The stories change with every edition (Preface, pp. xi–xii), so these are members' own words, not program text.
- Stories printed in 1939 and later dropped (collected in Experience, Strength and Hope, 2003): the phrase isn't there either. The nearest is "The Back-Slider," whose writer, after a relapse, gets results by "asking Him to keep me a sober man for 24 hours" (Experience, Strength and Hope, 2003), and "The Salesman," whose surrender to a Higher Power "became a daily duty" (Experience, Strength and Hope, 2003). Later stories collected in the same book, ones taken out of the third edition in 2001, do use the saying: "Calculating the Costs" ends with staying away from the first drink "one day at a time" (Experience, Strength and Hope, 2003).
The stories use the phrase in more than one way. Some mean not drinking today: newcomers told one writer "They suggested I could just stay sober one day at a time" (p. 286). Others mean living in the present: "as we begin to live in the present, one day at a time" (p. 559). One writer lists it among the sayings that "began to impress me as truths I could live by" (p. 345).
Where the idea shows up early
"Alcoholic Anonymous Number Three" describes the June 1935 hospital visit from Bill W. and Dr. Bob. Asked whether he could quit for twenty-four hours, the man said anybody could, and they answered: "Just twenty-four hours at a time" (p. 188). That story was written about nineteen years after the visit (p. 188), so it is a later telling of 1935, not 1939 program text.
Pass It On (1984) has a man who met Bill in a New York brokerage office in 1935 remember Bill saying, "It's just one day at a time" (Pass It On, 1984). That is a recollection printed almost fifty years later.
What the program text says about each day
The 1939 text is concerned with days, but in its own terms:
- A reprieve, not a cure. "What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition" (p. 85). The next sentence says what each day asks: "Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities" (p. 85).
- Morning and night. Step Eleven's directions begin each day with "On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead" (p. 86) and end it with a review of the day (p. 86). See: What do Steps 10 and 11 ask, day to day?
- Faith all day. Bill W.: "Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish" (p. 16).
- Walking it with a newcomer. "Let the alcoholic continue his program day by day" (p. 99), and "Both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress" (p. 100).
- Each day for someone else. The last page of the program: "Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick" (p. 164). Chapter 7 says the same in other words: "You have to act the Good Samaritan every day, if need be" (p. 97).
So the program text does break life into days. What fills the day in that text is prayer, inventory, carrying God's will into activities and helping another alcoholic. As some stories use it, the saying can mean only not drinking today; the program text's days hold more than that.
What Bill W. said about the saying later (1962)
In his 1962 Twelve Concepts for World Service (Concept IX), writing about leadership and planning, Bill says members are always telling themselves "One day at a time," but that the principle means "not foolishly to repine over the past nor wishfully to day-dream about the future" (A.A. Service Manual combined with Twelve Concepts for World Service). He warns against using it as a reason not to plan ahead. That is 1962, after Dr. Bob's death, and about A.A.'s services rather than one person's recovery.
Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers (1980) has an Akron member recall Dr. Bob telling him in the 1940s that "Easy Does It" means "you take it a day at a time" (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980), and that it does not mean staying home from meetings. That is a recollection printed thirty years after Dr. Bob died. See: Are "Easy Does It," "First Things First" and "Live and Let Live" in the Big Book?
Read it yourself
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (daily reprieve and Step Eleven, pp. 84–88): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Chapter 1, "Bill's Story" (p. 16): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt1.pdf
- Chapter 7, "Working With Others" (pp. 97–100): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt7.pdf
- Chapter 11, "A Vision for You" (p. 164): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt11.pdf
- Personal stories, Part I (p. 188): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_personalstories_partI.pdf
- Personal stories, Part II (pp. 286–346): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_personalstories_partII.pdf
- Experience, Strength and Hope, Pass It On and Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers are sold by A.A. World Services: https://onlineliterature.aa.org
Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, whole fourth-edition text (searched) | — | 1939 program text; fourth edition 2001 |
| Chapters 1, 6, 7, 11 | 16, 84–88, 97–100, 164 | 1939 |
| "Alcoholic Anonymous Number Three," Part I | 188 | written about nineteen years after June 1935 (p. 188) |
| Personal stories quoting the saying, Parts I–III | 255–559 | fourth edition (2001); which edition first printed each isn't shown in our sources |
| "The Back-Slider," "The Salesman" (Experience, Strength and Hope) | — | printed in the first edition, 1939; collected 2003 |
| "Calculating the Costs" (Experience, Strength and Hope) | — | a story removed when the fourth edition was prepared (2001); first printing not shown; collected 2003 (post-1950) |
| Twelve Concepts for World Service (in the A.A. Service Manual) | Concept Nine | 1962 (post-1950) |
| Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers | — | 1980 (post-1950) |
| Pass It On | — | 1984 (post-1950) |
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, Experience, Strength and Hope, the Service Manual, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers and Pass It On are © A.A. World Services, Inc.
These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.