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Does the Big Book say to take the Steps in order?

In short:

  • The Big Book never says in so many words "take the Steps in order." But Chapters 5 and 6 walk through them one after another, each leading to the next: "Being convinced, we were at Step Three" (p. 60), then inventory, then the Fifth Step, then Six and Seven, Eight and Nine, Ten and Eleven (pp. 60–88), and Chapter 7 is Step Twelve (p. 88).
  • The book ties some Steps to the ones before. The Third Step decision "could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by" the inventory (p. 64). After the Fifth Step you check "the first five proposals" before looking at Step Six (pp. 75–76). Step Twelve's awakening comes "as the result of these steps" (p. 60).
  • It also bends the sequence in places. The amends list is made during the inventory (p. 76), the Fifth Step "may be postponed" if no suitable person is available (p. 74), and helping other alcoholics comes up before the Step Twelve chapter (pp. 14–15, 70), though the book doesn't put either passage as a point about the order of the Steps.
  • The Steps are "suggested" (p. 59) and no one is made to follow them. So the book shows an order and gives reasons for it, but it doesn't lay it down as a rule.

The order the chapters follow

Read straight through, the instructions move from one Step to the next, often with a linking sentence:

  • Steps One and Two. The first chapters and "We Agnostics" are meant to bring the reader to three ideas: that "we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives" (p. 60), that probably no human power could have relieved it, and that God could and would if He were sought (p. 60).
  • Step Three. "Being convinced, we were at Step Three" (p. 60). Before saying the prayer, "We thought well before taking this step making sure we were ready" (p. 63).
  • Step Four. "Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning" (p. 63). The decision "could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us" (p. 64).
  • Step Five. Chapter 6 opens: "Having made our personal inventory, what shall we do about it?" (p. 72), and the next step "brings us to the Fifth Step in the program of recovery" (p. 72).
  • Steps Six and Seven. Back home after the Fifth Step, we turn to the page with the Steps: "Carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last." (p. 75). "If we can answer to our satisfaction, we then look at Step Six." (p. 76). Then the Seventh Step prayer, "When ready" (p. 76).
  • Steps Eight and Nine. "Now we need more action" (p. 76).
  • Step Ten. After the amends and the promises: "This thought brings us to Step Ten" (p. 84).
  • Step Eleven. "But we must go further and that means more action." (p. 85), and "Step Eleven suggests prayer and meditation." (p. 85).
  • Step Twelve. "The next chapter is entirely devoted to Step Twelve." (p. 88). The Step itself speaks of "a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps" (p. 60).

The image of an arch (p. 75) is given as the reason for that check: the work so far is pictured as stones and a foundation, and the questions are whether they are "properly in place" (p. 75) before going on. The book doesn't say more than that about why the order matters.

The "when ready" language

The book's word for when to move on is readiness, not a calendar:

  • Step Three: we made sure "we were ready" (p. 63).
  • Step Six asks "Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable?" (p. 76). If we still cling to something, "we ask God to help us be willing." (p. 76).
  • Step Seven: "When ready, we say something like this" (p. 76).
  • Steps Eight and Nine: "If we haven't the will to do this, we ask until it comes." (p. 76).

None of this sets a waiting period. Where the book talks about pace, it pushes against delay: "When we decide who is to hear our story, we waste no time." (p. 75), and with amends, "we don't delay if it can be avoided" (p. 83). See: How long did the first members take to work the Steps?

Where the text bends the sequence

  • The amends list comes from the inventory. "We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took inventory." (p. 76). Chapter 5 says the same: by the end of the inventory "We have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct" (p. 70). So Step Eight's list is already written during Step Four.
  • Step Five can wait, under one condition. If no suitable person is available, "this step may be postponed, only, however, if we hold ourselves in complete readiness to go through with it at the first opportunity" (p. 74). And "we must not use this as a mere excuse to postpone" (p. 75).
  • Helping others comes up before Chapter 7. In the inventory section, on sex: "If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others." (p. 70). Bill, still in the hospital, thought of the thousands of alcoholics he might help (p. 14), after he had faced his wrongs and made his list with his friend (p. 13), and he found that "work with another alcoholic would save the day" (p. 15). The events in Bill's story came before the Steps were written, and the book doesn't present either passage as a point about Step order.
  • Steps Ten and Eleven begin a way of life. Step Ten is something that "should continue for our lifetime" (p. 84), so the later Steps keep being practised every day, not finished and left behind.
  • Skipping is warned against, but in terms of results. "If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking." (p. 72), said of the Fifth Step. Newcomers who held back facts about themselves "Almost invariably" got drunk (pp. 72–73).

Suggestions, not rules

The Steps are introduced as "the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery" (p. 59), and the book says it is "meant to be suggestive only" (p. 164). It describes the order the writers followed and the trouble they saw when Steps were skimped, but it doesn't tell anyone they're forbidden to do otherwise. See: Are the Steps rules or suggestions?

A note on history (1957)

In A.A. Comes of Age, Bill W. tells how the Twelve Steps grew out of an earlier spoken program of six steps, which he gives "approximately as follows" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). In that list, helping other alcoholics came before the prayer for power to practise the rest (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). He wrote the twelve to make the program more explicit, thinking "Maybe our six chunks of truth should be broken up into smaller pieces" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). That's a later account and says nothing about whether the twelve must be done in sequence; it does show the numbering grew out of a shorter program.

What the text doesn't settle

The Big Book shows one sequence and explains parts of it (the decision followed at once by inventory, the Fifth Step after the inventory, a check of the first five before Six). It doesn't say whether someone who, for example, makes an amend before writing an inventory has done the program wrong, and it doesn't number the order as a requirement. Anyone who says the book commands strict order, or says order doesn't matter at all, is going past what these pages say.

Read it yourself

Sources

Source Pages Date
Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapters 1, 5, 6, 11 14–15, 59–64, 70, 72–88, 164 1939
A.A. Comes of Age — 1957

Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © 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.