Does the Big Book say willpower doesn't work?
In short:
- Not in those words, and not as a rule about the will in general. What the book says is narrower and firmer: against the first drink, the alcoholic's will power fails. Our so-called "will power becomes practically nonexistent" (p. 24); "we had gone on drinking many years beyond the point where we could quit on our will power" (p. 34); "will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots" (p. 42).
- The book treats "his will power must be weak" as one of the outsider's mistakes about alcoholics (p. 20), and names the trouble as a lack of power: "we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn't there" (p. 45).
- After the decision to turn the will over to God (Step Three, p. 59), the will is to be used, hard: "We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will." (p. 85). The program of action in Chapters 5–7 is work the member does.
"Will power" in the book, page by page
The phrase "will power" is in the main text thirteen times (pp. xxxi, 20, 22, 24, 33, 34, 40, 42, 85, 92, 107, 138, 155). Read in their paragraphs, they fall into three groups.
What other people say. Chapter 2 lists the "commonplace observations on drinkers which we hear all the time" (p. 20), among them "His will power must be weak" and "He could stop if he wanted to" (p. 20), and says "Back of them is a world of ignorance and misunderstanding" (p. 20). The same misreading comes up again from a banker who thinks a drinking executive "will make the grade" if "he has your will power and guts" (p. 138), and from wives asking "What had become of their judgment, their common sense, their will power?" (p. 107). The book's answer to the banker is that he "simply could not believe that his brother-executive suffered from a serious illness" (p. 138). In the Doctor's Opinion, a patient wanted assurance that he would have "the 'will power' to resist the impulse to drink," which "no one ever had" given him; what worked for him was the ideas in this book, not that assurance (p. xxxi).
Against the first drink. Chapter 2 asks the question in its own voice, "What has become of the common sense and will power that he still sometimes displays with respect to other matters?" (p. 22), and says "We cannot answer the riddle." (p. 22). Then it states the fact: "most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink." (p. 24), so that our so-called "will power becomes practically nonexistent" (p. 24), and "We are without defense against the first drink." (p. 24). Chapter 3 says the same from experience: "we had gone on drinking many years beyond the point where we could quit on our will power" (p. 34), and doubts that young drinkers can stop "on their own will power" as the man of thirty once did (p. 33). Fred, whose story Chapter 3 tells, thought it "would be only a matter of exercising my will power and keeping on guard" (p. 40), and after his relapse "saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots" (p. 42). Chapter 7 tells the member to show the newcomer "how the queer mental condition surrounding that first drink prevents normal functioning of the will power" (p. 92), and in Chapter 11 the prospect agrees "that no amount of will power he might muster could stop his drinking for long" (p. 155).
Note the qualifiers the book keeps: "practically nonexistent" (p. 24), "at certain times" (pp. 24, 43), "for long" (p. 155), "in those strange mental blank spots" (p. 42). The claim is about the will's reach over the first drink, not about the will as such.
The will put to use. The one remaining passage is Chapter 6, on keeping the daily reprieve: "Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities." (p. 85), and then "We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will." (p. 85). This is the book's only sentence that says what will power is for.
Lack of power, not lack of will
Chapter 4 gives the book's own account of why the will failed. The alcoholics who wrote it "could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn't there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly." (p. 45). Then: "Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves." (p. 45). On this account the trouble isn't a weak will but a will with nothing to draw on against alcohol, and the book's whole purpose is "exactly" to say where that Power is to be found (p. 45). See: "Lack of power, that was our dilemma": what dilemma? and What does Step 1 say? Powerless over what?
Chapter 5 adds the other side: the will turned the wrong way is the problem. "the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so" (p. 62); "Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help." (p. 62); "First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work." (p. 62). Step Three is the decision to turn "our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him" (p. 59), and the morning prayer asks "especially for freedom from self-will" (p. 87). See: What do "selfishness—self-centeredness!" and "self-will run riot" mean in the Big Book?
What the will is still asked to do
The book doesn't tell the reader to stop trying. It asks for willingness over and over: "willing to go to any length" (p. 58), "willing to believe" (p. 47), and the inventory, amends and Twelfth Step work of Chapters 5–7 are things the member must do. "We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish." (p. 85). The book's sequence is: the will cannot stop the drinking by itself (pp. 24, 34, 42); the alcoholic finds a Power that can (p. 45); he hands his will over (p. 59); and then he works, with his will, at the program and at God's will (p. 85). "There is action and more action." (p. 88).
So a flat "willpower doesn't work" shortens the book at both ends. It drops the book's point that "His will power must be weak" is an outsider's misunderstanding (p. 20) and that the trouble was a lack of power (p. 45), and it drops the book's instruction to use the will fully once it is pointed the right way (p. 85).
Read it yourself
- The Doctor's Opinion (p. xxxi): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_foreworddoctorsopinion.pdf
- Chapter 2, "There Is a Solution" (pp. 20–24): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt2.pdf
- Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism" (pp. 33–43): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt3.pdf
- Chapter 4, "We Agnostics" (p. 45): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt4.pdf
- Chapter 5, "How It Works" (pp. 58–62): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (pp. 85–88): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Chapter 7, "Working With Others" (p. 92): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt7.pdf
- The full book: https://onlineliterature.aa.org
Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, The Doctor's Opinion; Chapters 2–8, 10–11 | xxxi, 20–24, 33–34, 40–43, 45, 47, 58–59, 62, 85–88, 92, 107, 138, 155 | 1939 |
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.