Whose Job is it to Change Your Sobriety Date?
What if someone in your meeting, early in sobriety, shares that she used something other than alcohol, and someone tells her she relapsed and needs a new date? What if another member admits she's been using something she didn't think counted, and a voice from the back says that as long as she does, she isn't sober?
And what if you're her sponsor, and people are telling you that you must make her change her date? I've been that sponsor. And I'm not claiming that other drugs are harmless. I'm not saying that people shouldn't change their sobriety dates. Many have, out of their own conviction, and I respect that.
I'm suggesting something narrower: we can share our experience without turning our personal convictions into rules for everyone else.
What we can share
Other substances can endanger sobriety. Our own pamphlet says so plainly: "the misuse of prescription medication and other drugs can threaten the achievement and maintenance of sobriety" (The A.A. Member — Medications and Other Drugs, p. 4). Members say it in their own stories. Sally took prescribed tranquilizers, drank six months in, and concluded that "somehow this medication had something to do with my relapse." Ann took a sleeping pill early in sobriety and "vividly" remembered "feeling just as drunk as I had ever been on liquor."
And in our literature, a slip is a drink. A.A.'s own FAQ calls a relapse into drinking a "slip." Bill's pamphlet Problems Other Than Alcohol defines the group's purpose as "sobriety — freedom from alcohol." In the sponsorship pamphlet, Questions and Answers on Sponsorship, the newcomer who slips is one who "starts drinking again." And notice the word the medications pamphlet chooses: other drugs can threaten sobriety. If they were part of the definition, taking one wouldn't threaten sobriety; it would end it. The pamphlet treats sobriety as something drugs can endanger, which only makes sense if sobriety means freedom from alcohol. So both things are true. Other drugs can lead us back to a drink, and the drink is the slip. If she drinks, that's a relapse by every definition our literature has, and nobody needs to tell her to change her date. She'll know. That's the one case where custom and the book agree.
Here is my own view, as a sponsor. If it's going to endanger your sobriety, don't do it. And one of the surest ways to endanger your sobriety is to lie and keep your secrets to yourself. If you're using something, whether recreationally or for any other reason, tell your sponsor. The Twelve and Twelve calls holding back in Step Five "a perilous resolve" and says "few muddled attitudes have caused us more trouble" (p. 56).
Many people say a gummy or a mushroom has deepened their connection with a Higher Power, and I won't argue with anyone's experience. I stay with one question: might this lead me back to a drink?
The Big Book says "the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink," and that "his defense must come from a Higher Power" (p. 43). It says what we have is "a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition" (Chapter 6). So I ask my sponsees, and myself, whether something is clouding that connection or the way we live the program. Whatever is holding us up can stop working, and on a really bad day someone may push a drink our way. Sally found that her tranquilizers kept her from truly admitting powerlessness, and on a terrible day she ended up drinking. Only you can answer honestly whether something is putting your defense at risk. That's what I can ask, and that's why I don't rule.
I'm not talking about medication a doctor prescribes and a member takes as directed. Our own pamphlet calls taking that away "equally wrong" (p. 6). I'm talking about leaning on something in place of the program.
All of that is sharing, not ruling. And honesty goes both ways: if we ask members to tell us what they're using, we owe them a safe place to land.
We don't know the whole story
When someone says they used something, we're hearing one sentence of a longer story. We don't know whether a doctor prescribed it, what it's for, or what else is going on. The medications pamphlet describes members told by other A.A.s to "throw away the pills," and says it is "equally wrong to deprive any alcoholic of medication." A member in the mental health pamphlet, A.A. for Alcoholics with Mental Health Issues, tells newcomers who are pressured to stop their medication to "run in the opposite direction," because "A.A. members, as such, have no business commenting on another A.A. member's medical care." Another member, who takes lithium, says: "I have only one judge, my Higher Power."
Members also draw their own lines. Ann decided she could not handle any mood-altering drug. That was her conclusion about her own life. Nothing in our books turns it into a rule for the next person.
Custom is not A.A.'s opinion
I looked through the Big Book, the Twelve and Twelve, As Bill Sees It, and the pamphlets on slips, sponsorship, medication, mental health, and other problems. They warn about other drugs. They define a slip as a drink. I couldn't find anything in them about when a sobriety date should change, or any statement that someone has relapsed because of a substance other than alcohol.
That doesn't make the customs wrong. People who hold them usually do so out of care. A clear date can keep us honest, and some find a fresh start a relief. But a custom is a local habit, not A.A.'s position. When we say "that's a relapse, change your date" as though it were in the book, we're speaking for A.A. in a way A.A. hasn't spoken for itself.
Tradition Twelve reminds us to place principles before personalities. At its heart is humility, the willingness to put principles ahead of our personal convictions. A.A. has not established a rule requiring members to change their sobriety dates over substances other than alcohol. When we insist that another member adopt our personal conviction, are we practicing humility, or placing our own judgment above hers?
The principle people usually point to is honesty. But telling her sponsor what happened was an act of honesty. That honesty deserves encouragement, followed by a thoughtful examination of her actions, not an automatic verdict. And honesty asks something of the rest of us, too: to acknowledge the difference between what A.A. actually says and what we personally believe.
And fear isn't a reason to change a date. A beer labeled 0.0%, a gummy, a mushroom, or anything else may put someone's sobriety in danger. But we don't tell people to change their dates out of fear. People change them out of their own convictions.
What the books say about judging
Tradition Three is about membership, but its reasoning carries over. A.A. chose not to "punish nor deprive any A.A. of membership," because "to take away any alcoholic's full chance was sometimes to pronounce his death sentence." Then: "Who dared to be judge, jury, and executioner of his own sick brother?" (Twelve and Twelve, p. 141).
Writing about how A.A. groups treat their members, Bill said "punishment never heals. Only love can heal" (As Bill Sees It, p. 98). The sponsorship pamphlet asks a sponsor to have "empathy, compassion, and patience." Then it says something we tend to read right past: a sponsor "never tries to impose personal views." Not sometimes. Never. A conviction about someone else's date is a personal view. When a newcomer starts drinking again, it asks the sponsor to "avoid postmortems on the reasons for the slip." It reminds us that "one person cannot keep another person sober" and that people who have slipped "continue to be welcome in A.A."
In 2025, A.A.'s General Service Office wrote that "Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on medical advice, medication, or any other treatment," and that these matters "are not determined by members of A.A. or by a sponsor" (About A.A., Spring 2025). Years earlier, a G.S.O. staff member was asked whether a sponsor was right to demand a date change over prescribed pain medication. The answer: "My sponsor did not give me my sobriety date either and, as far as I know, can't take it away from me!" (Box 4-5-9, April–May 1998).
Some of that guidance is about someone who took a drink, and some is about someone taking a prescribed pill. None of it calls for a verdict. If it's how we're asked to treat a drink, it's a good guide for what we say to someone who tried a gummy. Love, patience, and service are what we have to give. A verdict isn't one of them.
What it costs when a conviction becomes a rule
Imagine a year of sobriety, and a friend hands you a gummy. You do the honest thing and tell your sponsor, and your sponsor says you have to change your date. Suddenly, you're being told that a year of sobriety no longer counts, even though none of the work you've done has disappeared. You feel like a failure. A voice says that if you've already relapsed, you might as well really relapse.
Our books warn us about guilt that leads to the next slip. As Bill Sees It (p. 68) says a slip "could well have been brought about by unreasonable feelings of guilt," and the sponsorship pamphlet warns against "harsh criticism that would only build up the newcomer's remorse" (p. 20). Even worse, you learn that honesty costs you, and the next time you may not tell. One member in the medications pamphlet describes exactly that: he "learned to be a little less open" about what he was taking (p. 17).
Or consider someone with twenty years of sobriety who has surgery. Months later, they realize they've been finishing the Vicodin after the pain is gone. They catch it, tell their sponsor, and stop. Do they lose twenty years? Misusing a medication is serious, and our own pamphlet says so. But they did what we ask of each other: they were honest, and they stopped. In the Big Book, writing about what happens when we fall short of our own ideals, Bill said that if we are sorry for what we have done and have "the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson" (p. 70, reprinted in As Bill Sees It, p. 52). What they decide to do with their date is theirs to decide. It isn't ours to demand.
For some people, changing the date is an honest act of conviction, and I respect it. I've changed a date myself. The problem is when someone else forces it.
Before you speak
Am I sharing my experience, or issuing a verdict?
What don't I know about this person's story?
If she walks out feeling condemned, what have I protected: A.A., or my own certainty?
What would love, patience, and service say here?
Have I taken my own inventory before taking someone else's?
What a sponsor can say
A sponsor can say, honestly and with love: "I believe you're putting your sobriety in jeopardy. Here's what I've seen. I'm here."
That is sharing experience, and it's what the sponsorship pamphlet describes: a sponsor helps "within the limits of personal experience and knowledge" and "never tries to impose personal views" (pp. 12–13).
A sponsor also has the right to decide whom they sponsor and on what terms, and a sponsee has the right to look for someone else. The pamphlet says so: "All members are free to approach sponsorship as their own individual experiences and personalities may suggest" (p. 13), and "we are always free to select another sponsor" (p. 9). What no sponsor has is authority over another member's date. It isn't theirs to set, change, or take away, and the pamphlet reminds us that "it is the whole A.A. program — not the individual's sponsor — that maintains the newcomer's sobriety" (p. 9).
And to the members who tell me I must make my sponsee change her date: I've already said what I have to say to her. "Continuing this could hurt your sobriety. I would stop. But I'm not going to tell you that you have to. If the day comes when you start drinking again and you need me, I'll be here." The date is hers.
Share what you've seen, and leave the decision where the books leave it: with the person living it.
The woman who hears "you're not sober" may not come back. The one who hears "I'm worried about you, and I'm not going anywhere" might just pause.
My own example
For me, it's simple. I take medication my doctor prescribes, and I don't use gummies, weed, hallucinogens, alcohol, or party drugs. That's the line I've drawn in my own life. It's the only authority I have, and it isn't a rule for anyone else.
If a sponsee tells me she's used something, I'll listen first. If she decides to reset her date, I'll stand with her. If she doesn't, I'll tell her plainly what I see, that I think it puts her sobriety at risk, and I'll pray that she looks at it honestly. I won't threaten to stop sponsoring her. I won't guilt her into a new date, or bully her into one, or hold my own sobriety up as the measure of hers. I won't ignore the date she keeps, and I won't take my love back.
Dr. Silkworth wrote of the early members that they believed "still more in the Power which pulls chronic alcoholics back from the gates of death." I do too. So we'll keep working the Steps, keep reading the book, keep going to meetings, and keep being of service, whether or not she ever sees it the way I do.
I'm not going anywhere.
Table of Contents for the Big Book
Front Matter — The Groundwork
Preface — p. xi The book names itself the basic text. The first 164 pages left untouched across every revision — only the stories change.
Foreword to First Edition (1939) — p. xiii Who we are, why we're anonymous. The purpose sentence: to show precisely how we recovered. The book announces itself as instruction, not memoir.
Foreword to Second Edition (1955) — p. xv The origin story — Bill and Dr. Bob told anonymously; one alcoholic reaching another as no one else can. The program in five phrases from the Oxford Groups: inventory, confession, restitution, helpfulness, dependence on God. The fellowship took its name from the title of its own book.
Foreword to Third Edition (1976) — p. xxii A million members. The steps trace exactly the same path in every language and lifestyle.
Foreword to Fourth Edition (2001) — p. xxiii Two million members, forty-three languages. People who normally would not mix — fulfilled.
The Doctor's Opinion — p. xxv Step One, complete. The allergy and the phenomenon of craving — the body, why the real alcoholic can't safely stop once started. The restless, irritable, discontented sober condition — the unmanageability and the spiritual malady, with alcohol as the solution that works before it becomes the problem. Ends by pointing toward Step Two: more than human power is needed, and the psychic change.
Chapter 1: Bill's Story — pp. 1–16
All twelve steps, demonstrated. The arc of p. 58 as biography: the mess (pp. 1–8), what happened (pp. 8–14), what it's like now (pp. 14–16). Steps 1 through 11 pass in three paragraphs on p. 13; Step Twelve on pp. 14–15. The program shown working before the book argues for it.
Chapter 2: There Is a Solution — pp. 17–29
Steps One and Two, told in narrative. The real alcoholic identified, human power exhausted, the common solution named — a spiritual experience. The transmission principle, Step Twelve's seed: one alcoholic reaching another. And the thesis, five times over: the solution is in this book, directions ahead.
Chapter 3: More About Alcoholism — pp. 30–43
Step Two — the insanity defined. The thoughts that precede the first drink — Jim, the jaywalker, Fred's blank spots. The only chapter that defines the insanity Step Two promises restoration from.
Chapter 4: We Agnostics — pp. 44–57
Steps Two and Three. Willingness to believe, your own conception of God as sufficient, and the either/or choice framed — ending with the surrender that chapter five formalizes.
Chapter 5: How It Works — pp. 58–71
Steps Three and Four. The directions begin.
The twelve steps, in full — pp. 59–60
Step Three — pp. 60–63 (Third Step prayer, p. 63)
Step Four — pp. 63–71 (resentment, fear, sex)
Chapter 6: Into Action — pp. 72–88
Steps Five through Eleven.
Step Five — pp. 72–75
Steps Six & Seven — pp. 75–76 (Seventh Step prayer, p. 76)
Steps Eight & Nine — pp. 76–84 (the Promises, pp. 83–84)
Step Ten — pp. 84–85 (sanity will have returned, p. 84)
Step Eleven — pp. 85–88 (the hunch becomes a working part of the mind — it works, it really does, pp. 87–88)
Chapter 7: Working With Others — pp. 89–103
Step Twelve. A field manual for the prospect who may or may not want to get sober — every branch built on consent. The story template all 43 stories follow (pp. 91–93). And the callback: five references to this book — the message we carry is the text; every other message ruled out by name.
Chapters 8–11: Practicing These Principles
Step Twelve's third clause, domain by domain — homes, occupations, and affairs (p. 19).
To Wives — pp. 104–121 — the principles in marriage: patience, tolerance, understanding, love (the watchwords, p. 118)
The Family Afterward — pp. 122–135 — the principles at home: tolerance, understanding, love as common ground (p. 122); giving rather than getting, the guiding principle (p. 128); happy, joyous, and free (p. 133); the three mottoes (p. 135)
To Employers — pp. 136–150 — the principles at work: understanding above all — the alcoholic as sick, not weak; patience, tolerance, forgiveness, honesty, confidence, fairness
A Vision for You — pp. 151–164 — the principles carried outward: reliance on God, humility, service (p. 164); the whole program in four commands — abandon, admit, clear away, give freely (p. 164); fellowship as the promise
“Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.
Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.
May God bless you and keep you - until then.”
Page 164
Still You. Just Free
We've done our inventory and our Fifth Step. We've discovered our flaws, our faults, our mistakes, our wrongs, our defects, our shortcomings, whatever you want to call them. Or just call them what the Big Book does: the things that have been blocking us from a Power greater than ourselves. Then comes Step Six: are we ready to have our Higher Power remove them? Then Step Seven, and the prayer:
"My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen." (p. 76)
Every single defect? That's usually where we pause… We start asking questions like how useful do I need to be? Which of my fellows, exactly? It's the same argument we made at Step Three: "If I keep on turning my life and my will over to the care of Something or Somebody else, what will become of me? I'll look like the hole in the doughnut." (12&12, p. 36)
What's Left After the Defects Go?
That's the real sticking point. We've been mistaking defects for identity. Sarcasm became "our sense of humor." Cruelty was "tough love." Isolation was "independence." Steamroller ambition was "a strong work ethic." We've relied on these for so long that losing them feels like losing us. We start spiraling:
"If my Higher Power removes all this, who am I?"
We think to ourselves, how would we even act? So somebody asks "How are you?" We usually say "fine." Are we supposed to start being honest and say "fuck off"? If somebody's being an idiot, do we just smile and nod? Do we give up our last twenty bucks and the last word? Show up on time, remember the birthday, actually listen to the answer?
Because underneath all of it: "entirely ready" means entirely boring. We know the person on the other side of Step Seven is just a pushover in a beige cardigan.
The Saint Nobody Signed Up to Be
"We are not saints" (p. 60).
Thank God for that line. The Big Book lowers the bar before we even start, because let's be honest—we didn't get here by being good.
We got here by being spectacular at being bad. By taking everything too far. By being the ones who always had another gear when everyone else was tapping out. We wore our destruction like a leather jacket.
And now the program's suggesting we become... what? Nice? Considerate? One of those people who lets someone get away with 15 items in the 10-or-less lane? Who smiles at strangers? Who lets people merge in traffic without flipping them off?
Here's the thing about addicts—we don't do anything halfway. We didn't drink like normal people. We didn't gamble for fun. We didn't eat for nutrition. We went all in, every time, until all in nearly killed us. Even our defects are extreme.
So when we read "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character" (p. 59), we picture becoming some watered-down, vanilla version of ourselves. Some rule-following, people-pleasing nobody who sends thank you cards and never jaywalks.
This is where our sponsors say, "Settle down. Take a breath. Nobody's asking you to buy a minivan. Look closer at the people who've actually done this work. Do they seem boring?"
The guy with 20 years who tells stories that make everyone crack up? The woman who built a business empire after getting clean? The one who drops f-bombs throughout every share but when they're done we feel lighter, clearer, and somehow closer to our Higher Power?
They're not "good." They're FREE.
We're not becoming reformed and righteous. We're becoming forces of nature who happen to have learned how not to destroy everything we touch.
That's not selling out. That's the ultimate rebellion—becoming too healthy for our own bullshit.
The edge doesn't go away. It just stops cutting us.
Let's Break It Down
When I finish an inventory and look at what's staring back at me, it usually boils down to the same four things:
Selfishness
"Who's going to protect my time if I don't?"
"They should have worked harder."
"Why should I help? They're probably scamming anyway."
Sound familiar? We've built a whole philosophy around why selfishness is actually boundaries, wisdom, or tough love. We're not being selfish—we're being "realistic."
But look at our lives. Really look. What are the results?
That protected time—what are we filling it with? That money we're hoarding—is it making us feel secure? Those boundaries that are actually walls—who's getting in?
What Takes Its Place
Here's what we can't see without an inventory: When selfishness goes, we don't become everyone's doormat. We become people who:
Give from abundance, not obligation
Have BETTER boundaries because they're not defensive
Say no cleanly when needed, yes joyfully when moved
Discover that helping others somehow multiplies rather than depletes
Self-Seeking
"I'm just trying to help."
"Someone has to step up."
"I thought you'd appreciate it."
But what's really underneath? That volunteer position that looks good on LinkedIn? The favor we did with a mental IOU attached? The advice nobody asked for but we needed to give to feel important?
Self-seeking is exhausting because we're performing all the time. Every good deed has strings. Every kindness has a scorecard. We're not serving—we're investing, and we're constantly checking for returns.
What Takes Its Place
When self-seeking goes, we discover what service actually feels like. We show up without checking who's watching. We help without keeping score. We give advice only when asked—and even then, we don't need them to take it.
Know what's wild? When we stop performing, we start connecting. When we drop the agenda, people actually trust us. That validation we were chasing? It shows up naturally when we stop hunting for it.
Inconsideration
"I didn't mean to hurt anyone."
"That's just how I was raised."
"I'm not a mind reader."
But here's the thing: Inconsideration isn't about intent. It's about impact. It's the birthday we forgot again. The meeting we showed up late to. The mess we left for someone else. The feelings we dismissed because they seemed like an overreaction.
We're not bad people. We're just moving through life like we're the only ones in it. And everyone around us feels it, even if they're too polite to say so.
What Takes Its Place
When inconsideration goes, we start noticing things. The tired look on our partner's face. The coworker who always stays late. The friend who keeps saying "it's fine" when it clearly isn't.
We become people who show up on time because we respect others' time. Who remember the little things because we're actually present. Who ask "How are you?" and wait for the real answer.
It's not about becoming people-pleasers. It's about becoming aware that other people are actually people.
Dishonesty
That dishonesty we're protecting? It's not our charm. It's our chain.
The little adjustments to reality ("running late" when we haven't left yet)
The automatic social lies ("that sounds great" when we have zero interest)
The constant edits to our story to sound better, smarter, more together
The Zoom camera that's "broken" while we do other work
We think these are social skills. They're not. They're exhaustion. Do we realize how much energy we burn maintaining all those small deceptions? Running multiple versions of ourselves? Remembering which story we told to whom?
What Actually Happens When Dishonesty Goes
We think we'll become brutally honest, socially awkward, the person who says "yes, your butt looks big in that dress" when asked the "does this make me look...?" question.
That's not what happens.
What happens is we develop real skills. We learn to say:
"I'm struggling with time management today" (truth with ownership)
"Let me think about that" (honoring both ourselves and them)
"I'm taking some downtime" (no fake excuses needed)
We become people whose yes means yes. When we show up, we're actually there. People feel the difference. They relax around us because there's something solid there. Something real.
And that thing we're terrified people will discover if we're honest? It's usually not that bad. And when it is? That's how we become useful. Our dark past becomes our greatest possession in God's hands.
We can see it in everyone else. We just can't quite believe it could happen for us. But remember: we used to think we were different about our addiction too. Our case was special. The program might work for others, but not us.
Yet here we are.
The Truth About "Not Overnight"
Our defects don't just go away. The Big Book lets us know on page 84: "This is not an overnight matter." And we think: Great, no pressure. We've got time. Maybe we'll work on that honesty thing next year.
But here's what "not overnight" actually means:
We're going to pick these defects back up. Probably tomorrow. Maybe in an hour. We're allowed to be actively growing, changing, failing, trying again.
We'll have three days of rigorous honesty, feel like spiritual giants, then lie about why we're late to lunch. We'll practice selflessness all week, then catch ourselves keeping score again by Friday. We'll be considerate as hell until someone takes our parking spot.
Welcome to "not overnight." Where progress looks like:
Being selfish for 6 hours instead of 6 days
Catching the lie halfway out of our mouth
Realizing we were jerks—today, not three years later
Saying "I did it again" without wanting to die
Our Higher Power isn't shocked. Turns out, God's got a long game.
It's like trying on clothes. We wear "honest" for a day, feel weird, take it off. But something fits differently when we put the dishonesty back on. It's itchy now. Tight in places it wasn't before.
So we try "honest" again. This time for two days. Then a week. Then we forget we're wearing it until someone says "I love how real you are" and we think am I?
And now when we're being selfish, we notice it. That's a miracle. That's growth.
What's Left
The defects we're clinging to like life preservers? They're actually anchors. The things we think are protecting us? They're what we need protection FROM.
When God removes selfishness, what's left is service—and we become useful.
When Divine Providence removes self-seeking, what's left is trust—and we find peace.
When our Higher Power removes inconsideration, what's left is presence—and we finally show up for our life.
When the Spirit of the Universe removes dishonesty, what's left is integrity—and we become whole.
Step Seven isn't God erasing our personality. It's God separating us from the things we've confused with our personality.
We're not becoming less. We're becoming who we actually are.
Just for Today
We don't have to do this perfectly. We just have to be willing to begin. Or be willing to be willing to begin.
That's the prayer:
"God, give me the willingness to be willing."
That's all. Just the willingness to maybe consider that perhaps what's on the other side of Step Seven might be better than what we're stubbornly holding on to.
The Power that pulls us back from the gates of insanity and death wants to make us free.
Let It.
Who God Is, Is an Outside Issue
The Big Book calls itself our basic text, and a text teaches. One of its most overlooked lessons is how we share: "Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now." That instruction sits on the first page of "How It Works" — a page many of us have heard read a hundred times. And we hear it so often we can miss four words in the middle of it: in a general way. That's spiritual hospitality. It asks us to use broad strokes so other members can find their own reflection in our story, rather than getting blocked by the details that could separate us.
And "what happened" in Alcoholics Anonymous inevitably brings us to God, because the remedy this book offers is a spiritual one. But the book doesn't tell us how that God must look. Bill tells us in "We Agnostics" exactly what we will find in the personal stories: "In our personal stories you will find a wide variation in the way each teller approaches and conceives of the Power which is greater than himself."
Wide variation.
All of them tell us where they came from, what happened to them, how they approached a Power greater than themselves, and what their lives became. Their conception of God is part of the story because it is part of what happened. But something remarkable happens across all that variation: they tell us about their God without telling the rest of us who God must be. Whatever they believed individually, they wrote it down in the same common language. The stories use the word "God" more than two hundred times. "Higher Power" nearly fifty.
Not one of them tells us who God is.
Not one of them hands us a creed or insists on a name. They give us the transformation and leave the theology blank — so that the person sitting in the back of the room can write their own name in the space. They were taught how to share their story, and they showed us how to do it. Who God is seemed less important than what God did.
The lesson I have learned is that in Twelve Step fellowships, the word God is an umbrella term. To some, that lands like a hug; to others, like a slap. So let me be clear about what I'm not saying. I'm not saying God doesn't matter. God is written into the Steps. I'm not saying we shouldn't have a God, or shouldn't be sure about Him, or shouldn't tell the whole world about Him. I'm saying that who God is, is a different matter. His name, whether He's a He at all, which book He wrote, what He thinks of nonbelievers — these things matter, some of them deeply, to many of us. But they are not the fellowship's business. God's identity is an outside issue. And when an outside issue gets brought into the group's business, it does what outside issues do. It splits the room.
Make no mistake: we talk about God in the rooms. A lot. He is all over the Big Book. But look at what He's doing there. He restores us to sanity. He does for us what we could not do for ourselves. He could and would if He were sought. Verbs, every time. What our literature consistently refuses to do is name Him. Which God? Which religion? Which creed? It says yours, wherever you are in the process. "We Agnostics" settles it in a single sentence: when we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God.
Our founders held deep spiritual and religious convictions of their own. They didn't abandon them. But when it came time to write the text, they had the discipline to write "God as we understood Him" and "a Power greater than ourselves." They left the name off on purpose. It didn't make the message any less powerful. Bill, in "We Agnostics," points straight at the fellowship: "When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith." The most important fact of their lives. Results like that, with freedoms like this: "He can choose any conception he likes, provided it makes sense to him." That was an extraordinary act of spiritual courage.
And it points to a single, inescapable boundary: Who God is, is an outside issue.
Tradition Ten addresses outside issues. In its long form it says: "No A.A. group or member should ever, in such a way as to implicate A.A., express any opinion on outside controversial issues — particularly those of politics, alcohol reform, or sectarian religion." Sectarian means my sect, my church, my creed. Nobody's sect is offered as the answer in our personal stories. They show us what the Tradition looks like in practice. The oldest stories predate Tradition Ten. The newest were written by people who had it. The Traditions saved what worked.
The message that saved Bill Wilson was built on this exact freedom. Ebby Thacher had a name for God, but when he sat across the kitchen table from Bill, he didn't demand that Bill adopt it. He simply suggested, "Why don't you choose your own conception of God?" Bill later wrote that those words melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow he had lived and shivered for years — and nothing more was required of him to begin. That is the message we are still asked to carry. Nowhere in our book, front or back, are we asked to define God to another member of our fellowship.
Tradition Ten is for everyone. The Christian who knows their Higher Power is Jesus. The Wiccan who knows She is the Goddess and would like to open with a blessing. The Buddhist who knows there's no He at all. The humanist who knows "God" is just a word for the group and would like it struck from the readings. The yogi who knows the Steps are really about breath and stillness. The spiritual-but-not-religious one who knows God is the universe. Every one of them is certain. But the moment any of us tells a room which God is the real one, we've stopped sharing what happened to us and started sharing what we believe ought to happen to you. Those are different things, and the room can feel the difference even when it can't name it.
So what do we say instead? The book already answered that. In "Working with Others," it tells us: tell him exactly what happened to you. Stress the spiritual feature freely. And then, in the very same breath, it tells us how: use everyday language to describe spiritual principles, avoid arousing whatever prejudices he carries against theological terms, and don't raise such issues, no matter what your own convictions are.
Freely, and in everyday language. Those two aren't in tension; together they're the instruction, and the personal stories in the back are the proof. And the everyday language is right there in the text: God. Higher Power. A Power greater than ourselves. Creator. Spirit of the Universe.
We bring that same freedom into sponsorship. When a sponsee struggles with the word "God," we tell them to just say "Higher Power." But almost inevitably, as they begin to understand how our fellowship uses the word, they settle into saying "God." The fellowship understands that word to mean your God, whoever or whatever that is, so that nobody has to stand outside. When we use that language in a share, we aren't hiding our faith. We are following the lead of every person whose story got us sober.
This piece may be read by a pastor, a priestess, a teacher, a friend who's very sure — and they might ask, "So how am I supposed to share what I've found?" The same way we always have. Over coffee. In our own lives. In our churches or our circles or our studios. In the parking lot with the person who asked us what we believe. Nobody is taking our God out of our lives. The Tradition doesn't tell a member what to believe. It tells us not to make our convictions the fellowship's convictions. In the share, we use the book's words, because the book does. We say we prayed. We say what happened. We don't have to use a name, and the newcomer who has been spiritually abused may need the freedom of not being handed one. The trouble begins when "this is the God who helped me" becomes "this is the God you need." The rooms are full of people who found their faith, or their practice, or their peace after they got sober, and almost none of them found it because someone at a meeting insisted on it. They found it because the room kept them alive long enough to go looking. The most persuasive thing any of us can do in a meeting is stay sober, stay kind, and let the newcomer wonder why.
Every outside issue we leave outside protects someone. Politics stays outside to protect the person on the other side of the aisle. Who God is stays outside to protect the one person in the room who can't yet believe in anybody's God — and who may walk out the door and never come back the moment we hand him ours.
That person needs room to begin. He does not need our definition of God in order to belong. If he gets sober, what happens next belongs to him. He may return to a faith he left, find one he never knew, change his conception a dozen times, or never give it a name at all. He might end up in our pew, or our circle, or our studio, or none of them. But the door he walks through has to be wide enough for him to get in. And it's all an outside issue ever asks of us: not that we stop believing, but that we keep the door open.
Who God is, is an outside issue. Tradition Ten covers it. It's the reason there's still a room.
Is Alcoholism an Allergy?
Is Alcoholism an Allergy?
If you have spent any time in an AA meeting, you have heard someone say it, and you have probably heard someone push back on it.
Alcoholism is an allergy.
The pushback usually sounds something like this:
"That isn't what an allergy is. An allergy is an immune reaction. Alcoholism isn't that. The medical community abandoned that idea decades ago."
And here is the thing: by the modern medical definition of allergy, that objection is correct. Alcoholism is not classified as an allergic reaction today.
But that does not settle the question of what Dr. William Silkworth meant when he used the word.
Because Silkworth was not writing today.
He was writing in the 1930s, using a medical word whose meaning was still being developed, debated, and defined by physicians themselves.
The modern definition did not yet exist in its present form.
So before we decide that Silkworth used the word incorrectly — and throw out the Doctor's Opinion with it — there is a more rigorous question to ask:
What did "allergy" mean when he used it?
WHERE THE WORD CAME FROM
"Allergy" is younger than most people realize.
The word did not exist before the twentieth century.
It was coined on July 24, 1906, by the Viennese pediatrician Clemens von Pirquet in a short article titled "Allergie." He built the word from two Greek roots: allos, meaning other, and ergon, meaning action.
The basic idea was altered reactivity.
Von Pirquet had been observing changes in the way patients reacted after exposure to vaccines and serum treatments. His concept was broader than the meaning we give the word today. It could include an increased response, a decreased response, a protective response, or a harmful response.
"Allergy" had not yet become the narrowly defined medical category we now recognize.
That matters.
Because when we open the Big Book thirty-three years after 1906, Dr. Silkworth is describing a particular group of people whose bodies appear to respond to alcohol differently from the bodies of ordinary drinkers.
Not everybody who drinks too much.
Not every hard drinker.
A particular class of drinker.
Under von Pirquet's original concept, that description already had a home: an altered reactivity — a harmful response that shows up in some bodies and not others.
THE WORD WAS STILL BEING DEFINED
By the 1930s, "allergy" had become common medical language.
But its meaning was anything but settled.
In 1935, JAMA — the Journal of the American Medical Association, one of the most widely read medical journals in the world — published a discussion of the definition of allergic diseases and complained about the widespread loose use of the word. Physicians were actively debating how broadly or narrowly "allergy" should be defined.
Some wanted the word restricted to specific forms of demonstrable hypersensitivity.
Others were still using it more broadly for unusual reactions occurring in certain people but not in most people exposed to the same substance.
That's how Silkworth used it.
Some researchers were so dissatisfied with the confusion surrounding the word that they proposed replacing it altogether.
Think about what that means.
When Silkworth used the word allergy, there was no single modern definition sitting in a medical textbook for him either to follow or violate.
The boundaries of the word were still being worked out.
So Silkworth was not a physician carelessly borrowing a word that obviously meant something entirely different.
He was participating in a medical conversation that was happening in his own time.
The word did not suddenly change after Silkworth. It was still evolving — and he was writing in the middle of that evolution.
WHAT SILKWORTH WROTE IN THE BIG BOOK
Silkworth uses the word twice in the Doctor's Opinion.
First:
"We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all."
And later, describing drinkers who are entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol has on them:
"They cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity. It has never been, by any treatment with which we are familiar, permanently eradicated. The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence."
An abnormal reaction. Limited to one class of people. Never occurring in the ordinary drinker. No cure. Abstinence as the only remedy.
He watched that pattern repeat through thousands of patients, and he named it with a medical word his own era recognized, even as the term itself was still being formalized.
SO WHEN DID THE WORD GET ITS MODERN MEANING?
The modern mechanism-based classification of allergic reactions did not arrive until 1963. The antibody behind classic allergies — IgE (immunoglobulin E), the one that drives hay fever, peanut reactions, and hives — was not identified until 1966.
And the definition in use today dates to 2004, when the World Allergy Organization formally restricted "allergy" to reactions driven by specific immune mechanisms. Even that paper calls itself a revision of an earlier one — and says the terms may need further updating as knowledge advances.
That was sixty-five years after the Big Book went to print.
Silkworth did not misuse a settled medical term. The profession has been defining the word from 1906 to the present day — and their own paper says the terms may still need revising. He wrote in the middle of the argument.
Medicine explains what he saw differently now. But the reaction he watched in all those patients never went away.
And that is why the word still works in our rooms.
As Silkworth used it, describing a physical reaction unlike what most bodies experience when they drink, the word "allergy" simply makes sense. It matches what happened to us. Alcohol sets off something in our bodies that does not happen in other people's. The person who does not experience it cannot understand it. There is no better way to explain it.
THE RECEIPT IS IN THE BOOK ITSELF
The word allergy is important. But not as important as what it stands for — a real physical reaction, described by a doctor who knew exactly what he was looking at.
When someone decides the allergy language is outdated, they very often decide the whole Doctor's Opinion is obsolete — and then the First Step goes with it. They throw out the pages that describe their own drinking.
But here is the remarkable part.
The Big Book already answered this objection. It answered it in 1939, inside the Doctor's Opinion itself — in the founders' own words, printed between the doctor's two statements:
"The doctor's theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us."
Theory.
The founders never claimed medicine had proven an allergy. They presented a doctor's explanation, called it exactly what it was, and asked one question of it: does this illuminate what we have lived through?
The terminology belongs to its time. The book never asks us to defend it.
The experience described in the book belongs to the people who recognize themselves in it.
We don't want to throw out the chapter that describes our own drinking because a definition adopted in 2004 does not match a word chosen in the 1930s. The word "allergy" worked — and we liked it. And the word "theory" was sitting inside that chapter the whole time, for anyone who didn't.
Dr. Silkworth used a recognized medical concept of his own decade to describe something he had watched thousands of times.
And alcoholics understood it. They could see it. Feel it.
"It explains many things for which we cannot otherwise account."
Call it an altered reactivity. Call it a theory. Or simply an allergy.
What it describes hasn't moved an inch.
For us, once we start drinking, everything changes. The phenomenon of craving takes over — that same phenomenon Dr. Silkworth watched in patient after patient and suggested was the manifestation of an allergy.
The most important question is not "Is alcoholism an allergy?"
It's the one The Doctor's Opinion has been asking since 1939:
Are you one of the people he is describing?
SOURCES
C. von Pirquet, "Allergie," Munchener Medizinische Wochenschrift, vol. 53 (July 24, 1906), pp. 1457-58. The original essay in which the word is coined.
"Definition of Allergic Diseases," Journal of the American Medical Association (1935). The medical profession debating the word's boundaries in Silkworth's own decade: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/259820
J. M. Igea, "The history of the idea of allergy," Allergy (2013). A full history of the term published in the flagship journal of allergy medicine — the 1906 coinage, the contested decades, and proposals to abandon the word entirely. Open access: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/all.12174
Mark Jackson, Allergy: The History of a Modern Malady (Reaktion Books, 2006). A book-length history tracing how the meaning of the word drifted ever further from its creator's original intention. Review: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1894880/
W. D. Silkworth, "Alcoholism as a Manifestation of Allergy," Medical Record (March 17, 1937). The doctor's own paper, published two years before the Big Book. For further study — the original pages, digitized by the National Library of Medicine: https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/ext/mm/2934112RX321/PDF/2934112RX321.pdf
P. G. H. Gell and R. R. A. Coombs, classification of hypersensitivity reactions (1963); K. Ishizaka and T. Ishizaka, identification of IgE (1966). The science that made a mechanism-based definition possible.
Johansson et al., "Revised nomenclature for allergy for global use," Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (2004). The official nomenclature that formally restricted "allergy" to immune-mediated reactions: https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(04)00930-3/fulltext
Alcoholics Anonymous, "The Doctor's Opinion," p. xxii.