Those pesky Promises

Anybody who knows me in AA knows how I feel about what has become known in AA circles as "The Promises". Those often quoted lines on pages 83 and 84 that are such a staple and a favorite of so many people in the fellowship. They know... I hate 'em.

Okay, maybe I don't hate them. As a matter of fact, I love many thing about them. What I hate is what they have come to represent and how they are misunderstood.

First let's start off about the fact that they are called "The Promises" as if they are the only promises in the Big Book. There are so many actual promises in the Big Book that it would be hard to count them all. Gems such as:

"We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it."

Or...

"Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe."

These promises, also seemingly extravagant, get little or no mention in AA meetings, let alone constant reciting. Why is that?

Well, one reason may be that those "Promises" happen to number a total of 12. An attractive, and seemingly significant number to many AA members. I mean we have 12 Steps, 12 Traditions, 12 Concepts, so why not 12 Promises!? So I think somewhere along the line someone noticed the numerical significance of the promises in this paragraph which has helped launch these particular promises toward legendary status (these days a status known as viral). And unintentionally relegating the rest of the Book's promises to a forgettable status, especially for those members who never bother to read the Book.

If asked early on which of the following two promise I would have rather had come true:

1. "No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others."

2. "The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly."

I can tell you I would have picked the second promise hands-down. When I first got here I needed to stop drinking and really didn't care about a hell of a lot else. That second promise, for those who don't know, is mentioned during the 5th Step. "Not drinking" is really all I cared about. It still is at some times, and to some extend, paramount in my sobriety.

The Big Book promises us so many things, many of them proportionate to our development at a particular time. From "freedom from selfishness" in Step 3, to "our lives taking on new meaning" in Step 12, we are promised so many wonderful awakenings that it's unfortunate that we have collectively allowed many of them to pass into obscurity.

Thank God so many of them come true whether we are aware that they were promised to us or not.