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the last days of my drinking, I had no faith—no faith, at least, in the existence of a benevolent Higher Power. If there was any Higher Power at all, it had to be malevolent, else why would it have singled me out for deprivation of the most relaxing activity in life—drinking?
Thus, when my sponsor told me to thank God every morning for the preceding day and to ask help for the day ahead, I told him I didn’t believe in God. His answer: “Do it anyway.”
So I finally decided to put the 24-hour plan on a habitual basis. I would tie it to something I did every day—taking a shower, for instance. Every morning in the shower, I would set the structure for the 24-hour plan of that day. Gradually, this has evolved into quite a program. It probably wastes a lot of water, but at least water is cheaper than vodka.
The program goes something like this:
1 First, I thank God for my sobriety during the preceding day.
2 Next, I search my mind for something in the preceding day that I did better than I would have done before. Some little victory over a character defect—some little application of something I have learned in AA. And I thank God for it. This is part of the business of building an equity and making success addictive. But more than that, it is a specific for my most crippling handicap when I came to AA—lack of self-respect. The fact of making myself aware of something I did right each day has imperceptibly fertilized the very roots of my ailing self-respect.
3 Third, I say to myself that I am an alcoholic. I know that the human mind reflexively dims down unpleasant memories, and I am resolved to counteract this reflex, lest I should ever think I can safely drink again. So I picture a drink in my mind (usually a frosty martini) and then consciously recall some horrendous drinking incident. Now I have locked together in my mind the drink and the inevitable result. Having done this for several thousand mornings, I believe it would not be possible to reach for a drink without at the same time seeing a full-color picture of the result. I have built my own counter-reflex.
4 Fourth, I decide not to take a drink during the coming day and ask God’s help in carrying out that decision. In the early months and years, I would actually picture situations in the upcoming day where I knew I would be exposed to a drink—a business lunch with a group of heavy drinkers or an hour to kill in the Cleveland airport. I would visualize the forthcoming situation in detail, and say to myself, “I am deciding now (in the shower) that I will not have a drink when the situation occurs.”
5 Last, I decide on “Today’s Special.” I came into AA with so many faults and character defects that I couldn’t even count them. I still have a good portion of them. While intellectually I yearn to be rid of them, emotionally I still find them kind of fun. With this conflict going on, the problem of working on them is like trying to shake hands with an octopus. So each morning I pick one fault or character defect that I am going to concentrate on for that day, and I ask God’s help in making progress.
Naturally, this daily program did not arrive on my doorstep prefabricated. It evolved through doing.
Within a few months, it proved to me the existence of a benevolent Higher Power.
On the day in question, I knew I would be working late in the evening and have time to kill in Grand Central Station waiting for a late commuter train. So, in my morning shower, I pictured the situation in Grand Central, made the decision not to dash for my usual row of doubles at the bar, and asked for help to stick to the decision. The following morning, I was stunned to realize that I had killed an hour reading the newspaper in the station without the thought of a drink having entered my mind.
I might have been able to prevent a thought’s turning into an urge, or an urge’s turning into action, but it took a Power far greater than myself to bar even the thought from my consciousness.
From that day on, I believed.
These five “morning shower” steps may sound rather complex. All they really amount to is thanking God for sobriety and growth, admitting to being an alcoholic, and asking help for further sobriety and growth—for just one day. Simple, yet if you will examine the process, you will see it embodies every one of the Twelve Steps except for the “carrying the message” part of the Twelfth—for just one day.
Perhaps this is a slow way of gaining sobriety and growth. But, after all, sobriety is a pretty recently planted sprout. If I act impatient and tug at the topmost shoot to make it grow faster, I may pull the whole thing out of the ground. But If I nurture the roots day by day by day, I am likely to promote secure and healthy growth.
Or, to put it another way, getting away from the pull of the first drink is like putting a space vehicle in orbit. It takes a lot of thrust to overcome the initial pull of gravity and get the vehicle off the ground. But once it gets in orbit, all that’s required is a small correction from time to time. That’s how the 24-hour plan works—a small daily checkup and correction to keep us away from the pull of that first drink.
The 24-hour plan is a discipline whose yield is freedom.
In my own efforts to apply the 24-hour plan, I have been so bold as to do violence to the Serenity Prayer. I have added seven words—and they are all the same word—“today.”
God grant me
The serenity today to accept today the things I cannot change today,
courage today to change today the things I can today,
and the wisdom today to know the difference.
So this is the prescription for productivity, serenity, and therefore happiness that AA has given me. And this is the reason I can say from the bottom of my heart, “Thank God I am an alcoholic.’’ Religions and sects, other movements and fellowships have their codes of behavior. Their members can take them or leave them alone. Application is not a matter of life or death. But we in AA have our 24-hour plan, and our incentive to apply it is life itself.
B.P., New York, N.Y.
A Selfish Program?
November 1963
How many times have we heard this expression and perhaps wondered how anything selfish can be good for us? How can we acquire humility, gain sincerity, overcome resentments, be strictly honest with ourselves and others, and be selfish?
I believe we associate selfishness with meanness, thinking of oneself in terms of material advantages, and living for one’s own comfort and desires. Also, we have abused ourselves so much during our drinking careers that to give ourselves some real earnest thought and attention is hard to comprehend at first.
Actually, being selfish in the AA sense is an entirely different matter, and here is the writer’s opinion of it, after being sober long enough to think things through and able to remember enough not to take that first drink.
There is an old saying, “Self-preservation is the first law of Nature.” To paraphrase this, I should say, “To be selfish about our AA program is life itself for us.” If we preserve ourselves, we are not being selfish at all. Everyone associated with us, our family, friends, employer, employees, the community as a whole benefits accordingly, and we regain our rightful place in society. We are thoughtful of others, take care of our obligations, assume our proper responsibilities, and become respectable human beings instead of walking zombies or vegetables, as we were when we drank. Yes, this is a selfish program, because it brings us back to “First Things First” one-day-at-a-time living, so fundamental to happiness.
I need to remind myself that I was always equivocating and procrastinating when I drank, about what I was going to do tomorrow, next week, or next year. I was a world-beater at a bar or over a bottle, but I know now I actually did very little about today, or any other day for that matter.
Being selfish about AA for ourselves restores our dignity as individuals. It makes many of us realize that in being married or in trying to give to family, job, or community, we many times subjugated our own personalities to meet the requirements of these social and worldly obligations. Too often we tried to fortify