The 24 Hour Plan
Taken from the
book "Living Sober". An A.A.
General Service Conference-approved
literature.
© Alcoholics Anonymous General
Service Office
In our drinking days, we often
had such bad times that we swore,
"Never again." We took
pledges for as long as a year, or
promised someone we would not touch
the stuff for three weeks, or three
months. And of course, we tried going
on the wagon for various periods of
time. We were absolutely sincere when
we voiced these declarations through
gritted teeth. With all our hearts, we
wanted never to be drunk again. We
were determined. We swore off drinking
altogether, intending to stay off
alcohol well into some indefinite
future.
Yet, in spite of our
intentions, the outcome was almost
inevitably the same. Eventually, the
memory of the vows and of the
suffering that led to them, faded. We
drank again, and we wound up in more
trouble. Our dry "forever"
had not lasted very long.
Some of us
who took such pledges had a private
reservation: We told ourselves that
the promise not to drink applied only
to the "hard stuff," not to
beer or wine. In that way we learned,
if we did not already know it, that
beer and wine could get us drunk,
too--we just had to drink more of them
to get the same effects we got on
distilled spirits. We wound up as
stoned on beer or wine as we had been
before on the hard stuff.
Yes,
others of us did give up alcohol
completely and did keep our pledges
exactly as promised, until the time
was up. . . . Then we ended the
drought by drinking again, and were
soon right back in trouble, with an
additional load of new guilt and
remorse.
With such struggles behind
us now, in A.A. we try to avoid the
expressions "on the wagon"
and "taking the pledge."
They remind us of our failures.
Although we realize that alcoholism is
a permanent, irreversible condition,
our experience has taught us to make
no long-term promises about staying
sober. We have found it more
realistic--and more successful--to
say, "I am not taking a drink
JUST FOR TODAY." Even if we drank
yesterday, we can plan not to drink
today. We may drink tomorrow--who
knows whether we'll even be alive
then?--but for THIS 24 hours, we
decide not to drink. No matter what
the temptation or provocation, we
determine to go to any extremes
necessary to avoid a drink TODAY.
Our
friends and families are
understandably weary of hearing us
vow, "This time I really mean
it," only to see us lurch home
loaded. So we do not promise them, or
even each other, not to drink. Each of
us promises only herself or himself.
It is, after all, our own health and
life at stake. We, not our family or
friends, have to take the necessary
steps to stay well. If the desire to
drink is really strong, many of us
chop the 24 hours down into smaller
parts. We decide not to drink for,
say, at least one hour. We can endure
the temporary discomfort of not
drinking for just one more hour; then
one more, and so on. Many of us began
our recovery in just this way.
In
fact, EVERY RECOVERY FROM ALCOHOLISM
BEGAN WITH ONE SOBER HOUR.
One
version of this is simply postponing
the (next) drink. (How about it? Still
sipping soda? Have you really
postponed that drink we mentioned back
on page 1? If so, this can be the
beginning of your recovery.) The next
drink will be available later, but
right now, we postpone taking it at
least for the present day, or moment.
(Say, for the rest of this page?) The
24-hour plan is very flexible. We can
start it afresh at any time, wherever
we are. At home, at work, in a bar or
in a hospital room, at 4:00 p.m. or at
3:00 a.m., we can decide right then
not to take a drink during the
forthcoming 24 hours, or five minutes.
Continually renewed, this plan avoids
the weakness of such methods as going
on the wagon or taking a pledge. A
period on the wagon and a pledge both
eventually came, as planned, to an
end--so we felt free to drink again.
But
today is always here. Life IS daily;
today is all we have; and anybody can
go one day without drinking. First, we
try living in the now just in order to
stay sober--and it works. Once the
idea has become a part of our
thinking, we find that living life in
24-hour segments is an effective and
satisfying way to handle many other
matters as well.
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