The Promises

The Promises after Step 5 (Big Book, p.75)

"We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past.  Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted.  We can look the world in the eye.  We can be alone at perfect peace and ease.  Our fears fall from us.  We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator.  ... We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe."

The Promises (after Step 9) (Big Book, pp. 83-84)

1. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
2. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
3. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
4. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
8. Self-seeking will slip away.
9. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
10. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

The Hidden Promises (Big Book, pp.84-85)

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone -- even alcohol.  For by this time sanity will have returned.  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.  We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation.  We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality -- safe and protected.  We have not even sworn off.  Instead, the problem has been removed.  It does not exist for us.  We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.  That is our experience.  This is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."

The OA Promise (also known as the Unity Prayer)

I put my hand in yours, and together we can do what we could never do alone.

No longer is there a sense of hopelessness, no longer must we each depend upon our own unsteady willpower.

We are all together now, reaching out our hands for power and strength greater than ours, and as we join hands, we find love and understanding beyond our wildest dreams.