Carrying the message of AA. What is the AA message?

 

At times you might hear people in meetings talking about "carrying the message" of AA. But how many times do you hear anybody actually explain what the message is?

So what is the message of AA? Where can one find it? Most all Big Book enthusiasts know because carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous is what the AA book is all about.

In short the message of AA is this:

Permanent abstinence from alcohol through recovery from alcoholism brought about by a spiritual awakening achieved through doing the 12 steps.

Let's have a look at some key information that establishes the AA message. 

If we look at the summary of the twelfth step seen on page 60 we see this:

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Looking more carefully at the language here we can start to understand what that message is. 

Having had a spiritual awakening as the results of these steps. Is what the word "this" is referring to.  

 How about that. We can now see that the message is quite simple. Do the steps to have a spiritual awakening. But why a would an alcoholic want a spiritual awakening anyhow? To really understand completely why this is important to alcoholics who want recovery the AA way we need to study the previous chapters. 

In short, the previous chapters explain this:

Alcoholics lack will power to combat their drinking problem. They are powerless to stop drinking on their own self will and discipline. Therefore powerless. 

AA says if an alcoholic can have a spiritual awakening that this awakening will give them a relationship with and access to a Higher Power. In this relationship with a Higher Power an alcoholic is given the power to permanently stop and a way to live sober. 

If an alcoholic has the spiritual awakening achieved by doing the steps they can RECOVER from alcoholism.

So again the message is quite simple:

Permanent abstinence from alcohol through recovery from alcoholism brought about by a spiritual awakening achieved through doing the 12 steps.