Page 14 - This is A.A. an Introduction to the A.A. Recovery Program

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The 24-hour plan
For example, we take no pledges, we don’t say
that we will “never” drink again. Instead, we try
to follow what we in A.A. call the “24-hour plan.”
We concentrate on keeping sober just the cur-
rent twenty-four hours. We simply try to get
through one day at a time without a drink. If we
feel the urge for a drink, we neither yield nor
resist. We merely put off taking that particular
drink until tomorrow.
We try to keep our thinking honest and realis-
tic where alcohol is concerned. If we are tempted
to drink — and the temptation usually fades after
the first few months in A.A. — we ask ourselves
whether the particular drink we have in mind
would be worth all the consequences we have
experienced from drinking in the past. We bear
in mind that we are perfectly free to get drunk, if
we want to, that the choice between drinking and
not drinking is entirely up to us. Most important
of all, we try to face up to the fact that, no matter
how long we may have been dry, we will always
be alcoholics — and alcoholics, as far as we
know, can never again drink socially or normally.
We follow the experience of the successful “old-
timers” in another respect. We usually keep com-
ing regularly to meetings of the local A.A. group
with which we have become affiliated. There is no
rule which makes such attendance compulsory.
Nor can we always explain why we seem to get a
lift out of hearing the personal stories and interpre-
tations of other members. Most of us, however,
feel that attendance at meetings and other informal
contacts with fellow A.A.s are important factors in
the maintenance of our sobriety.

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