Faith without works in the AA context was explained to Bill by Ebby thus: "Unless a man continued to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through self sacrifice and servce to others, he could not surviv the certain trials and low spots ahead".
It means it can be easy to stay stopped while life is peachy, but, unless you get busy helping others, when something bad happens you will likely turn to your old solution. I've seen this proved over and over, both ways.