Living Sober - Linked with the permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc
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1 Using this booklet
This booklet does not offer a plan for recovery from alcoholism. The Alcoholics Anonymous Steps that summarize its program of recovery are set forth in detail in the books Alcoholics Anonymous and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Those Steps are not interpreted here, nor are the processes they cover discussed in this booklet.
Here, we tell only some methods we have used for living without drinking. You are welcome to all of them, whether you are interested in Alcoholics Anonymous or not.
Our drinking was connected with many habits—big and little. Some of them were thinking habits, or things we felt inside ourselves. Others were doing habits—things we did, actions we took.
In getting used to not drinking, we have found that we needed new habits to take the place of those old ones.
(For example, instead of taking that next drink—the one in your hand or the one you’ve been planning on—can you just postpone it until you read to the bottom of page 6? Sip some soda or fruit juice, instead of an alcoholic beverage, while you read. A little later, we’ll explain more fully what’s behind this change in habits.)