About this app

You ask a question, in your own words or with a phrase you remember, and the app finds the passages that speak to it in two books: Alcoholics Anonymous (the Big Book: its chapters, the personal stories and the appendices) and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. The Big Book is shown first, then its personal stories, then the Twelve and Twelve; they are always kept separate.

Only the title, copyright and contents pages are left out.

The Words page counts how often each book uses a word or phrase, shows where, and lists every passage that contains it. It counts words, not ideas: the books may describe something in other words.

The app does not write answers of its own, give advice, or speak for Alcoholics Anonymous. When the books don't address a question, it says so.

Every passage is quoted exactly as printed. Before a paragraph is allowed in the app, its text is checked word for word against the source by two independent methods, and any paragraph that can't be confirmed is left out rather than shown. Each quotation shows its book, chapter, Step or Tradition, and printed page number, so you can check it in your own copy. “Read in context” shows the paragraphs around it.

Italics in the printed books are not reproduced.

• Your question never leaves your device. The search runs entirely in your browser.
• Nothing you ask is saved. Questions and results disappear when you close the page.
• Nothing in your browser history. Questions are never put in the page address.
• No tracking. No analytics, advertising or third-party scripts.
• The website learns nothing. Every visitor downloads the same files, so there is nothing in them about what anyone searched for or read.

To make search by meaning work on your device, the app downloads a small language model once (about 20 MB) and keeps it, with the books' text, so the app also works offline.

Both books are free to read and download from Alcoholics Anonymous, and can also be bought in print and as ebooks: Alcoholics Anonymous and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

This app is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, approved by, or endorsed by Alcoholics Anonymous or A.A. World Services, Inc. The quoted text is from their copyrighted publications.