AA Daily Readings: Which Book People Mean and Where to Find It
AA daily readings is an umbrella phrase, and the people using it are often looking for four different books. Sorting out which is which takes a minute and saves a lot of confusion at your first meeting. For help finding a meeting, call (866) 920-0628.
Read more: AA Daily Reflections: The Meditation Book and How Meetings Use It
Daily Reflections
Published by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services in 1990 and Conference-approved. It holds 366 entries, one per calendar day, each pairing a quotation from AA literature with a member's reflection on it.
This is the one most people mean, and AA publishes the current day free on aa.org. It is also the book behind the Daily Reflections meeting format you will see in listings.
Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Written by Richmond Walker and published by Hazelden since 1954. Each day carries three parts: a Thought for the Day, a Meditation for the Day and a Prayer for the Day.
It is not Conference-approved AA literature, which surprises people given how often it appears on meeting tables. Hazelden publishes the current day free on its own site.
As Bill Sees It
A Conference-approved collection of short passages from Bill W.'s letters and writing. Unlike the other two it is not organised by date; it is indexed by subject, so you look up resentment or gratitude rather than a day.
Groups that use it tend to pick a passage and discuss it, which is why As Bill Sees It appears as a meeting format in its own right.
The Big Book
Alcoholics Anonymous itself, the book the fellowship is named after. It is not a daily reader, but plenty of members work through a few pages each morning, and the first 164 pages are where the programme is actually laid out.
AA publishes the full text free on aa.org in several languages.
Which AA Daily Readings Should You Start With
If you want a short daily habit and you want it official, start with Daily Reflections. If you like the older, plainer voice, Twenty-Four Hours a Day is the one people keep in a coat pocket for decades.
There is no obligation to read any of them. They are aids, not requirements, and nobody is checking.
AA Daily Readings Alone Versus in a Meeting
All four of these were meant to be talked about. A literature or Daily Reflections meeting exists precisely so the passage gets read aloud and then chewed over by people who have been sober different lengths of time.
You can find those meetings by city and state in our directory, and the listings show the format so you know what you are walking into.
What Conference-Approved Actually Means
The phrase comes up constantly and is rarely explained. Conference-approved means the literature was adopted by AA's General Service Conference as reflecting the fellowship's shared experience. It is not a quality judgement and it does not make other books forbidden.
Groups read unapproved books all the time. The distinction matters mainly when a group is deciding what to keep on its own literature table, and when you want to know whether what you are reading is AA speaking or an individual author.
A Note on AA Daily Readings Found Online
Nearly all of this material is under copyright, and much of what circulates as free PDFs and reposted daily blogs is unlicensed. The copies are also frequently wrong for the date or missing entries.
Both AA and Hazelden publish the current day free from their own sites. There is no reason to use anything else, and the official versions are the ones your meeting will be reading from.
If You Are Not Reading Anything Yet
None of this is a prerequisite. People get and stay sober without ever opening a daily reader, and a book is no substitute for a room with other people in it.
If you are choosing between starting a reading habit and going to a meeting this week, go to the meeting. The reading keeps.