“Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.” — Alcoholics Anonymous (1939) · Chapter 6 · Into Action
From the Promises in Chapter 6 of the 1939 first edition.
An oddly specific pair — until you take your own inventory and find both on every page. Fear of people: what they think, what they remember, what they could take. Economic insecurity: not poverty exactly, but the certainty that the bottom is always coming. The promise isn’t wealth or universal approval; it’s the exit of the fear. Members with thin wallets report it as often as the comfortable ones. That should tell you where it actually lives.
The Promises