About the book
The 24 Hour Book
A book of daily contemplations: one page for every day of the year. Each page holds three things — an AA thought, a meditation and a prayer — meant for one day at a time, the next twenty-four hours.
Where the book comes from
The original is Twenty-Four Hours a Day, written by Richmond Walker (1892–1965), an American AA member who got sober in 1942. He gathered a thought, a meditation and a prayer for every day of the year and published them himself in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1948. Word spread among AA members, and close to 5,000 copies sold in the first year.
When AA’s General Service Board showed no interest in publishing it, the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota took it on in 1954. It has since sold more than ten million copies around the world. It is not official AA literature, but it has kept people company in recovery for more than seventy years.