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From the books ... Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book) and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (12 & 12)
Click the page number or the book cover icon
to view that page in the literature.1.
The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another
human being.
2.
We'd have to have outside help if we were surely to know and admit the truth about ourselves -- the
help of God and another human being.
3.
It had been embarrassing enough when in confidence
we had admitted these things to God, to ourselves, and to another
human being.
4.
5.
We knew we would have to quit
the deadly business of living alone with our conflicts, and in honesty
confide these to God and another human being.
6.
7.
Not being a man of means, I knew that if I did not stay sober enough to earn money, I would run out of liquor.
8.
9.
So far as we know, it is nowhere on the record that God has completely removed from any human being all his natural drives.
10.
Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if
we kept close to Him and performed His work well.
11.
Later, he requested the privilege of being allowed to tell his story to other patients here and with some misgiving, we consented.
12.
13.
14.
15.
I vaguely sensed I was not
being any too smart, but felt reassured as I was taking
the whiskey on a full stomach.
16.
17.
So when A.A. suggests a fearless moral inventory, it must seem to every newcomer that more is being asked of him than he can do.
18.
This feeling of being at one with God and man, this emerging from isolation through the open and honest sharing of our terrible burden of guilt, brings us to a resting place where we may prepare ourselves for the following Steps toward a full and meaningful sobriety.
19.
20.
21.
"The American Public Health Association presents a Lasker Group Award for 1951 to Alcoholics Anonymous in recognition of its unique and highly successful approach to
that age-old public health and social problem, alcoholism ... In emphasizing alcoholism
as an illness, the social
stigma associated with
this condition is being blotted out ... Historians may one day recognize Alcoholics Anonymous to
have been a great venture in
social pioneering which
forged a new instrument for social action; a new therapy based on the kinship of common suffering; one having a vast potential for the myriad other ills of mankind."
22.
23.
24.
If he is in a serious mood dwell on the troubles liquor has caused you, being careful not to moralize or lecture.
25.
Being certain he wants to stop, you can go to him with this volume as joyfully as though you had struck oil.
26.
27.
It is being constantly revealed, as mankind studies the material world, that outward appearances are not inward
reality at all.
28.
And just as we were being convinced of their heartlessness, they would surprise us with fresh resolves and new attentions.
29.
Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.
30.
Being convinced, we were at
Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him.
31.
32.
How frequently we see a frightened human being determined to depend completely upon a stronger person for guidance and protection.
33.
34.
35.
Now and then a serious drinker, being dry at the moment says, "I don't miss it at all. Feel better. Work better. Having a better time."
36.
There is the type who always
believes that after being entirely free from alcohol for a period of time he can take a drink without danger.
37.
When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
38.
Nearly every sound human being experiences, at some time in life, a compelling desire to find a mate of the opposite sex with whom the fullest possible union can be made -- spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical.
39.
40.
The immense resources now being harnessed promise such a quantity of material blessings that many have come to believe that a man-made millennium lies just ahead.
41.
Psychiatrists and psychologists point out the deep need every human being has for practical insight and knowledge of his own personality flaws and for a
discussion of them with an understanding and trustworthy person.
42.
43.
Then he asked for the grace to
bring love, forgiveness, harmony, truth, faith, hope, light, and joy to every human being he could.
44.
45.
46.
Those who do not recover are
people who cannot or will not
completely give themselves to this simple
program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.
47.
48.
To get completely away from our aversion to the
idea of being humble, to gain a vision of humility as the avenue to true freedom of the human spirit, to be willing to work for humility as something to be desired for
itself, takes most of us a long, long time.
49.
50.
I have a shadowy recollection of being in an
airplane bound for New York, and of finding a friendly taxicab driver at the landing field instead of my wife.
51.
It became clear that if we ever were to feel emotionally secure among grown-up people, we would have to put our lives on a give-and-take basis; we would have to develop
the sense of being in partnership or brotherhood with all those
around us.
52.
But we do have to soberly face the fact that being in the public eye is hazardous, especially for us.
53.
We forgot that most alcoholics in A.A. have an earning power considerably above average; we forgot the immense goodwill of our brother A.A.'s who were only too
eager to help us to better jobs when we deserved them; we forgot the
actual or potential financial insecurity of
every human being in the world.
54.
55.
56.
While the internal difficulties of our adolescent period were
being ironed out, public acceptance of A.A. grew by leaps and bounds.
57.
Another great dividend we may expect from
confiding our defects to
another human being is humility -- a word often misunderstood.
58.
59.
60.
Because this book has become the basic text for our Society and has helped such large numbers of alcoholic men and women to recovery, there exists strong sentiment against any radical changes being made in it.
61.
"I think that psychologically speaking there is a point of
advantage in the approach that is being made in this movement that
cannot be duplicated.
62.
63.
Being mostly business or professional folk, we could
not well carry on our occupations in such an event.
64.
Being mostly business or professional folk, we could
not well carry on our occupations in such an event."
65.
66.
We thought, on the whole, we
were pretty good women, capable of being nicer if our husbands stopped drinking.
67.
Alcohol being no respecter of persons, we are an accurate
cross section of America, and in distant lands, the same democratic evening-up process is now going on.
68.
69.
Nearly every modern employer feels a moral responsibility for the well-being of his help, and he tries to meet these responsibilities.
70.
For the readiness to take
the full consequences of
our past acts, and to take responsibility for
the well-being of others at the same time, is the very spirit of Step Nine.
71.
Readiness to take consequences of our past
and to take responsibility for well-being of others is spirit of Step Nine.
72.
73.
74.
Either we had tried to play God and dominate those about us, or we
had insisted on being overdependent upon them.
75.
Say that you believe he is a
gravely ill person, with this qualification -- being perhaps fatally ill, does he want to get well?
76.
Being possessed of a spiritual experience,
the alcoholic will find he has much in common with these people, though he may differ with them
on many matters.
77.
Or, the person concerned
not being present, we thought we were helping others to understand him,
when in actuality our true
motive was to feel superior by pulling him down.
78.
79.
She sees she was wrong to make a burning issue out of such a matter when his more serious ailments were being rapidly cured.
80.
81.
Being wrecked in the same vessel, being restored and united under one God, with hearts and minds attuned to the welfare of others, the things which matter so much to some people no longer signify much to them.
82.
True, most of us thought good character was desirable, but obviously
good character was something one needed to get on with the business of being self-satisfied.
83.
84.
This being so, we think it logically follows that sobriety -- first, last, and all the time -- is the
only thing we need to work for.
85.
86.
In all these instances, and more, it was claimed that A.A. knowledge and experience were being sold for money, hence these people, too, were professionals.
87.
Painfully aware of being somehow abnormal, the man did not fully realize what it meant to be alcoholic.(*)
88.
Being somewhat weakened, and faced with physical and mental readjustment to a life
which knows no alcohol, he may overdo.
89.
Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we
are going to be inspired at
all times.
90.
On the other hand -- and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand
-- once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of
ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only
effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules.
91.
This requires action on
our part, which, when completed, will mean that we have admitted to
God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our defects.
92.
93.
Step Five -- "Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another
human being the exact nature of our wrongs."
94.
95.
96.
So our rule is not to avoid a
place where there is drinking, if we have a legitimate reason for being there.
97.
We ought to sit down with the family and frankly analyze the past as we now see it, being very careful not to criticize them.
98.
99.
Most of us would declare that without a fearless admission of our defects to
another human being we could not stay sober.
100.
First, we take a look backward and try to discover where we have
been at fault; next we make a vigorous attempt to repair the damage we have done; and third, having thus cleaned away the debris of the past, we consider how, with our newfound knowledge of ourselves, we may develop
the best possible relations with every human being we know.
101.
For the time being, we who were
atheist or agnostic discovered that our own group, or A.A. as a whole, would suffice as a higher power.
102.
103.
Only by discussing ourselves, holding back nothing, only by being willing to take advice and accept direction could we set foot on the road to straight thinking, solid honesty, and genuine humility.
104.
In no deep or meaningful sense had we ever taken stock of ourselves, made amends to those we had harmed, or freely given to any other human being without any demand for reward.
105.
Being wrecked in the same vessel, being restored and united under one God, with hearts and minds attuned to the welfare of others, the things which matter so much to some people no longer signify much to them.
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