He wants to be his country's number one man.

"I was soon sitting beside a big hulk of a man.

Trembling, I stepped from the hospital a broken man.

But this man still lives, and is a free man.

Here was the terrible dilemma in which our friend found himself when he had the extraordinary experience, which as we have already told you, made him a free man.

When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man.

The inventory was ours, not the other man's.

He subsequently denied having received the money and used the incident as a basis for discrediting the man.

Suppose now you are making your second visit to a man.

He may seek someone else to console him -- not always another man.

Overnight, as it were, he is a different man.

Had they fired me first, and had they then taken steps to see that I was presented with the solution contained in this book, I might have returned to them six months later, a well man.

If you are an alcoholic, you are a mighty sick man.

That afternoon he put on his clothes and walked from the hospital a free man.

We think we are sensible when we urge that you stop this waste and give your worthwhile man a chance.

Judging from what I had seen in Europe and since, the power of God in human affairs was negligible, the Brotherhood of Man a grim jest.

If your man accepts your offer, it should be pointed out that physical treatment is but a small part of the picture.

When our friend related his experience, the man agreed that no amount of will power he might muster could stop his drinking for long.

See your man alone, if possible.

Soon they'd spotted their man, an A.A. with the necessary experience.

I felt this was inevitable and wondered if the bank was doing the man an injustice.

It was the beginning of true kinship with man and God.

We never thought of making honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God the daily basis of living.

When working with a man and his family, you should take care not to participate in their quarrels.

One man and his wife placed their large home at the disposal of this strangely assorted crowd.

In time they will see that he is a new man and in their own way they will let him know it.

This man and over one hundred others appear to have recovered.

After reading this book, a junior executive can go to such a man and say approximately this, "Look here, Ed.

Many times we talk to a new man and watch his hope rise as we discuss his alcoholic problems and explain our fellowship.

Many a new man and woman came to A.A. because of such conversations.

Every man and woman who has joined A.A. and intends to stick has, without realizing it, made a beginning on Step Three.

Carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last.

Though a robust man at retirement, he went to pieces quickly and was dead within four years.

Because of the employee's special ability, or of his own strong personal attachment to him, the employer has sometimes kept such a man at work long beyond a reasonable period.

If we turn this man away, he'll soon die.

The tragic truth is that if the man be a real alcoholic, the happy day may not arrive.

If the man be agnostic or atheist, make it emphatic that he does not have to agree with your conception of God.

More often than not, it is imperative that a man's brain be cleared before he is approached, as he has then a better chance of understanding and accepting what we have to offer.

From a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck, had emerged a man brimming over with self-reliance and contentment.

I knew the man by name, and partly recognized his features, but there all resemblance ended.

If a sufficiently strong reason -- ill health, falling in love, change of environment, or the warning of a doctor -- becomes operative, this man can also stop or moderate, although he may find it difficult and troublesome and may even need medical attention.

After all, no man can build a house until he first envisions a plan for it.

This practice enables us to lend a hand, at the same time avoiding certain alluring distractions of the road, about which any traveling man can inform you.(*)

As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way.

The Episcopal magazine, The Living Church, observes editorially: "The basis of the technique of Alcoholics Anonymous is the truly Christian principle that a man cannot help himself except by helping others.

Naturally this sort of thing decreased the man's chance of recovery.

We saw that if they weren't, the man coming in the door couldn't get a break.

She was helping to give the man coming in the door the break he ought to have.

When dealing with an alcoholic, there may be a natural annoyance that a man could be so weak, stupid and irresponsible.

Was it not true that the best mathematical minds had proved man could never fly?

What about people who proved that man could never fly?

Scientific progress told us there was nothing man couldn't do.

Painfully aware of being somehow abnormal, the man did not fully realize what it meant to be alcoholic.(*)

Presently the man did slip and was fired.

If you are sure your man does not want to stop, he may as well be discharged, the sooner the better.

If a man drinks so much that his job suffers, we fire him.

Since the home has suffered more than anything else, it is well that a man exert himself there.

Young people may be encouraged by this man's experience to think that they can stop, as he did, on their own will power.

Hopelessness was written large on the man's face as he replied, "Oh, but that's no use.

A corporation wanted a personnel man familiar with the subject.

They experienced a few distressing failures, but in those cases they made an effort to bring the man's family into a spiritual way of living, thus relieving much worry and suffering.

If persisted in for a few months, the effect on a man's family is sure to be great.

But urge upon a man's family that he has been a very sick person and should be treated accordingly.

Those who did would sometimes assure us that, after all, a lively bender was only a good man's fault.

The only answer I could make was that if the man followed the usual pattern, he would go on a bigger bust than ever.

My downfall cost the business community unknown thousands of dollars, for it takes real money to train a man for an executive position.

The employer cannot play favorites, but he can always defend a man from needless provocation and unfair criticism.

In our belief any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure.

A certain American business man had ability, good sense, and high character.

And this had been true, apparently, ever since man had first crushed grapes.

When people presented us with spiritual approaches, how frequently did we all say, "I wish I had what that man has.

This man has a charming wife and family.

After your man has gone along without drinking for a few months, you may be able to make use of his services with other employees who are giving you the alcoholic run-around -- provided, of course, they are willing to have a third party in the picture.

Your man has probably been trying to conceal a number of scrapes, perhaps pretty messy ones.

An exceptional man, he remained bone dry for twenty-five years and retired at the age of fifty-five, after a successful and happy business career.

For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation." -- Herbert Spencer

Perhaps you have such a man in mind.

If they could find a good public relations man in our ranks, why wouldn't he be ideal?

The man in the bed was told of the acute poisoning from which he suffered, how it deteriorates the body of an alcoholic and warps his mind.

They were willing, by day or night, to place a new man in the hospital and visit him afterward.

The man in the street says, "I don't understand it.

He did not design man to destroy himself by alcohol, but He did give man instincts to help him to stay alive.

Perhaps you will want to take the man into your home for a few days.

If the man is affected, the wife must become the head of the house, often the breadwinner.

Sometimes a new man is anxious to proceed at once, and you may be tempted to let him do so.

When your man is better, the doctor might suggest a visit from you.

But I'm sure this man is done drinking.

When the man is presented with this volume it is best that no one tell him he must abide by its suggestions.

But our man is sure to be impressed with a sincere desire to set right the wrong.

We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough.

If ever there was a successful business man, it is Fred.

We never, never try to arrange a man's life so as to shield him from temptation.

He will perceive that his spiritual growth is lopsided, that for an average man like himself, a spiritual life which does not include his family obligations may not be so perfect after all.

Many a man like you has begun to solve the problem by the method of substitution.

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.

That is one of man's magnificent attributes.

Your man may be trusted.

A man may criticize or laugh at himself and it will affect others favorably, but criticism or ridicule coming from another often produces the contrary effect.

The man must decide for himself.

Both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress.

When thus out of joint, man's natural desires cause him great trouble, practically all the trouble there is.

If your man needs hospitalization, he should have it, but not forcibly unless he is violent.

One school would allow man no flavor for his fare and the other would have us all on a straight pepper diet.

He is an intelligent man, normal so far as we can see, except for a nervous disposition.

To Christ I conceded the certainty of a great man, not too closely followed by those who claimed Him.

A man of thirty was doing a great deal of spree drinking.

"Now," concludes the oldtimer, "suppose I'd been obliged to talk to this man on religious grounds?

"This is only one man's opinion based on his own experience, of course.

When a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and resources alone.

In later life he finds that real happiness is not to be found in just trying to be a number one man, or even a first-rater in the heartbreaking struggle for money, romance, or self-importance.

Now we come to another kind of problem: the intellectually self-sufficient man or woman.

It was thought that no alcoholic man or woman could be excluded from our Society; that our leaders might serve but never govern; that each group was to be autonomous and there was to be no professional class of therapy.

No adult man or woman, for example, should be in too much emotional dependence upon a parent.

This brave philosophy, wherein each man plays God, sounds good in the speaking, but it still has to meet the acid test: how well does it actually work?

Much of the everyday talk we hear, and a great deal of what we read, highlights man's pride in his own achievements.

In this connection, can you remain undisturbed if the man proceeds to tell you shocking things?

This man recounts that he tumbled out of bed to his knees.

Dr. Foster Kennedy, neurologist: "This organization of Alcoholics Anonymous calls on two of the greatest reservoirs of power known to man, religion and that instinct for association with one's fellows ... the 'herd instinct.'

How he does cherish the thought that man, risen so majestically from a single cell in the primordial ooze, is the spearhead of evolution and therefore the only god that his universe knows!

It boils right down to this: No man should be fired just because he is alcoholic.

Your man should be on his mettle to make good.

The man should be sure of his recovery.

We believe a man should be thoroughly probed on these points.

When we see a man sinking into the mire that is alcoholism, we give him first aid and place what we have at his disposal.

A man so involved often feels very remorseful at times, especially if he is married to a loyal and courageous girl who has literally gone through hell for him.

I never saw a man so obstinate.

But this man still lives, and is a free man.

Couples are occasionally dismayed to find that when drinking is stopped the man tends to be impotent.

We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness.

Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone.

The right kind of man, the kind who recovers, will not want this sort of thing.

To this man, the revelation was sudden.

We women carry with us a picture of the ideal man, the sort of chap we would like our husbands to be.

"Yes, that's me," said the sick man, "the very image.

On talking to a man there, I would be amazingly lifted up and set on my feet.

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.

But his face falls when we speak of spiritual matters, especially when we mention God, for we have re-opened a subject which our man thought he had neatly evaded or entirely ignored.

When possible, avoid meeting a man through his family.

He did not design man to destroy himself by alcohol, but He did give man instincts to help him to stay alive.

You, as a business man, want to know the necessities before considering the result.

After satisfying yourself that your man wants to recover and that he will go to any extreme to do so, you may suggest a definite course of action.

About one year prior to this experience a man was brought in to be treated for chronic alcoholism.

Sometimes the man we are calling upon admits his own fault, so feuds of years' standing melt away in an hour.

The question of how to approach the man we hated will arise.

A man we know had remarried.

No man, we saw, could believe in God and defy Him, too.

The love of God and man we understood not at all.

He will be able to take a position with such a man which is eminently fair and square.

But here is a man who at fifty-five years found he was just where he had left off at thirty.

Either you are dealing with a man who can and will get well or you are not.

We find it a waste of time to keep chasing a man who cannot or will not work with you.

But for every man who drinks others are involved -- the wife who trembles in fear of the next debauch; the mother and father who see their son wasting away.

We'll think now about the man who first uttered the prayer.

Its author was a man who for several hundred years now has been rated as a saint.

They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can't feel the ache.

We know there are difficult wives and families, but the man who is getting over alcoholism must remember he did much to make them so.

That the man who is making the approach has had the same difficulty, that he obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, that he has no attitude of Holier Than Thou, nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured -- these are the conditions we have found most effective.

Nothing will help the man who is off on a spiritual tangent so much as the wife who adopts a sane spiritual program, making a better practical use of it.

Though some of his manifestations are alarming and disagreeable, we think dad will be on a firmer foundation than the man who is placing business or professional success ahead of spiritual development.

He goes on to explain that any person capable of enough willingness and honesty to try repeatedly Step Six on all his faults -- without any reservations whatever -- has indeed come a long way spiritually, and is therefore entitled to be called a man who is sincerely trying to grow in the image and likeness of his own Creator.

Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick.

There is the type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink.

He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the twentieth century; politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up.

In this book you will read the experience of a man who thought he was an atheist.

The A.A., or indeed any man, who tries to run his life rigidly by this kind of prayer, by this self-serving demand of God for replies, is a particularly disconcerting individual.

Impressed by those who visited him at the hospital, he capitulated entirely when, later, in an upper room of this house, he heard the story of some man whose experience closely tallied with his own.

Your man will fare better if placed in such physical condition that he can think straight and no longer craves liquor.

At the beginning of recovery a man will take, as a rule, one of two directions.

An alcoholic who has recovered, but holds a relatively unimportant job, can talk to a man with a better position.

That the man who is making the approach has had the same difficulty, that he obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, that he has no attitude of Holier Than Thou, nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured -- these are the conditions we have found most effective.

Not long after the man with the double stigma knocked for admission, A.A.'s other group received into its membership a salesman we shall call Ed.

And so can you, though you be but one