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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.
2.
3.
If these thoughts occur,
they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people.
4.
Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been
characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people.
5.
6.
We have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
It has been validated in every century, and it characterizes the lives
of all spiritually centered and truly religious people.
17.
Though in some cases we
cannot make restitution
at all, and in some cases action ought to be deferred, we should nevertheless make an accurate and really exhaustive survey of our past life as it has affected other people.
18.
19.
To define the word "harm" in a practical way, we might call it the result of instincts in collision, which cause physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual
damage to people.
20.
21.
22.
We followed this up in Step Nine by making direct amends to those concerned, except when it
would injure them or other
people.
23.
Our demand for emotional
security, for our own way, had constantly thrown us into unworkable
relations with other people.
24.
We threw money about in every direction with the purpose of pleasing ourselves and impressing
other people.
25.
26.
We seriously thought of
rewriting the laws of the
land, and having it declared
that alcoholics are sick
people.
27.
28.
Let us reemphasize that
this reluctance to fight
one another or anybody else is not counted as some special virtue which makes us feel superior to other people.
29.
30.
31.
32.
Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: Job or no job --
wife or no wife -- we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.
33.
34.
If we were pretty nice people all along, except for our drinking, what
need is there for a moral inventory now that we are sober?
35.
This is a condition which, in ordinary life, would produce untold grief; there might be scandalous gossip, laughter at the expense of
other people, and a tendency to take advantage of intimate information.
36.
When temporary good fortune came our way, we indulged ourselves in fantasies of
still greater victories over people and circumstances.
37.
In partnership with others -- women and men -- they can devote themselves to any number of ideas, people, and constructive projects.
38.
When, and how, and in just what instances did my selfish pursuit of the sex relation damage other people and me?
39.
40.
This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity.
41.
In Step Eight, we continued our housecleaning, for we saw
that we were not only in conflict with ourselves, but also with people and situations in the world in which we lived.
42.
Instead, we looked at the
human defects of these people, and sometimes used their shortcomings as
a basis of wholesale condemnation.
43.
As to them, his policy is undoubtedly sound, but he
did not distinguish between such people and the alcoholic.
44.
In a perverse way we can actually take satisfaction from the fact
that many people annoy us, for it brings a comfortable feeling of superiority.
45.
46.
When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness
of the Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith.
47.
48.
We had refused to learn the
very hard lesson that overdependence upon people is unsuccessful because all people are fallible, and even the best of them will sometimes let us down, especially when our demands for attention become unreasonable.
49.
Should his own image in the mirror be too awful to contemplate (and it usually is), he might first take a look at the results normal people are getting from self-sufficiency.
50.
51.
52.
53.
If your husband is a drinker, you probably worry over what other people are thinking and you hate to meet your friends.
54.
55.
Some people are unable to stay sober at all; others will relapse periodically until they really clean house.
56.
Our immediate temptation will be to ask for specific solutions to specific problems, and for the ability to help other people as we have already thought they should
be helped.
57.
58.
To watch the eyes of men and women open with wonder as they move from darkness into light, to see their lives quickly fill with new purpose and meaning, to see whole families reassembled, to
see the alcoholic outcast received back into his community in full citizenship, and above all to watch these people awaken to the presence of a loving God in their lives -- these things are the substance of
what we receive as we carry
A.A.'s message to the next alcoholic.
59.
A.A. groups had their fling at education, and when
they began to publicly whoop up the merits of this or that brand,
people became confused.
60.
Even before our drinking got bad and people began to cut us off, nearly all of us suffered the
feeling that we didn't quite
belong.
61.
We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show
us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one.
62.
63.
Surveys of groups in the United States and Canada indicate that A.A. is reaching out, not only to more and more people, but to a wider and wider range.
64.
65.
66.
67.
How many times have we heard well-intentioned people claim the guidance of God when it was all too plain that
they were sorely mistaken.
68.
But the prospect of actually visiting or even writing the people concerned now overwhelmed us, especially when we remembered in what poor favor we stood with most of them.
69.
70.
71.
Anger, that occasional luxury of more balanced people, could keep us on an emotional jag indefinitely.
72.
But it was by no means sure that such great numbers of yet erratic people could live and work together with harmony and good effect.
73.
74.
75.
76.
Still another difficulty is that you may become jealous of the attention he bestows on other people, especially alcoholics.
77.
We, who are familiar with the symptoms, see large numbers of potential alcoholics among young people everywhere.
78.
To people familiar with endless drives for charitable funds, A.A. presented a strange and refreshing spectacle.
79.
80.
81.
Demands made upon other people for too much attention, protection,
and love can only invite domination or revulsion
in the protectors themselves -- two emotions quite as unhealthy as the demands
which evoked them.
82.
83.
Why, he argued, should he lose the remainder of his business, only to bring still more suffering to his family by
foolishly admitting
his plight to people from whom
he made his livelihood?
84.
Where people had temporarily let us run their lives as though they were still children, we had felt very happy and secure ourselves.
85.
The very practical approach to his problems,
the absence of intolerance of any kind, the informality, the
genuine democracy, the
uncanny understanding which these people had were irresistible.
86.
87.
88.
For no people have ever loved personal triumphs more than we have loved them; we
drank of success as of a wine which could never fail to make us feel elated.
89.
90.
People have said we must not go where liquor is served; we must not have it in our homes; we
must shun friends who drink; we must avoid moving pictures which show drinking scenes; we must not go into bars; our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses; we mustn't think or be reminded about alcohol at
all.
91.
And even while staying within conventional bounds, many people have to admit that their imaginary sex excursions are apt to be all dressed up as dreams of romance.
92.
93.
94.
To a degree, he has already
done this when taking moral inventory, but now the time has come when he ought to redouble his efforts to see how many people he has hurt, and in what ways.
95.
96.
But later, alone in his room, he asked himself this question: "Is
it possible that all the religious people I have known are wrong?"
97.
But am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring and glum, like some righteous people I see?
98.
But even these people, if they
construct a list of still milder defects, will be obliged to admit that they prefer to hang on to some of
them.
99.
100.
His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalties inflicted by
people in authority; they
result from his personal
disobedience to spiritual principles.
101.
We could not be invited out because I would surely get tight, and my wife dared not invite people in for the same reason.
102.
But we are sure that no class of people in the world ever made a worse mess of trying to live by this formula than alcoholics.
103.
Half the people in this country would think we'd signed up with the drys, the other half would think we'd joined the wets.
104.
Finally, we begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are
to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means.
105.
106.
We had refused to learn the
very hard lesson that overdependence upon people is unsuccessful because all people are fallible, and even the best of them will sometimes let us down, especially when our demands for attention become unreasonable.
107.
As the message of recovery has reached larger numbers of people, it has also touched the lives of a vastly greater variety of suffering alcoholics.
108.
109.
110.
111.
112.
113.
114.
Young people may be encouraged by this man's experience to think that
they can stop, as he did, on their own will power.
115.
(*) The fellowship of Al-Anon Family Groups was formed about thirteen years after this chapter was written. Though it is entirely separate from Alcoholics Anonymous, it
uses the general principles of the A.A. program as a guide for husbands, wives, relatives, friends and others close to alcoholics. The foregoing pages (though addressed only to wives) indicate the problems such people may face. Alateen, for teen-aged children of alcoholics, is a part of Al-Anon.
116.
Between these lines, it is
easy to read our fear that large numbers of incoming people might break our anonymity wide open.
117.
Aside from fellowship and
sociability, the prime
object was to provide a time and place where new people might bring their problems.
118.
We are much more afraid of what people might say than the trouble this strange alcoholic might bring.
119.
120.
They were deeply religious people, much shocked by their son's refusal to have anything to do with the church.
121.
122.
People needed to be told what alcoholism was, so
we'd educate the public, even rewrite school and medical textbooks.
123.
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.
124.
Many people, nonalcoholics, report
that as a result of the practice of A.A.'s Twelve Steps, they have been able to meet other difficulties of life.
125.
126.
More experienced people, of course, in all times and places have practiced unsparing self-survey and criticism.
127.
Some people, of course, may conclude that they are indeed
ready to have all such defects taken from them.
128.
129.
It is worth noting that people of very high spiritual development almost always insist on checking with friends or spiritual advisers the guidance they feel they have received from God.
130.
131.
132.
133.
The quick inventory is aimed at our daily ups and downs, especially those where people or new events throw us off balance and tempt us to make mistakes.
134.
135.
When you add to this the habitual supposition
that people ought to give money to alcoholics trying to stay sober, it can be understood why we thought we deserved a pile of folding money.
136.
Our present anxieties
and troubles, we cry, are caused by the behavior of other people -- people who really need a moral inventory.
137.
When people presented us
with spiritual approaches, how frequently did we all say, "I
wish I had what that man has.
138.
When we had taken the opposite tack and had insisted, like infants ourselves, that
people protect and take care of us or that the world owed us a living, then the result had
been equally unfortunate.
139.
Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that
this universe originated in a cipher and
aimlessly rushes nowhere.
140.
141.
To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends -- this is an experience you must not miss.
142.
143.
144.
145.
146.
147.
Most of us sense that real tolerance of other people's shortcomings and viewpoints and a respect
for their opinions are attitudes which make us more useful to others.
148.
They pointed out that the Foundation board already knew of a total of half a million dollars set aside for A.A. in the wills of people still alive.
149.
Since Step One requires an admission that
our lives have become unmanageable, how could people such as these take this Step?
150.
When an individual's desire for prestige becomes uncontrollable, whether in the sewing circle or at the international conference table, other people suffer and often revolt.
151.
152.
Some people tell us so.
153.
The roadblocks of indifference, fancied self-sufficiency, prejudice, and defiance often prove more solid and formidable for these people
than any erected by the unconvinced agnostic or
even the militant atheist.
154.
When you have carefully explained to such people that he is a sick person, you will have created a new atmosphere.
155.
156.
157.
It is A.A.'s proved willingness to make these sacrifices that gives people their high confidence in our future.
158.
159.
If we lean too heavily on
people, they will sooner or later fail us, for they are human, too,
and cannot possibly meet our
incessant demands.
160.
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.
161.
162.
163.
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.
164.
165.
166.
Having carefully surveyed this whole area of human relations, and having decided exactly what personality traits in us
injured and disturbed others, we can now commence to ransack memory for the people to whom we
have given offense.
167.
168.
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.
169.
170.
171.
Silently and surely, electricity, that strange
energy so few people understand, meets our simplest daily needs, and our most desperate ones, too.
172.
We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we
couldn't make a living, we had
a feeling of uselessness, we were full of
fear, we were unhappy, we
couldn't seem to be of real help to other people -- was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we
should see newsreels of lunar flight?
173.
Whenever we fail any of these people, we can promptly admit it -- to ourselves always, and to
them also, when the admission would be helpful.
174.
175.
176.
These were some of the ways in which fear conspired with pride to hinder our making a list of all the people we had harmed.
177.
We had to begin to make our peace, and so we listed the
people we had harmed and became willing to set things right.
178.
179.
180.
After we have made the list of people we have harmed, have reflected carefully upon each instance, and have tried to possess ourselves of the right attitude in which to proceed, we will see that the making of direct amends divides those we should approach into several classes.
181.
182.
We have listed the people we
have hurt by our conduct, and
are willing to straighten out the past if we can.
183.
184.
To some people we need not, and
probably should not emphasize the spiritual
feature on our first approach.
185.
186.
187.
"We were resolved to admit
nobody to A.A. but that hypothetical class of
people we termed 'pure alcoholics.'
188.
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.
189.
News of this got on the world wires; inquiries poured in again and many people went to the bookstores to get the book "Alcoholics Anonymous."
190.
191.
192.
193.
194.
195.
If strong people were stalemated in the search
for peace and harmony, what
was to become of our erratic band of alcoholics?
196.
Could we then foresee that troublesome people were to
become our principal teachers of patience and tolerance?
197.
How could we know that thousands of these sometimes frightening
people were to make astonishing recoveries
and become our greatest workers and intimate friends?
198.
Your desire to protect him
should not cause you to lie to
people when they have a right
to know where he is and what he is doing.
199.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.
200.
Step Nine -- "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others."
201.
"Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others."
202.
This is because people who
are driven by pride of self unconsciously blind themselves to their liabilities.
203.
About the time of the beer experiment I was thrown in
with a crowd of people who attracted me because of
their seeming poise, health, and happiness.
204.
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.
205.
206.
207.
208.
209.
If the pursuit of wealth tramples upon people who happen to be in the way, then anger, jealousy, and revenge are likely to be aroused.
210.
Can we have the same kind of confidence and faith in
these people who have been infected and sometimes crippled by our own illness that we have in our sponsors?
211.
We have been talking about problems because we are problem people who have found a way up
and out, and who wish to share our knowledge of that
way with all who can use it.
212.
213.
In these ways we are set in conflict not only with ourselves, but with other
people who have instincts,
too.
214.
215.
Then, as year by year we walk back through our lives as far as memory will reach, we shall be bound to construct a long list of people who have, to some extent or other, been affected.
216.
At the Foundation(*) and intergroup offices, we
couldn't employ nonalcoholics as secretaries; we had to have people who knew the A.A. pitch.
217.
Sacks of letters on every conceivable A.A. problem ranging from a lonely-heart Eskimo to the growing pains of thousands of groups must be answered by people who know.
218.
We shall at once think of a few people who know all about our drinking, and who have been most affected by it.
219.
220.
It will become more and more evident as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry, or to get hurt by people who, like us, are suffering from
the pains of growing up.
221.
For alcoholism had been a lonely business, even though we had been surrounded by people who loved us.
222.
223.
When the phrase "We are people
who normally would not mix"
(page 17 of this book) was written in 1939, it referred to a Fellowship composed largely of men (and a few women) with quite similar social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds.
224.
225.
226.
Our present anxieties
and troubles, we cry, are caused by the behavior of other people -- people who really need a moral inventory.
227.
Yet we had been seeing another kind of flight, a spiritual liberation from this world,
people who rose above their problems.
228.
229.
When we reached A.A., and for
the first time in our lives stood among people who seemed to understand, the
sense of belonging was tremendously exciting.
230.
A.A. Preamble -- Alcoholics Anonymous is
a fellowship of people who
share their experience,
strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.
231.
We have heard of a few instances where people, who showed definite signs of alcoholism, were able to stop for a long period because of an overpowering desire to do
so.
232.
233.
That may be true of certain
nonalcoholic people who,
though drinking foolishly and heavily at
the present time, are able to stop or moderate, because their brains and bodies have not been
damaged as ours were.
234.
Through it we begin to learn right relations with people who understand us; we don't have to be alone any more.
235.
As this trend grew, they were
joined by young people who were scarcely more than potential alcoholics.
236.
237.
238.
239.
240.
241.
The answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom.
242.
If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great.
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