The 164 and More book is sold on this website at the Publisher List Price of $20.00 plus postage.
The book may also be sold by Intergroup/Central Offices or recovery book stores at List Price
or slightly higher. But beware of others that sell the book marked up 400% or more.
For the same money, you could buy 4 books and use 3 as sponsee gifts.
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.
All changes made over the years in the Big Book (A.A.
members' fond nickname for this volume)
have had the same purpose: to
represent the current membership of Alcoholics Anonymous more accurately, and thereby to
reach more alcoholics.
2.
We shall be interested to
hear from those who are getting results from this book, particularly from those who have commenced work with other alcoholics.
3.
In that brief space, Alcoholics Anonymous has mushroomed into nearly 6,000 groups whose membership is far above 150,000 recovered alcoholics.
4.
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.
5.
In any meeting, anywhere, A.A.'s share experience, strength, and hope with each other, in order to stay sober and help other alcoholics.
6.
My brother-in-law is a physician, and through his
kindness and that of my mother I was placed in a nationally-known hospital for the mental and
physical rehabilitation of alcoholics.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Practical experience
shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.
13.
14.
Ministers and doctors
are competent and you can learn much from them if you wish, but it happens that because of your own drinking experience you
can be uniquely useful to
other alcoholics.
15.
Still another difficulty is that you may become jealous of the attention he bestows on other people, especially alcoholics.
16.
Even if he displays a certain amount of neglect and irresponsibility towards the family, it is well to let him go as far as he likes in helping other alcoholics.
17.
18.
But what about his responsibilities -- his
family and the men who would die because they would not know how to get well, ah -- yes, those other alcoholics?
19.
20.
21.
22.
As this trend grew, they were
joined by young people who were scarcely more than potential alcoholics.
23.
We realize that the word "dependence" is as distasteful to many psychiatrists and psychologists as it is to alcoholics.
24.
We thought "conditions"
drove us to drink, and when we
tried to correct these conditions and found that we
couldn't to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics.
25.
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.
26.
27.
28.
But not so with alcoholics.
29.
If strong people were stalemated in the search
for peace and harmony, what
was to become of our erratic band of alcoholics?
30.
"We were resolved to admit
nobody to A.A. but that hypothetical class of people we termed 'pure alcoholics.'
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
Let it be noted, too, that they
were almost always concerned with ways to make A.A. more
effective, how to do the most good for the most alcoholics.
36.
When the Washingtonians became temperance crusaders, within a very few years they had completely lost their effectiveness
in helping alcoholics.
37.
But all who are in the least reasonable will agree upon one point: that there is plenty wrong with us alcoholics about which plenty will have to be done if we are to
expect sobriety, progress, and any real ability to cope with life.
38.
Can we love the whole pattern of living as eagerly as we do the small segment of it we discover
when we try to help other alcoholics achieve sobriety?
39.
Taking advantage of technological advances, for example, A.A. members with computers can participate in meetings
online, sharing with fellow alcoholics across the country or around the world.
40.
41.
42.
43.
We, who are familiar with the symptoms, see large numbers of potential alcoholics among young people everywhere.
44.
Moved by the spirit of anonymity, we try to give up our natural desires for personal distinction as
A.A. members both among fellow alcoholics and before the general public.
45.
We hope that the collective spiritual experience of the A.A. pioneers captured in these
pages continues to help alcoholics and friends of A.A. understand the principles of our program.
46.
In the fall of 1939 Fulton Oursler, then editor of Liberty, printed a piece in his magazine, called "Alcoholics and God."
47.
He may wish to do a lot for other alcoholics and something of the sort may come up during business hours.
48.
49.
Small wonder many in the medical profession have a low opinion of alcoholics and their
chance for recovery!
50.
He explains that when Jack
Alexander's Saturday Evening Post piece broke in 1941, thousands of frantic letters from distraught alcoholics and
their families hit the Foundation(*) letterbox
in New York.
51.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of
these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these
principles in all our affairs.
52.
Step Twelve -- "Having had a
spiritual awakening as
the result of these steps, we
tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles
in all our affairs."
53.
"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of
these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these
principles in all our affairs."
54.
55.
When writing or speaking
publicly about alcoholism, we urge each of our Fellowship to omit his personal name, designating himself instead as "a member of Alcoholics Anonymous."
56.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
57.
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."
58.
The Twelve Steps that summarize the program may
be called los Doce Pasos in one country, les Douze Etapes in another, but they trace exactly the same path to recovery that was blazed by
the earliest members of
Alcoholics Anonymous.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
Some of them may sink and perhaps never get up, but if our experience is a criterion, more than half of those approached will become fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
Isn't it true that in all matters touching upon alcohol, each of them has decided to turn his or her life over to the care, protection, and guidance
of Alcoholics Anonymous?
69.
70.
The wonderful energy it
releases and the eager action by which it carries our
message to the next suffering alcoholic and
which finally translates the Twelve Steps into action upon all our affairs is the payoff, the magnificent reality, of Alcoholics Anonymous.
71.
They become the voice of the
group conscience; in fact, these are the true voice of Alcoholics Anonymous.
72.
73.
The association wanted
to use our member's full name in all its advertising; he was to be
described both as its director of publicity and as a member of
Alcoholics Anonymous.
74.
Approving editorials
here and abroad generated a wave of confidence in the integrity of Alcoholics Anonymous.
75.
76.
77.
Therefore, a great responsibility fell upon us to develop the best possible public relations policy for Alcoholics Anonymous.
78.
79.
Today, we are able to say with assurance that Alcoholics Anonymous -- A.A. as a whole -- should never be organized at all.
80.
81.
82.
We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
83.
... "Alcoholics Anonymous
are no crusaders; not a ...
BB
Appendix III, The Medical View on A.A., p.570
Dr. W. W. Bauer, broadcasting under the auspices of The American Medical Association in 1946, over the NBC network, said, in part: "Alcoholics Anonymous are no crusaders; not a temperance society.
84.
The "12 Traditions" of Alcoholics Anonymous are, we A.A.'s believe, the best answers that our experience has yet given to those ever-urgent questions, "How can A.A. best function?" and, "How can
A.A. best stay whole and so survive?"
85.
Our earliest printing voiced the hope "that every alcoholic who journeys will find the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination.
86.
Some day we hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find a Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination.
87.
88.
Moreover, it had performed a great service for Alcoholics Anonymous, because it had
been humbly willing to apply the lessons it learned.
89.
90.
Alcoholics Anonymous began in 1935 at Akron, Ohio, as the outcome of a meeting between a well-known surgeon and a New York broker.
91.
12. And finally, we of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the principle
of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance.
92.
Twelve -- And finally, we
of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the principle
of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance.
93.
We of Alcoholics Anonymous
believe that the reader will be interested in the medical estimate of the plan of recovery described in this book.
94.
... Alcoholics Anonymous,
Box 459, Grand Central Station, ...
BB
Appendix VI, How to Get in Touch With A.A., p.573
If you cannot find A.A. in your locality, visit our Web site: www.aa.org; or a letter addressed to Alcoholics Anonymous, Box 459, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163, USA, will receive a prompt reply from this world center, referring you to the nearest A.A. group.
95.
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.'
96.
This fourth edition of
"Alcoholics Anonymous" came off press in November 2001, at the start of a new millennium.
97.
98.
Alcoholics Anonymous can be
likened to a group of physicians who might find a
cure for cancer, and upon whose concerted work would depend the answer for sufferers of this disease.
99.
We are sure that humility,
expressed by anonymity, is the greatest
safeguard that Alcoholics
Anonymous can ever have.
100.
101.
102.
103.
104.
It is in this spirit of service that we elect the A.A. group's informal rotating committee, the intergroup association
for the area, and the General
Service Conferences of
Alcoholics Anonymous for A.A. as a whole.
105.
In former days, the moment an A.A. hired out to such enterprises, he was immediately tempted to use the name Alcoholics Anonymous for publicity or money-raising purposes.
106.
The fledgling society,
which had been nameless, now
began to be called Alcoholics Anonymous, from the title of its own book.
107.
5. Each Alcoholics Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose -- that of carrying its message to the alcoholic
who still suffers.
108.
Five -- Each Alcoholics Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity having but
one primary purpose -- that of carrying
its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
109.
110.
111.
They pointed out that the irresponsible had become
responsible, and that by making financial independence part of its tradition, Alcoholics Anonymous had revived an ideal that its era had almost forgotten.
112.
... "Alcoholics Anonymous"
has been translated into forty-three(*) ...
BB
Foreword to Fourth Edition, p.xxiii
113.
After the husband joins A.A., the wife may become discontented, even highly resentful that Alcoholics Anonymous has done the very thing that all her years of devotion had failed to do.
114.
... Alcoholics Anonymous
has made the difference between ...
BB
Appendix I, The A.A. Tradition, p.561
To those now in its fold, Alcoholics Anonymous has made the difference between misery and sobriety, and often the difference between life and death.
115.
In that brief space, Alcoholics Anonymous has mushroomed into nearly 6,000 groups whose membership is far above 150,000 recovered alcoholics.
116.
Ten -- Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
117.
Tradition Ten -- "Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy."
118.
"Alcoholics Anonymous has
no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy."
119.
Thus was laid the cornerstone for Tradition Ten: "Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy."
120.
Though he is now a most effective member of Alcoholics Anonymous, he still smokes and drinks coffee, but neither his wife nor anyone else stands in judgment.
121.
The news stories of Mr. Rockefeller's dinner for Alcoholics Anonymous helped double our total membership in a year's time.
122.
Bill W., who along with Dr. Bob S. founded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, wrote the book to share 18 years of collective experience within the Fellowship on how A.A. members recover, and how our
society functions.
123.
With the publication of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" in 1939, the pioneering period ended and a prodigious chain reaction set in as the recovered alcoholics carried their message to still others.
124.
"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."
125.
... "Alcoholics Anonymous"
in telephone directories.
BB
Appendix VI, How to Get in Touch With A.A., p.573
These so-called intergroup associations are found under the listing "A.A." or "Alcoholics Anonymous" in telephone
directories.
126.
When her will was read, it was
discovered she had left
Alcoholics Anonymous in trust with the Alcoholic Foundation a sum of ten thousand dollars.
127.
How can a set of traditional principles, having no legal force at all, hold the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in unity and effectiveness?
128.
(*) In 1954, the name of the Alcoholic Foundation,
Inc., was changed to the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc., and the Foundation office is now the General Service Office.
129.
(*) In 1954, the name of the Alcoholic Foundation,
Inc., was changed to the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc., and the Foundation office is now the General Service Office.
130.
(*) In 1954, the name of the Alcoholic Foundation,
Inc., was changed to the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc., and the Foundation office is now the General Service Office.
131.
(*) In 1954, the name of the Alcoholic Foundation,
Inc., was changed to the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc., and the Foundation office is now the General Service Office.
132.
(*) In 1954, the name of the Alcoholic Foundation,
Inc., was changed to the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc., and the Foundation office is now the General Service Office.
133.
(*) In 1954, the name of the Alcoholic Foundation,
Inc., was changed to the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc., and the Foundation office is now the General Service Office.
134.
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.
135.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a
worldwide fellowship
of more than one hundred thousand(*) alcoholic men and women who are banded together to solve their common problems and to help fellow sufferers in recovery from
that age-old, baffling malady, alcoholism.
136.
137.
138.
139.
... Alcoholics Anonymous
is highly dangerous, whether by ...
BB
Appendix I, The A.A. Tradition, p.564
We think that each group should soon achieve this ideal; that any public solicitation of funds using the name of Alcoholics Anonymous is highly dangerous, whether by groups, clubs, hospitals, or other outside agencies; that acceptance
of large gifts from any source, or of contributions carrying
any obligation whatever, is unwise.
140.
We think that each group should soon achieve this ideal; that any public solicitation of funds using the name of Alcoholics Anonymous is highly dangerous, whether by groups, clubs, hospitals, or other outside agencies; that acceptance
of large gifts from any source, or of contributions carrying
any obligation whatever, is unwise.
141.
142.
143.
... "Alcoholics Anonymous
is natural; it is natural ...
BB
Appendix V, The Religious View on A.A., p.572
Edward Dowling, S.J.,(*) of the Queen's Work staff, says, "Alcoholics Anonymous is natural; it is
natural at the point where
nature comes closest to the supernatural, namely in
humiliations and in consequent humility.
144.
145.
146.
... Alcoholics Anonymous
is the truly Christian principle ...
BB
Appendix V, The Religious View on A.A., p.572
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.
147.
Every newcomer in Alcoholics Anonymous is told, and soon realizes for himself, that
his humble admission of
powerlessness over alcohol is his first step toward liberation from its paralyzing grip.
148.
(*) 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.
149.
150.
We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, know thousands of men and women who were once just as hopeless as Bill.
151.
... Alcoholics Anonymous
maintains its international service center.
BB
Appendix VI, How to Get in Touch With A.A., p.573
152.
They will approach still other sick ones and fellowships of Alcoholics Anonymous may spring up in each city and hamlet, havens for those who must find a way out.
153.
... Alcoholics Anonymous,
medical societies and physicians throughout ...
BB
Appendix III, The Medical View on A.A., p.569
Since Dr. Silkworth's first endorsement of Alcoholics Anonymous, medical societies and physicians throughout
the world have set their approval upon us.
154.
Why, we thought, our Society of Alcoholics Anonymous might prove to be
the spearhead of a new spiritual advance!
155.
All changes made over the years in the Big Book (A.A.
members' fond nickname for this volume)
have had the same purpose: to
represent the current membership of Alcoholics Anonymous more accurately, and thereby to
reach more alcoholics.
156.
When Tradition Nine was first written, it said that "Alcoholics Anonymous needs the least possible organization."
157.
Nor does it mean that the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, now restored as citizens of the
world, are going to back away from their individual responsibilities to act
as they see the right upon issues of our time.
158.
(A.A.'s General Service Office may be reached by writing: Alcoholics Anonymous, P.O. Box 459, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163. U.S.A.)
159.
That is why the first edition of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous," published when our membership was small, dealt with low-bottom cases only.
160.
161.
... Alcoholics Anonymous
should remain forever nonprofessional.
BB
Appendix I, The A.A. Tradition, p.564
162.
163.
... Alcoholics Anonymous
should remain forever nonprofessional, but ...
BB
Appendix I, The A.A. Tradition, p.562
Eight -- Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
164.
... "Alcoholics Anonymous
should remain forever nonprofessional, but ...
12&12
Contents (Tradition Eight), p.11
Tradition Eight -- "Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers."
165.
"Alcoholics Anonymous
should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers."
166.
Two days later, a future fellow of Alcoholics Anonymous stared glassily at the strangers
beside his bed.
167.
It resulted in more favorable publicity of
Alcoholics Anonymous than
could possibly have been obtained through all the arts and abilities of A.A.'s best press agents.
168.
169.
A well-known doctor, chief physician at a nationally prominent hospital specializing
in alcoholic and drug addiction, gave Alcoholics Anonymous this letter:
170.
171.
The American Psychiatric Association requested,
in 1949, that a paper be prepared by one of the older members of Alcoholics Anonymous to be read at the Association's annual meeting of that year.
172.
We conceive the survival
and spread of Alcoholics Anonymous to be something
of far greater importance than the weight
we could collectively throw back of any other cause.
173.
"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."
174.
... Alcoholics Anonymous
to some of his friends, ...
BB
Appendix V, The Religious View on A.A., p.572
Speaking at a dinner given by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to introduce Alcoholics Anonymous to some of his friends, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick remarked:
175.
But that wasn't the whole story, for in this case not only
was an A.A. member to break his anonymity at a public level, he was to link the name Alcoholics Anonymous to this particular educational
project in the minds of millions.
176.
177.
... Alcoholics Anonymous
was conservatively estimated at more ...
BB
Foreword to Third Edition, p.xxii
By March 1976, when this edition went to the printer, the total worldwide membership of
Alcoholics Anonymous was conservatively estimated at more than 1,000,000, with almost 28,000 groups meeting in over 90 countries.
178.
After coming from our first meeting, or perhaps after we have finished reading the book "Alcoholics Anonymous," we usually want to sit down with some member of the family and readily admit the damage we have done by our drinking.
179.
180.
181.
It is hoped that this volume
will afford all who read it a close-up view of the principles and forces which
have made Alcoholics Anonymous what it is.
182.
They live today in the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, which -- God willing -- shall sustain us in unity for so long as He may need us.
183.
Just as firmly bound by obligation are the
members of Alcoholics Anonymous, who have demonstrated that they can help problem drinkers as others seldom can.
184.
(*) Alcoholics Anonymous will be glad to hear from you. Address P.O. Box 459, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163.
185.
Some day we hope that Alcoholics Anonymous will help the public to a better realization of the gravity of the alcoholic problem, but we shall be of little use if our attitude is one of bitterness or hostility.
186.
187.
Certain drinkers, who
would be greatly insulted
if called alcoholics, are astonished at their inability to stop.
188.
189.
190.
191.
192.
Much has been written pro and con, but among physicians, the general opinion seems to be that most chronic
alcoholics are doomed.
193.
194.
195.
196.
197.
198.
199.
Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class.
200.
201.
202.
203.
204.
We seriously thought of
rewriting the laws of the
land, and having it declared
that alcoholics are sick people.
205.
Also of importance for
most alcoholics are the questions they must ask about their behavior respecting financial and
emotional security.
206.
207.
We alcoholics are undisciplined.
208.
Hence the two men set to work almost frantically upon alcoholics arriving in the ward of the Akron City Hospital.
209.
210.
211.
They believe in themselves, and still more in the Power which pulls chronic alcoholics back from the gates of death.
212.
Alcoholics barely dry rushed about bright-eyed, buttonholing anyone who
would listen to their stories.
213.
214.
... alcoholics, but
its application presented difficulties beyond ...
BB
The Doctor's Opinion, p.xxvii
We doctors have realized
for a long time that some form of moral psychology was of urgent importance to alcoholics, but
its application presented difficulties
beyond our conception.
215.
Father will necessarily spend much time with other alcoholics, but this activity should be balanced.
216.
217.
218.
With the publication of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" in 1939, the pioneering period ended and a prodigious chain reaction set in as the recovered alcoholics carried their message to still others.
219.
220.
Watching alcoholics committed willy-nilly to prisons or asylums, we began to cry, "There oughtta be a law!"
221.
222.
When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to
fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing.
223.
The remainder of the book
was devoted to thirty stories or case histories in which the alcoholics described their drinking experiences and
recoveries.
224.
225.
Such a roster of harms done others -- the kind that make daily living with us as practicing alcoholics difficult and often unbearable -- could be extended almost indefinitely.
226.
Alcoholics especially
should be able to see that instinct run wild in themselves is the underlying cause of their destructive drinking.
227.
However, because the book has
helped so many alcoholics find recovery, there exists strong sentiment within the Fellowship against any change to it.
228.
In the next years alcoholics flocked to A.A. by tens of thousands, largely as the
result of excellent and
continuous publicity
freely given by magazines and newspapers
throughout the world.
229.
230.
231.
232.
And with such good effect that the doctor agreed to a test among his patients and certain other alcoholics from a clinic which he attends.
233.
Since this book was first published, A.A. has released thousands of
alcoholics from asylums and
hospitals of every kind.
234.
Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.
235.
So confident of this had we become that the original statement of A.A. tradition carried this significant sentence:
"Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group provided that as a group they have no other affiliation."
236.
Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.
237.
The doctors weren't trying to find how different we were from one another; they sought to find whatever personality traits, if any, this group of alcoholics had in common.
238.
239.
240.
241.
242.
But point out that we alcoholics have much in common and that you would like,
in any case, to be friendly.
243.
... alcoholics have
nevertheless concluded that in order ...
BB
Appendix II, Spiritual Experience, p.567
Though it was not our intention to create such an impression, many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded
that in order to recover
they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming "God-consciousness" followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook.
244.
Most alcoholics have to be pretty badly mangled before they really commence to solve their problems.
245.
Very soon, though, his assumed authority to run everything begins to be shared with the first alcoholics he has helped.
246.
Learning to depend upon a higher power and absorb himself in his work with other alcoholics, he remains sober day by day.
247.
Though they knew they must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that motive became secondary.
248.
You will be most successful with alcoholics if
you do not exhibit any passion for crusade or reform.
249.
As part of his rehabilitation he commenced to present his conceptions to other alcoholics, impressing upon them that they must do likewise with still others.
250.
Have we alcoholics in A.A. got, or can we get, the resources to meet these calamities which come to so
many?
251.
Maybe this sounds as though the alcoholics in A.A. had suddenly gone peaceable, and become one great big happy family.
252.
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.
253.
(*) In adapted form, the Steps are also used by Al-Anon Family Groups. Not a part of A.A., this worldwide fellowship consists of spouses and other relatives or friends of
alcoholics (in A.A. or still drinking). Its headquarters address is 1600 Corporate Landing Pkwy, Virginia Beach, VA 23454-5617.
254.
Then Jack Alexander wrote a feature article in the Saturday Evening Post and placed such a compelling picture of A.A. before the general public that alcoholics in need of help really deluged us.
255.
So, you see, there were three
alcoholics in that town, who now felt they had to give to others what they had found, or be sunk.
256.
So far, upon the total problem of several million actual and potential alcoholics in the world, we have made only a scratch.
257.
Throughout the world, immense and favorable publicity of every description has been the principal means of bringing alcoholics into our Fellowship.
258.
We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is
limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker.
259.
(*) 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.
260.
261.
262.
Neither does there appear
to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men.
263.
264.
265.
Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years.
266.
Prior to his journey to Akron, the broker had worked hard with many alcoholics on the theory that only an alcoholic could help an alcoholic, but he had succeeded only in keeping
sober himself.
267.
268.
269.
270.
... alcoholics or
their families may arrange for ...
BB
Appendix VI, How to Get in Touch With A.A., p.573
In large cities, groups often maintain local offices where alcoholics or
their families may arrange for interviews or
hospitalization.
271.
272.
He had lived there but a few weeks when he found that the place probably contained more alcoholics per square mile than any city in the country.
273.
274.
When a society composed
entirely of alcoholics says it's going to pay its bills, that's really news.
275.
276.
We alcoholics see that we must work together and hang together, else most of us will finally die alone.
277.
278.
The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult, and in much detail is outside the scope of this book.
279.
He thought all alcoholics
should constantly have chocolate available for
its quick energy value at times of fatigue.
280.
They wanted to say that liquor should be enjoyed, not
misused; hard drinkers ought to slow down, and problem drinkers -- alcoholics -- should not drink at
all.
281.
282.
283.
284.
The test that it faced was
this: Could these large numbers of erstwhile erratic alcoholics successfully meet and work together?
285.
... alcoholics such
transformations, though frequent, are by ...
BB
Appendix II, Spiritual Experience, p.567
Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of alcoholics such transformations, though frequent, are by no means the rule.
286.
287.
By a great deal of ardent Twelfth Step work we sometimes carry the message to so many alcoholics that they place us in a position of trust.
288.
(*) 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.
289.
It relieved me somewhat
to learn that in alcoholics the
will is amazingly weakened when it comes to combating liquor, though it often remains strong in other respects.
290.
291.
292.
293.
My wife and I abandoned ourselves with enthusiasm to the idea of helping other alcoholics to a solution of their
problems.
294.
295.
After three years of trial and error in selecting the most
workable tenets upon which the Society could be
based, and after a large amount of failure in getting alcoholics to recover, three successful groups emerged -- the first at Akron, the second at New York, and the third at Cleveland.
296.
Many less desperate alcoholics tried A.A., but did not succeed because they could
not make the admission of
hopelessness.
297.
298.
In that time nothing could be
seen but two struggling, nameless groups of alcoholics trying to hold their faces up to the light.
299.
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.
300.
These distinguished men
had the nerve to say that most
of the alcoholics under investigation were still
childish, emotionally
sensitive, and grandiose.
301.
If any feel that as psychiatrists directing a hospital for
alcoholics we appear somewhat sentimental, let them stand with us a while on the firing line, see the tragedies, the despairing wives, the little children; let the solving of these problems become a part of their daily work, and even of their sleeping moments, and the
most cynical will not wonder that we have accepted
and encouraged this movement.
302.
303.
... alcoholics we
get here at Philadelphia General ...
BB
Appendix III, The Medical View on A.A., p.570
Dr. John F. Stouffer, Chief Psychiatrist, Philadelphia General Hospital, citing his experience with A.A., said: "The alcoholics we get here at Philadelphia General are
mostly those who cannot afford private treatment, and A.A. is by far the greatest thing we have been able to offer them.
304.
305.
306.
Alone now, he reflects that he may not be able to stay sober, or even alive, unless he passes on to other alcoholics what was so freely given him.
307.
Make it plain he is under no obligation to you, that you hope only that he will try to help other alcoholics when he escapes his own difficulties.
308.
Even greater furors were provoked when A.A. members began to run rest homes and farms for alcoholics, when some hired out to corporations as personnel men in charge of the alcoholic problem in industry, when
some became nurses on alcoholic wards, when others entered the field of alcohol education.
309.
But we may employ alcoholics
where they are going to perform those services for which we might otherwise have to engage nonalcoholics.
310.
But we may employ alcoholics
where they are going to perform those services for which we might otherwise have to engage nonalcoholics.
311.
The Washingtonian Society, a movement among alcoholics which started in Baltimore a century ago, almost discovered the answer to alcoholism.
312.
For most alcoholics who are drinking, or who are just getting over a spree, a certain amount of physical treatment is desirable,
even imperative.
313.
314.
Of alcoholics who came to A.A. and really tried, 50% got
sober at once and remained that way; 25% sobered up after some relapses, and among the remainder, those who stayed on with A.A. showed improvement.
315.
I who had boasted my generosity that morning
was treating my own club worse than the distant alcoholics who had forgotten to send the Foundation their dollars.
316.
Besides these, there were scattered alcoholics who had
picked up the basic ideas in Akron or New York who were trying to form groups in other cities.
317.
Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics who
have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to
face it.
318.
319.
But all alcoholics who have drunk themselves out of jobs, family, and friends will need to cross-examine themselves ruthlessly
to determine how their own
personality defects
have thus demolished their
security.
320.
And if these are facts of life
for the many alcoholics who have
recovered in A.A., they can
become the facts of life for many more.
321.
While I lay in the hospital the thought came that there were thousands
of hopeless alcoholics who
might be glad to have what had been so freely given me.
322.
Alcoholics who still had their
health, their families,
their jobs, and even two cars in the garage, began to recognize their alcoholism.
323.
324.
A spirit of intolerance
might repel alcoholics whose lives could have been saved, had it not been for such stupidity.
325.
Back again in their caves, alcoholics would reproach us and say, "What a great thing A.A. might have been!"
326.
It was soon apparent that while alcoholics would spend lavishly on Twelfth Step cases, they had a terrific aversion to dropping money into a meeting-place hat for group purposes.
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