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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.
That was great news to us, for
we had assumed we could not make use of spiritual principles unless we accepted many things on faith which seemed difficult to believe.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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.
7.
8.
Why did we dare to say, contrary to the experience of society and
government everywhere, that we would neither punish nor deprive any A.A. of membership, that we must never compel anyone to pay anything, believe anything, or conform to anything?
9.
10.
Those of us who have spent much time in the world of spiritual make-believe have eventually seen the childishness of it.
11.
Say that you believe he is a gravely ill person, with this qualification -- being perhaps fatally ill, does he want to get well?
12.
We have come to believe He would
like us to keep our heads in the clouds with Him,
but that our feet ought to be
firmly planted on earth.
13.
14.
What can we believe in?
15.
Relieved of the alcohol
obsession, their lives unaccountably transformed, they came to
believe in a Higher Power, and most of them began to
talk of God."
16.
17.
The main thing is that he be willing to believe in a Power greater than himself and that he live by spiritual principles.
18.
19.
I can't say upon what occasion or upon what day I came to believe in a Power greater than myself, but I certainly have that belief
now.
20.
We found that as soon as we
were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a
Power greater than ourselves, we commenced
to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which
is God.
21.
They flatly declare that
since they have come to believe
in a Power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that Power, and to do certain simple things, there has been a revolutionary change in
their way of living and thinking.
22.
23.
24.
Some of us won't believe in God,
others can't, and still others who do believe that God exists have no faith whatever He will perform this miracle.
25.
26.
All this should be very encouraging news for those who recoil from prayer because they don't
believe in it, or because
they feel themselves cut off from God's help and direction.
27.
28.
But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been
living it.
29.
They believe in themselves, and still more in the Power which pulls chronic alcoholics back from the gates of death.
30.
31.
An illness of this sort --
and we have come to believe it
an illness -- involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can.
32.
33.
If you propose such a procedure to him, it may be necessary to advance the cost of treatment, but we
believe it should be made plain that any expense will later be deducted from his pay.
34.
Let him tell you about it: "I was
much impressed with what
you fellows said about alcoholism, and I frankly
did not believe it would be possible for me to drink again.
35.
36.
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.
37.
Hence we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable, why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to
believe, why we say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands in doubt and said, "We don't know."
38.
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.
39.
40.
41.
42.
It is really saying to us
that we now ought to be willing to try humility in seeking the removal of our other shortcomings just as we did
when we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, and came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity.
43.
44.
As we lay aside these very human aspirations, we believe that
each of us takes part in the weaving of a protective mantle which covers our whole Society and under which we may
grow and work in unity.
45.
Though there is no way of proving it, we believe that early in our drinking careers most of us
could have stopped drinking.
46.
Some of us won't believe in God,
others can't, and still others who do believe that God exists have no faith whatever He will perform this miracle.
47.
48.
Never once in my life have I had a headache,
which fact leads me to believe that I was an alcoholic
almost from the start.
49.
50.
Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women, desperately in need, will see these pages, and we believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and
our problems that they will
be persuaded to say, "Yes, I am one of them too; I must have this thing."
51.
52.
53.
Instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents, spearheads of God's ever advancing Creation, we agnostics and
atheists chose to believe that our human intelligence was the last
word, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and end of all.
54.
55.
In this statement he confirms what we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe -- that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind.
56.
12. And finally, we of Alcoholics Anonymous
believe that the principle
of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance.
57.
Twelve -- And finally, we
of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the principle of anonymity
has an immense spiritual
significance.
58.
We of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the reader will be interested in the medical
estimate of the plan of recovery described in this
book.
59.
60.
I used to get terribly upset when I saw my friends drink and knew I could not, but I
schooled myself to believe that though I once had the same privilege, I had abused it
so frightfully that it was withdrawn.
61.
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.
62.
63.
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?"
64.
At that moment, we believe,
the principle of corporate poverty was firmly and finally embedded in A.A. tradition.
65.
66.
We believe there isn't a fellowship on earth which lavishes more devoted care upon its individual members; surely there is none which more jealously guards the individual's right to think, talk, and act as he wishes.
67.
Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to
believe they are in that class.
68.
69.
If you have a drinking problem, we hope that you may pause in reading one of the forty-two personal stories and think: "Yes, that happened to me"; or,
more important, "Yes, I've felt like that"; or, most important, "Yes, I believe this program can work for me too."
70.
We read wordy books and indulge in windy arguments, thinking we believe this universe needs no God to explain it.
71.
72.
73.
Without this proof the expectant purchaser would
be forced to depart empty handed with none of what I later came to believe was the great panacea for all human ills.
74.
75.
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.
76.
77.
If we are sorry for what we have done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson.
78.
But how many men and women speak love with their lips, and believe what they say, so that they can
hide lust in a dark corner of their minds?
79.
Hence we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable, why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to
believe, why we say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands in doubt and said, "We don't know."
The 164 and More™ Book, eBook, and Web Site
are all CONCORDANCES which display passages from the Big Book
Alcoholics Anonymous, the
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions,
and the A.A. Grapevine (A.A. Preamble only).
Sorting and rendering passages in the proprietary format of the
164 and More concordance does not in any way imply
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Inc., or the A.A. Grapevine, Inc. Further A.A.W.S. Inc. and the A.A.
Grapevine Inc. have no objection to the use of this material in the
164 and More concordance.
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