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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.
Did anyone ever hear of a nation, a church, a political party, even a benevolent association
that had no membership rules?
2.
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.
3.
The almost certain consequences that follow
taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us.
4.
The moment we catch even a glimpse of God's will, the moment we begin to see truth, justice, and love as the real and eternal things in life, we are no longer deeply disturbed by all the
seeming evidence to the
contrary that surrounds
us in purely human affairs.
5.
6.
Going to the extreme, he can
become a miser, or even a recluse who denies himself both family and friends.
7.
He cannot attain in even a small degree the assurance of the believer,
the agnostic, or the atheist.
8.
We are unable, at certain
times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and
humiliation of even a week or a month ago.
9.
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.
10.
As by some deep instinct, we
A.A.'s have known from the very beginning that we must never, no matter what the provocation, publicly take sides in any fight, even a worthy one.
11.
12.
We, who have traveled this dubious path, beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion.
13.
14.
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.
15.
Even among those who occasionally land back in here again, we observe a profound change in personality.
16.
17.
If he temporizes and still thinks he can ever drink again, even beer, he might as well be discharged after the next bender which, if an alcoholic, he is almost certain to have.
18.
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.
19.
20.
Even the newest of newcomers finds undreamed rewards as he tries to help his brother alcoholic, the one who is even blinder than he.
21.
We know this because we see monotony, pain, and even calamity turned to good use by those who keep on trying to practice A.A.'s Twelve Steps.
22.
Many of us have been so touchy
that even casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism.
23.
In this respect they are certainly a power greater than you, who have not even come close to a solution.
24.
25.
Suppose we tell you some of
the obstacles a family will meet; suppose we suggest how they
may be avoided -- even converted to good use for others.
26.
We were bothered with the thought that faith and dependence upon a Power beyond ourselves was somewhat weak, even cowardly.
27.
Yet let him drink for a day, and he frequently becomes disgustingly, and even dangerously anti-social.
28.
We would not even do the cause
of temperate drinking
any good, for not one drinker in a thousand likes to be told anything about alcohol by one who hates it.
29.
We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of
which we had not even dreamed.
30.
His own character may still be gravely defective, but he somehow
knows that God has enabled him to make a mighty beginning, and he senses that he stands at the edge of new mysteries, joys, and experiences of which he had never even dreamed.
31.
32.
33.
There are many opportunities even for those of us who feel unable to speak at meetings or who are so situated that we cannot do much
face-to-face Twelfth Step work.
34.
35.
36.
37.
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.
38.
The experiment of quitting for a period of time will be helpful, but we think we can render an even greater service to alcoholic sufferers and
perhaps to the medical fraternity.
39.
They even had to coin a couple of sentences which still go into half the letters they write: "Of course, you are at perfect liberty to handle this matter any way you please.
40.
41.
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.
42.
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.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
If he is, and is still trying
to recover, he will tell you about it even if it means the loss of his job.
48.
49.
50.
Even if you feel your organization has no alcoholic problem, it might
pay to take another look down the line.
51.
For most alcoholics who are drinking, or who are just getting over a spree, a certain amount of physical treatment is desirable,
even imperative.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
Even in the present century, American newspapers were afraid to
print an account of the Wright brothers' first successful flight at Kitty Hawk.
57.
58.
We gloated over the hypocrisy, bigotry, and crushing self-righteousness that clung
to so many 'believers'
even in their Sunday best.
59.
60.
But even in this type of beginning we are obliged to
admit that our justification for a spree
was insanely insufficient in the light
of what always happened.
61.
And even in those cases where such a matter must be discussed, let's try to avoid harming third parties, whoever they may be.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
Before long, your listener may well tell a story or two about himself which will place you even more at ease.
67.
68.
69.
Even more important, an empty club couldn't answer its telephone, but it was an open invitation to a drunk on a binge who possessed a spare key.
70.
Strangely enough, wives, parents and intimate friends usually find us even more unapproachable than do the psychiatrist and the doctor.
71.
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.
72.
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.
73.
74.
If even one publicly got drunk, or was lured into using A.A.'s name for his own purposes, the damage might be
irreparable.
75.
We have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people.
76.
77.
Even our severest and most
justified critics will frequently meet us more than halfway on the first trial.
78.
79.
80.
But if we have prepared ourselves well in advance, such reactions will not deflect us from our steady and
even purpose.
81.
Who, for example, doesn't like to feel just a little superior to the next fellow, or even quite a lot superior?
82.
People needed to be told what alcoholism was, so
we'd educate the public,
even rewrite school and medical textbooks.
83.
84.
I felt especially virtuous as I thought of all
the ex-drunks who wouldn't even send the Foundation a dollar apiece, and here I was gladly making a five-dollar investment to fix a hangover.
85.
86.
Even so, when making specific requests, it will be well to add to each one of them this qualification: "...if it be Thy will."
87.
We have not even sworn off.
88.
The Foundation was really hard up just then; the groups weren't sending in enough for the support of the office; we had
been tossing in all the book
income and even that hadn't
been enough.
89.
His alcoholic problem
was so complex, and his depression so great, that we
felt his only hope would be through what we then called
"moral psychology," and
we doubted if even that would
have any effect.
90.
91.
92.
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.
93.
94.
Even the chief architect, standing in the
ruins of his dream, could laugh at himself -- and that is
the very acme of humility.
95.
And this they did find, in measure to transcend all
the defects of their frail
craft, every test of uncertainty, pain, fear, and despair, and even the death of one.
96.
My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the evolutionists, suggested vast laws and forces at work.
97.
The bill collectors, the
sheriffs, the angry taxi drivers, the policemen, the bums, the pals, and even the ladies they sometimes brought home -- our husbands thought we were so
inhospitable.
98.
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.
99.
Even the newest of newcomers finds undreamed rewards as he tries to help his brother alcoholic, the one who is even blinder than he.
100.
101.
Even the suggestion of such a thing never fails to whip up a hurricane, and we have discovered that hurricanes have a way of mauling with equal severity both the just and the unjust.
102.
We had failed to see that though adult in years we were still behaving childishly, trying to turn everybody -- friends, wives, husbands, even the world itself -- into protective
parents.
103.
They will tell how they tried to carry the load alone; how much they suffered of irritability, anxiety,
remorse, and depression; and how, unconsciously seeking
relief, they would sometimes accuse even their best friends of the very character defects they themselves were trying to
conceal.
104.
105.
Even then the best of us will discover to our dismay that there is always a
sticking point, a point at which we say, "No, I can't give this up yet."
106.
By going back in our own drinking histories, we could show that
years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking
even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression.
107.
His only chance for sobriety would be some place
like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything!
108.
109.
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.
110.
111.
112.
As soon as we begin to feel confident in our new way of life and have begun, by our behavior and example, to convince those about us that
we are indeed changing for
the better, it is usually
safe to talk in complete frankness with those who have been seriously
affected, even those who may be only a little
or not at all aware of what we have done to them.
113.
Many mornings I have gone to classes, and even though fully prepared, would turn and walk back to the fraternity house because of my jitters, not daring to enter the classroom for fear of making a scene should I be called on for
recitation.
114.
115.
116.
Of course the sponsor points out that our friend's life is still unmanageable even though he is sober, that after all, only a bare start on A.A.'s program has been made.
117.
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.
118.
On that basis we are almost
always in collision with
something or somebody,
even though our motives are good.
119.
First of all, we had to admit
that we had many of these defects, even though such disclosures were painful
and humiliating.
120.
For alcoholism had been a lonely business, even though we had been surrounded by people who loved us.
121.
122.
Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we
could not live up to them even though we would have liked to.
123.
Even though your husband becomes unbearable and you have to leave him temporarily, you
should, if you can, go without
rancor.
124.
Even though your protégé may not have entirely admitted his condition, he has become very curious to know how you got well.
125.
I used to promise my wife, my friends, and my children that I would drink no more -- promises which seldom kept me sober even through the day, though I was very sincere when I made them.
126.
127.
128.
How could we be certain that we had made a true catalog of our defects and
had really admitted them,
even to ourselves?
129.
Alcoholics who still had
their health, their families, their jobs, and even two cars in
the garage, began to recognize their alcoholism.
130.
131.
He will also report that out of every season of grief or suffering, when the
hand of God seemed heavy or even unjust, new lessons for living were learned, new resources of courage were uncovered, and
that finally, inescapably, the conviction came that God does "move in a mysterious way His wonders to perform."
132.
133.
Even when he wanted to assert himself he could not,
for his drinking placed
him constantly in the wrong.
134.
Two: Your husband is showing lack of control, for he is unable to
stay on the water wagon even when he wants to.
135.
Even when our fortunes had
not ebbed that much and we nevertheless found ourselves alone in the world, we still vainly tried to be secure by some unhealthy kind of domination or dependence.
136.
137.
138.
Even when we have tried hard and failed, we may chalk that up as one of the greatest credits of all.
139.
Even when we were well reestablished in our business, these terrible fears often continued to haunt us.
140.
141.
142.
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.
143.
144.
145.
"But," he asked, "will you let me join your group? Since I am the victim of
another addiction even worse stigmatized than alcoholism, you may not want
me among you. Or will you?"
146.
147.
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.
148.
No matter who you are, no matter how low you've gone, no matter how grave your emotional complications -- even your
crimes -- we still can't deny you A.A.
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