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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.
This hope, however, was destroyed by the doctor's telling him that while his religious convictions
were very good, in his case they did not spell the necessary vital spiritual experience.
2.
3.
This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has
been revealed to us out of bitter experience.
4.
One night, when confined in a hospital, he
was approached by an alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience.
5.
6.
7.
8.
That is our experience.
9.
10.
Your husband will be the first to say it was your devotion and care which brought him to the point where
he could have a spiritual experience.
11.
12.
13.
Of far more importance was the fact that
he was the first living human with whom I had ever talked, who knew what he was talking about in regard to alcoholism from actual
experience.
14.
Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is
the essence of spiritual
experience.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
But when we had declared that our Fellowship couldn't hire service workers nor could any A.A. member carry our knowledge into other fields, we were taking the counsel of fear, fear which today has been largely dispelled in the light of
experience.
22.
23.
24.
One dramatic experience after another clinched this determination until it became our universal tradition.
25.
26.
This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
27.
We have found nothing incompatible between a
powerful spiritual
experience and a life of sane and happy usefulness.
28.
29.
30.
... experience" and
"spiritual awakening" are used many ...
BB
Appendix II, Spiritual Experience, p.567
The terms "spiritual experience" and "spiritual awakening" are used many times in this book which, upon careful reading, shows that the personality
change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms.
31.
The two friends spoke of their spiritual
experience and told him about
the course of action they carried out.
32.
I say this after many years' experience as Medical Director of one of the oldest hospitals in the country treating alcoholic and drug addiction.
33.
It was now time, the struggling groups thought, to place their message and unique experience before the world.
34.
35.
36.
Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does
not close his mind to all spiritual concepts.
37.
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.
38.
We A.A.'s cannot pretend to offer full answers to age-old perplexities, but our own experience does provide certain answers that work for us.
39.
Six months earlier, the broker had been
relieved of his drink obsession by a sudden spiritual experience, following a meeting with an
alcoholic friend who had
been in contact with the Oxford Groups of that day.
40.
With these we have had experience galore.
41.
42.
Experience has often warned us that nothing can so
surely destroy our spiritual heritage as futile disputes over property, money, and authority.
43.
Experience has often warned us that nothing can so
surely destroy our spiritual heritage as futile disputes over property, money, and authority.
44.
Many a man, yet dazed from his hospital experience, has stepped over the threshold of that home into freedom.
45.
46.
47.
Experience has taught us that
these are matters about which, for our purpose, we need not be worried.
48.
A.A. experience has taught us we cannot live alone with our pressing problems and the character
defects which cause or aggravate them.
49.
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?"
50.
A spiritual experience, he
conceded, was absolutely necessary,
but the price seemed high upon the basis suggested.
51.
Show him, from your own experience, how the queer mental condition surrounding that first drink prevents normal functioning of the
will power.
52.
Nevertheless, the infant Society determined to set down its experience in a book which finally reached the public in April 1939.
53.
54.
To certain newcomers and
to those one-time agnostics who still cling to the A.A. group as their higher power, claims for the power of prayer may, despite all the logic and experience in proof of it, still be unconvincing or quite objectionable.
55.
56.
The second printing of the
first edition added the appendix "Spiritual Experience"; in the
second edition, the appendices on A.A. Tradition, the "medical view" and "religious view" of A.A., the Lasker Award and information on how to contact A.A. were added, and the appendix on the
Alcoholic Foundation
was discontinued.
57.
Whenever our pencil falters, we can fortify and
cheer ourselves by remembering what A.A. experience in this Step has meant to others.
58.
The distinguished American psychologist,
William James, in his book "Varieties of Religious Experience," indicates a multitude of
ways in which men have discovered God.
59.
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.
60.
The elder statesman is the
one who sees the wisdom of the group's decision, who holds no resentment over his reduced status, whose judgment, fortified by considerable experience, is
sound, and who is willing to
sit quietly on the sidelines patiently awaiting developments.
61.
Henry Ford once made a wise remark to the effect that experience is the thing of supreme value in life.
62.
But while this was a humiliating experience, it
didn't necessarily mean
that we had yet acquired much actual humility.
63.
This experience may come to you.
64.
Yet if A.A.'s experience means anything at all, this is not only unwise, but is actually a perilous resolve.
65.
66.
Many of us also like the experience of an occasional retreat from
the outside world where we
can quiet down for an undisturbed day or so of self-overhaul and meditation.
67.
68.
69.
70.
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?
71.
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.
72.
73.
74.
Outsiders are sometimes shocked when we
burst into merriment over a seemingly tragic experience out of the past.
75.
He was positive that this humiliating experience, plus the knowledge he had acquired, would keep him sober the rest of his life.
76.
77.
To one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic such an experience seems impossible, but to continue as he is means disaster, especially if
he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety.
78.
Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.
79.
80.
81.
82.
83.
Each day, somewhere in the world, recovery begins when one alcoholic talks with another alcoholic, sharing experience, strength, and hope.
84.
In any meeting, anywhere, A.A.'s share experience, strength, and hope with each other, in order to stay sober and help other alcoholics.
85.
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.
86.
At last experience taught us that to take away any alcoholic's full chance was sometimes to pronounce his death sentence, and often to condemn him to endless misery.
87.
88.
It was out of this vast welter of explosive experience that A.A.'s Twelve Traditions took form and were first published in 1946 and later confirmed at A.A.'s First International Convention, held at Cleveland in 1950.
89.
It is A.A.'s experience that particularly in these cases we ought to pray that God's will, whatever it is, be done for others as well as for ourselves.
90.
We feel, after many years of experience, that we have found nothing which has contributed more to the rehabilitation of these men than the altruistic movement now growing up among them.
91.
But again we are driven on by
the inescapable conclusion which we draw from
A.A. experience, that we surely must try with a will, or else fall by the wayside.
92.
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.
93.
But out of this frightening and at first disrupting experience the conviction grew that A.A.'s had to hang together or die separately.
94.
95.
When our friend related his
experience, the man agreed that no amount of will power he might muster could stop his drinking for long.
96.
They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they
can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks -- drinks which they see others taking with impunity.
97.
98.
99.
100.
But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of
a spiritual experience,
this business of resentment is infinitely grave.
101.
102.
And as he came out the other side of that painful experience, this prayer was his expression
of what he could then see, feel,
and wish to become:
103.
(*) The work of present-day staff members has no counterpart among the job categories of commercial organizations. These A.A.'s
bring a wide range of business and professional experience to
their service at The General Service Office.
104.
Young people may be encouraged by this man's experience to think that they can stop, as he did, on their own will power.
105.
We cannot declare A.A. such a closed corporation that we keep our
knowledge and experience top secret.
106.
Should you wish them above all
else, and be willing to make use of our experience, we are sure they will come.
107.
Reminding ourselves
that we have decided to go to
any lengths to find a spiritual experience, we ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be.
108.
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.
109.
110.
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.
111.
The Tradition section of
this volume portrays in
some detail the experience
which finally produced
the Twelve Traditions
and so gave A.A. its present form, substance, and unity.
112.
This is the experience which has led us to the conclusion that
our group conscience, well-advised by its elders, will be in the long run wiser than any single leader.
113.
If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness
which only a spiritual experience will conquer.
114.
... experience with
A.A., said: "The alcoholics we ...
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.
115.
116.
To a person who has had experience with an alcoholic,
this may seem like tempting Providence, but
it isn't.
117.
118.
Convincing testimony
must surely come from medical men who have had experience with the
sufferings of our members and have witnessed
our return to health.
119.
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.
120.
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.
121.
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.
122.
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