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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.
The exceptions are few.
2.
This has always been so obvious that only a very few A.A.'s have ever worked the Twelfth Step for a fee.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
It is important that we remain anonymous because we are too few, at present to handle the overwhelming number of personal appeals which may
result from this publication.
8.
Its foreword made this revealing statement: "It is important that we remain anonymous because we are
too few, at present, to handle the overwhelming
number of personal appeals which may result from
this publication.
9.
I knew everyone would buy a few bottles, or cases, of liquor as their exchequers
permitted, and that it would soon be gone.
10.
Save for a few brief moments of temptation the thought of
drink has never returned; and at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him.
11.
12.
The idea that we can be possessively loving of a
few, can ignore the many, and can continue to fear or hate anybody, has to be abandoned, if only a little
at a time.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
But a few did, and when these laid hold of A.A. principles with all the fervor with which the drowning seize life preservers, they almost invariably got well.
23.
They experienced a few distressing failures,
but in those cases they made an effort to bring the man's family into a spiritual way of living, thus relieving much worry and suffering.
24.
25.
26.
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.
27.
If he says yes, does he really mean it, or down inside does he think he is fooling you, and
that after rest and treatment he will be able to get away with a few drinks now and then?
28.
He came and got me home and to bed, gave me a few drinks that night, and one bottle of beer the next morning.
29.
I insisted that few drunks could ever get well on their own steam, but that in our groups we could do together
what we could not do separately.
30.
31.
32.
With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with
their own conception of a
Power greater than themselves.
33.
34.
To save whole areas from turmoil, small offices had to be set up, telephones installed,
and a few full-time secretaries hired.
35.
36.
But the ex-problem drinker who has found this solution, who is properly
armed with facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours.
37.
I soon discovered that a
couple of drinks would alleviate my gastric distress, at least for a few hours at a time, so it was not at all difficult for me to return
to my former excessive indulgence.
38.
Occasionally, I would yield to the morning craving, but if I did, it would be only a few hours before I would be quite unfit for work.
39.
Sometimes a small deal would net a few hundred dollars, and I would pay my bills at the bars and delicatessens.
40.
Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics
who have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to
face it.
41.
42.
43.
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.
44.
45.
46.
Cleveland's Plain Dealer articles about us ran that town's membership from a few into hundreds overnight.
47.
48.
Only a few knew of it at first but, within a short time, it was billboarded throughout
the entire company.
49.
50.
More sobriety brought about by the admission of alcoholism
and by attendance at a few
meetings is very good indeed, but it is bound to be a far cry from permanent sobriety and a contented,
useful life.
51.
When a few men in this city have found themselves, and have discovered the joy of helping others to face life again, there will be no stopping until everyone in that town has had his opportunity
to recover -- if he can and will.
52.
53.
What often takes place in a few months could seldom have been
accomplished by years
of self-discipline.
54.
55.
56.
After your man has gone along without drinking for a few months, you may be able to make use of his services with other employees who are giving you the alcoholic run-around -- provided, of course, they are
willing to have a third party in the picture.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
Therefore, it seems plain that few of us can quickly or easily become ready to aim at spiritual and moral perfection; we want to settle for only as much perfection as will get us by in life, according, of course, to our various and sundry ideas of what will get us by.
63.
64.
Nearly anyone could submit a good list of such defects as these, and few of us
would seriously think of
giving them up, at least until they cause us excessive misery.
65.
66.
Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that
this universe originated in a cipher and
aimlessly rushes nowhere.
67.
Silently and surely, electricity, that strange
energy so few people understand, meets our simplest daily needs, and our most desperate ones, too.
68.
We shall at once think of a few people who know all about our drinking, and who have been most affected by it.
69.
70.
The answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom.
71.
72.
73.
74.
If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles
we have been discussing.
75.
76.
On the other hand -- and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand
-- once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of
ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only
effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules.
77.
78.
79.
80.
Despite this certainty,
it is nevertheless true
that few subjects have been
the cause of more contention within our Fellowship than professionalism.
81.
After a few such experiences, often years before the onset of extreme difficulties, he
would return to us convinced.
82.
Most of us must admit that we
have loved but a few; that we
have been quite indifferent to the many so
long as none of them gave us trouble; and as for the
remainder -- well, we have
really disliked or hated them.
83.
84.
85.
86.
87.
88.
We do not like the thought
that the contents of a book
or the work of another alcoholic has accomplished in a few weeks that for which we struggled for years.
89.
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.
90.
91.
(*) Written in 1939, when
there were few women in A.A., this chapter assumes that the alcoholic
in the home is likely to be
the husband. But many of the
suggestions given here may be adapted to help the person who lives with a woman alcoholic -- whether she is
still drinking or is recovering in A.A. A further source of help is noted on page 121.
92.
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.
93.
There was, therefore, a sense of real satisfaction when I was asked to contribute a few words on a subject which is covered in
such masterly detail in these pages.
94.
95.
Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years.
96.
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.
97.
98.
Several of our crowd, men of thirty or less, had been drinking only a
few years, but they found themselves as helpless as those who had been
drinking twenty years.
99.
100.
101.
102.
103.
When the Washingtonians became temperance crusaders, within a very few years they had completely lost their effectiveness
in helping alcoholics.
104.
The 164 and More™ Book, eBook, and Web Site
are all CONCORDANCES which display passages from the Big Book
Alcoholics Anonymous, the
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