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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.
2.
3.
Among us are wives, relatives and friends whose problem has been solved, as well as some who have
not yet found a happy solution.
4.
5.
6.
And they have increasingly found a peace of mind which can stand firm in the face of difficult circumstances.
7.
We have been talking about problems because we are problem people who have found a way up and
out, and who wish to share our knowledge of that
way with all who can use it.
8.
9.
We can be the ones who take on
the unspectacular but important tasks that make good Twelfth Step work possible, perhaps arranging for the
coffee and cake after the meetings, where so
many skeptical, suspicious newcomers
have found confidence and
comfort in the laughter
and talk.
10.
The persistent use of meditation and prayer, we
found, did open the channel so that where there had been a trickle, there now was a river which led to sure power and safe guidance from God as we were increasingly
better able to understand Him.
11.
I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch.
12.
Some of the recommendations of A.A.'s early medical and religious friends will be found further on in this book.
13.
14.
15.
16.
When opportunities to be helpful came along, he found he could talk easily about A.A. to almost anyone.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
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.
23.
And then he discovers that by the divine paradox of this kind of giving he has found his own reward, whether his brother has yet received anything or not.
24.
25.
26.
27.
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.
28.
29.
30.
31.
In charting this enormous expanse of freedom, we found it necessary to post only two storm signals: A group ought not do anything which
would greatly injure A.A. as a whole, nor ought it affiliate itself with anything or anybody else.
32.
At least I've found it so.
33.
Highly competent psychiatrists who have dealt with us have found it sometimes impossible to
persuade an alcoholic
to discuss his situation
without reserve.
34.
We found it very desirable to take this spiritual step with an understanding person, such as our wife, best friend, or spiritual adviser.
35.
Sometimes A.A. comes harder to those who have lost or rejected faith than to those who never had any faith at all, for they think they have tried faith and found it wanting.
36.
It was fortunate, for my old
business associates remained skeptical for a
year and a half, during which I found little work.
37.
Arriving home, I found Lois cooking as usual, while three drunks looked hungrily on from the kitchen
door.
38.
39.
40.
41.
That the man who is making the
approach has had the same difficulty, that he obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole
deportment shouts at the
new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, that he has no attitude of Holier Than Thou, nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there are no fees to pay, no
axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured --
these are the conditions we have found most effective.
42.
We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of
which we had not even dreamed.
43.
Yet it is our great hope that all those who have as yet found no answer may begin to find one in the pages of this book and will presently join us on the high road to a new freedom.
44.
45.
We have found nothing incompatible between a
powerful spiritual experience and a life of sane and happy usefulness.
46.
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.
47.
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.
48.
49.
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.
50.
Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, we often found ourselves handicapped
by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice.
51.
Yet, in other moments, we found ourselves thinking, when
enchanted by a starlit
night, "Who, then, made all
this?"
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
Our Twelfth Step also says that as a result of practicing all
the Steps, we have each found something called a spiritual awakening.
57.
58.
In the face of collapse and
despair, in the face of the
total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them.
59.
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.
60.
We found that dependence
upon His perfect justice, forgiveness, and
love was healthy, and that it
would work where nothing else would.
61.
62.
63.
Every A.A. has found that he can make little headway in this new adventure of living until he first backtracks and really makes an accurate and unsparing survey of the human wreckage he has left in his wake.
64.
We found that it is fatal.
65.
66.
We wives found that, like everybody else, we were afflicted with
pride, self-pity, vanity and all the things which go to make up the self-centered person; and we were not above selfishness or dishonesty.
67.
In most cases it was found that
our self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships (including sex) were hurt or threatened.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
Without a searching and
fearless moral inventory, most of us have found that the faith which really works in daily living is still out of reach.
73.
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.
74.
75.
76.
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.
77.
78.
Step One showed us an amazing paradox: We found that we were
totally unable to be rid of the alcohol obsession until we first admitted that we were powerless over it.
79.
This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day.
80.
But as time passed we found that with the help of A.A.'s Twelve Steps we could lose those fears, no matter what our material prospects were.
81.
82.
83.
84.
85.
Had they been left to themselves, and had they stuck to their one goal, they might have found the rest of the answer.
86.
87.
Having found the shoes that fit, he ought to step into them and walk with new confidence that he is at
last on the right track.
88.
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.
89.
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.
90.
Like us, they had suddenly
found themselves saved from death, but still floating upon a perilous sea.
91.
These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.
92.
But long ago, trustees and staff members alike found they could do no more than make suggestions, and very mild ones at that.
93.
94.
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.
95.
Though there may be justifiable exceptions, and though we
wish to lay down no rule
of any sort, we have often found this the best course to take.
96.
97.
New groups started up and it was found, to the astonishment of
everyone, that A.A.'s message could be transmitted in the mail as
well as by word of mouth.
98.
Nearly all A.A.'s have found, too, that unless they develop much more of this precious quality than may be required
just for sobriety, they still haven't much chance of becoming truly happy.
99.
We found, too, that we had been worshippers.
100.
... found under
the listing "A.A." or "Alcoholics ...
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.
101.
When, with God's help, we calmly accepted our lot, then we found we could live at peace with ourselves and show others who still suffered the same fears that they could get over them, too.
102.
103.
We supposed we had been serious about religious practices when, upon honest appraisal, we found we had been only superficial.
104.
105.
106.
The 164 and More™ Book, eBook, and Web Site
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Alcoholics Anonymous, the
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164 and More concordance.
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