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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.
So these desires -- for the sex relation, for material and emotional security, and for companionship -- are perfectly necessary and
right, and surely God-given.
3.
4.
Then it is explained that other Steps of the A.A. program can be practiced with success only
when Step Three is given a determined and persistent trial.
5.
6.
7.
8.
They often jeopardize
their own positions by trying to help serious drinkers who should
have been fired long ago, or else given an opportunity to get well.
9.
We remembered always
that our sex powers were God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed.
10.
11.
Speaking at a dinner given by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to introduce Alcoholics Anonymous to some of his friends, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick remarked:
12.
In the next years alcoholics flocked to A.A. by tens of thousands, largely as the
result of excellent and
continuous publicity
freely given by magazines and newspapers
throughout the world.
13.
14.
15.
Showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worth while to us now.
16.
(*) 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.
17.
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.
18.
19.
Pride lures us into making demands upon ourselves or upon others which cannot be met without perverting or misusing
our God-given instincts.
20.
While I lay in the hospital the thought came that there were thousands
of hopeless alcoholics
who might be glad to have what had been so freely given me.
21.
I fancied myself a leader, for had not the men of my
battery given me a special token of appreciation?
22.
Having carefully surveyed this whole area of human relations, and having decided exactly what personality traits in us
injured and disturbed others, we can now commence to ransack memory for the people to whom
we have given offense.
23.
At the time of these occurrences, they may actually have given our emotions violent twists which have since discolored our personalities and altered our lives for the worse.
24.
We have learned that whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions.
25.
But all of them do require a complete willingness to
make amends as fast and as far as may be possible in a given set of conditions.
26.
27.
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.
28.
Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in
the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God's sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that
we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God's scheme of things -- these are
the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes.
29.
This meant, of course, that
we had been given the courage
to declare each A.A. group an individual entity, strictly reliant on its own conscience as a guide to action.
30.
We ask simply that throughout the day God place in us the best understanding of His
will that we can have for that day, and that we be given the grace by which we may carry it out.
31.
32.
It is not by chance we were given the power to reason, to examine the evidence of our senses, and
to draw conclusions.
33.
New acquaintances who know nothing of alcoholism might be made and
thoughtful considerations given
their needs.
34.
35.
36.
In no deep or meaningful sense had we ever taken stock of ourselves, made amends to those we had harmed, or freely given to any other human being without any demand for reward.
37.
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?"
38.
39.
40.
41.
And considering the rough deal life had given us, we felt it perfectly natural that we were sensitive.
42.
We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part.
43.
We usually conclude the
period of meditation
with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems.
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
affiliation with or endorsement by either Alcoholics Anonymous World Services
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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