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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.
Though he could not accept
all the tenets of the Oxford
Groups, he was convinced
of the need for moral inventory, confession of
personality defects,
restitution to those harmed, helpfulness to others, and the necessity of
belief in and dependence
upon God.
2.
In the fall of 1939 Fulton Oursler, then editor of Liberty, printed a piece in his magazine, called "Alcoholics and God."
3.
4.
5.
6.
The distinguished American psychologist,
William James, in his book "Varieties of Religious Experience,"
indicates a multitude
of ways in which men have discovered God.
7.
Each individual, in the personal stories, describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God.
8.
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.
11.
12.
When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God.
13.
Actually we were fooling
ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental
idea of God.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
They trust their God.
20.
21.
22.
If the man be agnostic or atheist, make it emphatic that he does not have to agree with your conception
of God.
23.
The minute we put our work on a service plane, the alcoholic commences to rely upon our assistance rather than upon God.
24.
Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: Job or no job --
wife or no wife -- we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.
25.
26.
Time after time, this apparent calamity has been a boon to us,
for it opened up a path which led to the discovery of God.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
Relieved of the alcohol
obsession, their lives unaccountably transformed, they came to believe in a Higher Power, and most of them began to
talk of God."
35.
Religion says the existence of God can be proved; the agnostic says it can't be proved; and the
atheist claims proof of the nonexistence
of God.
36.
How we loved to shout the damaging fact that millions of the 'good men of religion' were still killing one another off in the name of God.
37.
38.
39.
When we are honest with another person, it confirms that we have been honest with ourselves and
with God.
40.
It is worth noting that people of very high spiritual development almost always insist on checking with friends or spiritual advisers the guidance they feel they have received from God.
41.
Many an A.A., once agnostic or atheistic, tells us that it
was during this stage of Step Five that he first actually felt the presence of God.
42.
43.
44.
So the difference between "the boys and the men" is the difference between striving for a self-determined objective and for the perfect objective which is
of God.
45.
46.
During this process of learning more about humility, the most profound
result of all was the change
in our attitude toward
God.
47.
We now clearly see that we have been making unreasonable demands upon ourselves, upon others, and upon God.
48.
The Seventh Step is where we
make the change in our attitude which permits us,
with humility as our guide,
to move out from ourselves toward others and toward God.
49.
50.
51.
We well remember how something deep inside us kept rebelling against the idea of bowing before any God.
52.
53.
Almost any experienced A.A. will tell how his affairs have taken remarkable and unexpected turns for the better as he tried to improve his conscious contact with God.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
We'd have to have outside help if we were surely to know and admit the truth about ourselves -- the
help of God and another human being.
62.
We knew we would have to quit
the deadly business of living alone with our conflicts, and in honesty
confide these to God and another human being.
63.
From great numbers of such experiences, we could
predict that the doubter
who still claimed that he
hadn't got the "spiritual angle," and who still considered his well-loved A.A. group the higher power, would presently love God and call Him by name.
64.
65.
66.
Either we had tried to play God and dominate those about us, or we
had insisted on being overdependent upon them.
67.
68.
Of course, it is reasonable and understandable that the question is often asked: "Why can't we take a specific and troubling dilemma straight to God, and in prayer secure from Him sure and definite answers to our requests?"
69.
70.
This is our gift from God, and
its bestowal upon others like us is the one aim that today animates A.A.'s all around the globe.
71.
72.
This feeling of being at one with God and man, this emerging from isolation through the open and honest sharing of our terrible burden of guilt, brings us to a resting place where we may prepare ourselves for the following Steps toward a full and meaningful sobriety.
73.
74.
As an insurance against
"big-shot-ism" we can often check ourselves by remembering that we are today sober only by the grace of God and that any success we may be having is
far more His success than ours.
75.
76.
77.
Two -- For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
78.
2. For our group purpose
there is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience.
79.
Tradition Two -- "For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders
are but trusted servants;
they do not govern."
80.
81.
"For our group purpose there
is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders
are but trusted servants;
they do not govern."
82.
These practical folk then
read Tradition Two, and learn that the sole authority in A.A. is a loving God as He may express Himself in the group conscience.
83.
Two -- For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience.
84.
85.
But when I became willing
to clean house and then asked a Higher Power, God as I understood Him, to give me release, my obsession to drink vanished.
86.
87.
88.
Can we now, with the help of
God as we understand Him,
handle them as well and as bravely as our nonalcoholic friends often do?
89.
90.
At the start, this was all we needed to commence spiritual growth, to effect our first conscious relation with
God as we understood Him.
91.
92.
Being convinced, we were
at Step Three, which is that we
decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him.
93.
Step Three -- "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him."
94.
95.
In fact, the effectiveness of the whole A.A. program will rest upon how well and earnestly we have tried to come to "a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."
96.
Consequently, in Step Three we turned our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
97.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our
conscious contact with
God as we understood Him,
praying only for knowledge of His will for us
and the power to carry that out.
98.
Step Eleven -- "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying
only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."
99.
"Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying
only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."
100.
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.
101.
102.
103.
104.
105.
106.
107.
To others, the word "God" brought up a particular idea of Him with which someone
had tried to impress them during childhood.
108.
109.
110.
Of course, the often disputed question of whether God can -- and will, under certain conditions -- remove defects of character will be answered with a prompt affirmative by almost any A.A. member.
111.
Religion says the existence of God can be proved; the agnostic says it can't be proved; and the
atheist claims proof of the nonexistence
of God.
112.
113.
As they are humbled by the terrific beating administered by alcohol,
the grace of God can enter them and expel their obsession.
114.
115.
116.
117.
118.
119.
Though it was not our intention to create such an impression, many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded
that in order to recover
they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming "God-consciousness" followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook.
120.
121.
(c) That God could and would if He were sought.
122.
The fact was we really hadn't
cleaned house so that the grace of God could enter us and expel the obsession.
123.
More often, though, we had met up with some major calamity, and to our way of thinking lost out because God deserted us.
124.
God didn't do it.
125.
126.
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."
127.
128.
129.
130.
God either is, or He isn't.
131.
Instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents, spearheads of God's ever advancing Creation, we agnostics and
atheists chose to believe that our human intelligence was the last
word, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and end of all.
132.
133.
Some of us won't believe in God, others can't, and still others who do believe that God exists have no faith whatever He will perform this miracle.
134.
We have seen A.A.'s ask with much earnestness and faith for
God's explicit guidance on matters ranging all the way from a shattering domestic or financial crisis to correcting a minor personal fault, like tardiness.
135.
136.
137.
138.
The A.A., or indeed any man, who tries to run his life rigidly by this kind of prayer, by this self-serving demand of God for replies, is a particularly disconcerting individual.
139.
Having so considered our day, not omitting to take due note
of things well done, and having searched our
hearts with neither fear nor favor, we can truly thank God for the blessings we have received
and sleep in good conscience.
140.
But his face falls when we speak of spiritual matters, especially when
we mention God, for we have
re-opened a subject which our man thought he had neatly evaded or entirely ignored.
141.
After making our review we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.
142.
143.
Under these conditions we
can employ our mental faculties with assurance,
for after all God gave us brains to use.
144.
So these desires -- for the sex relation, for material and emotional security, and for companionship -- are perfectly necessary and
right, and surely God-given.
145.
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.
146.
Pride lures us into making demands upon ourselves or upon others which cannot be met without perverting or misusing
our God-given instincts.
147.
148.
That is the spiritual climate in which A.A. was born, and by God's grace has nevertheless flourished.
149.
Our basic troubles are the
same as everyone else's, but when an honest effort is made "to practice these principles
in all our affairs," well-grounded A.A.'s seem to have the ability, by
God's grace, to take these troubles in stride and turn them into demonstrations of faith.
150.
In all times of emotional
disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done."
151.
God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, Courage to change the things we can, And wisdom to know the difference.
152.
But my friend sat before me, and he made the point-blank declaration that God had done for him what he could not do for himself.
153.
154.
155.
156.
Lacking both practice and humility, they
had deluded themselves
and were able to justify the
most arrant nonsense on
the ground that this was what God had told them.
157.
158.
He saw that he had to place the
outcome in God's hands or he would soon start drinking again, and all would be lost anyhow.
159.
Cling to the thought that,
in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you
have -- the key to life and happiness for others.
160.
When we look back, we realize that the things which
came to us when we put ourselves in God's hands were better than anything we could have planned.
161.
God has abundantly supplied this world with fine doctors, psychologists, and practitioners of various kinds.
162.
While grateful that he drinks no more, they may not like the idea that God has accomplished the miracle
where they failed.
163.
These very deviations created a vast process of trial and error which, under the grace of God, has brought us to where we stand today.
164.
So far as we know, it is nowhere on the record that
God has completely removed from any human being all his natural drives.
165.
166.
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.
167.
There will be those who have drifted into indifference, those filled with self-sufficiency who have cut themselves off, those who
have become prejudiced
against religion, and those who are downright defiant because God has failed to fulfill their demands.
168.
Sometimes it's because
God has not delivered us
the good things of life which we specified, as a
greedy child makes an impossible list for Santa Claus.
169.
170.
Try to remember that though God has wrought miracles among us, we should never belittle a good doctor or psychiatrist.
171.
Our friend's gorge rose as he bitterly cried out: "If there is a God, He certainly hasn't done anything for me!"
172.
No matter how much one wishes to try, exactly how can he turn his own will and his own life over
to the care of whatever
God he thinks there is?
173.
We had to have God's help.
174.
It is a step in the development of that kind of
humility that makes it possible for us to receive
God's help.
175.
All this should be very encouraging news for those who recoil from prayer because they don't believe in it, or because
they feel themselves cut off from God's help and direction.
176.
Do we lay the matter before our sponsor or spiritual adviser, earnestly asking God's help and guidance -- meanwhile resolving to do the right thing when it becomes clear, cost what it may?
177.
178.
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.
179.
Here we need only recognize that we did act or think badly, try to visualize how we might
have done better, and resolve with God's help to carry these lessons over into tomorrow, making, of course, any amends still neglected.
180.
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.
181.
The notion that we would still live our own lives, God helping a little now and then, began to evaporate.
182.
183.
When we developed still more, we discovered the best possible source of emotional stability to be God Himself.
184.
Without unity, the heart of A.A. would cease to beat; our world arteries would no longer carry the life-giving grace of God; His gift to us would be spent aimlessly.
185.
186.
Many of us said to our Maker, as we understood Him:
"God, I offer myself to Thee -- to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.
187.
But the God idea did.
188.
189.
He may demand that the family find God in a hurry, or exhibit amazing indifference to them and say
he is above worldly considerations.
190.
Judging from what I had seen
in Europe and since, the power of God in human affairs was negligible, the Brotherhood of Man a grim jest.
191.
This dream world has been replaced by a great sense of purpose, accompanied by a growing
consciousness of the power of God in our lives.
192.
To watch the eyes of men and women open with wonder as they move from darkness into light, to see their lives quickly fill with new purpose and meaning, to see whole families reassembled, to
see the alcoholic outcast received back into his community in full citizenship, and above all to watch these people awaken to the presence of a loving God in their lives -- these things are the substance of
what we receive as we carry
A.A.'s message to the next alcoholic.
193.
We had tried to bombard our
problems with it instead
of attempting to bring it
into agreement with God's
intention for us.
194.
195.
196.
197.
When we became alcoholics, crushed by a
self-imposed crisis we could not postpone
or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either
God is everything or else He is nothing.
198.
When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness
of the Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith.
199.
Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with
God, it is not probable that
we are going to be inspired
at all times.
200.
201.
Though we may at first be startled to realize that
God knows all about us, we are
apt to get used to that quite quickly.
202.
203.
204.
205.
206.
207.
208.
209.
210.
211.
212.
213.
No doubt the universe had a "first cause" of some sort, the God of the Atom, maybe, hot and cold by turns.
214.
I've prayed to God on hangover mornings and sworn that I'd never touch another drop but by nine o'clock I'd be boiled as an owl."
215.
Dad may feel that for years his drinking has placed him on the wrong side of every argument, but that now he has become a superior person with God on his side.
216.
Like all the remaining Steps, Step Three calls for affirmative action, for it
is only by action that we can cut away the self-will which has always blocked the entry of God -- or, if you like, a Higher Power -- into our lives.
217.
Some of us won't believe in God, others can't, and still others who do believe that God exists have no faith whatever He will perform this miracle.
218.
219.
We could actually have earnest religious beliefs which remained barren because we were still trying to play God ourselves.
220.
221.
The ability of each A.A. to identify himself with and bring recovery to the newcomer is
a gift from God... passing on this gift to others is our one aim.
222.
223.
When the thought was expressed that there might be a God personal to me this feeling was intensified.
224.
When they talked of a God personal to me, who was love,
superhuman strength
and direction, I became
irritated and my mind snapped shut against such a theory.
225.
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.
226.
Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility to establish and maintain the
new order of things, were the essential
requirements.
227.
228.
We all need the light of God's reality, the nourishment of His strength, and the atmosphere of His grace.
229.
230.
231.
232.
So Step Six -- "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character" -- is
A.A.'s way of stating the best possible attitude one can take in order to make a beginning on this lifetime
job.
233.
234.
So in a very complete and literal way, all A.A.'s have "become entirely ready" to have God remove the mania for alcohol from their lives.
235.
236.
How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way, and after the third or fourth, pounded on the bar and said to ourselves, "For God's sake, how did I ever get started again?"
237.
238.
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.
239.
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."
240.
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.
241.
This brave philosophy, wherein each man plays God, sounds good in the speaking, but it still has to meet the acid test: how well does it actually work?
242.
With the best of intentions, he tends to force his own will into all sorts of situations and problems
with the comfortable assurance that he is acting
under God's specific direction.
243.
244.
Cried Ed, "I can't stand this God stuff! It's a lot of malarkey for weak folks. This group doesn't need it, and I won't have it! To hell with it!"
245.
When others showed us that
"God-sufficiency" worked with them, we began to feel like those who had insisted the Wrights would never fly.
246.
If we are sorry for what we have done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson.
247.
How he does cherish the thought that man, risen so majestically from
a single cell in the primordial ooze, is the spearhead of evolution
and therefore the only god
that his universe knows!
248.
When we have finally admitted without reservation that we are powerless over alcohol, we are apt to breathe a great sigh of relief, saying, "Well, thank God that's over!
249.
The girl we wanted to marry had other notions; we prayed God that she'd change her mind, but she didn't.
250.
251.
We never thought of making honesty, tolerance, and true love of man and God the daily basis of living.
252.
253.
254.
255.
Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it
be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.
256.
257.
We read wordy books and indulge in windy arguments, thinking we believe this universe needs no God to explain it.
258.
We discover that we do receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order and on our
terms.
259.
If we have obtained permission, have consulted with others, asked God to help and the drastic step is indicated we must not shrink.
260.
261.
We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we
would cheerfully grant a
sick friend.
262.
263.
If we really depended upon God, we couldn't very well play God to our fellows nor would we feel the urge wholly to rely on human protection and care.
264.
265.
This requires action on
our part, which, when completed, will mean that we have admitted to
God, to ourselves, and to
another human being, the exact nature of our defects.
266.
Step Five -- "Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another
human being the exact nature of our wrongs."
267.
268.
It had been embarrassing enough when in confidence
we had admitted these things to God, to ourselves, and to another
human being.
269.
Then, in Step Seven, we humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings such as He
could or would under the conditions of the day we asked.
270.
271.
The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences(*) which have revolutionized our whole
attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe.
272.
273.
We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just
as much as the feeling we
have for a friend.
274.
275.
Maybe there are serious domestic or romantic difficulties, or perhaps
that boy we thought God was looking after becomes a military casualty.
276.
If we really depended upon God, we couldn't very well play God to our fellows nor would we feel the urge wholly to rely on human protection and care.
277.
278.
279.
When a job still looked like a mere means of getting money rather than an opportunity
for service, when the acquisition of money for financial independence
looked more important than a right dependence upon God, we were still the victims of unreasonable
fears.
280.
281.
282.
How many times have we heard well-intentioned people claim the guidance of God when it was all too plain that
they were sorely mistaken.
283.
Well, we surely have a chance if we switch from "two-stepping" to "twelve-stepping," if we are
willing to receive that grace of God which can sustain and strengthen us
in any catastrophe.
284.
285.
286.
287.
All of the Twelve Steps require sustained and personal exertion to conform to their principles and so, we trust,
to God's will.
288.
289.
290.
291.
292.
Such prayers, of course, are fundamentally good acts, but often they are based upon a supposition that we know
God's will for the person for whom we pray.
293.
294.
295.
296.
297.
298.
It seems plain that the grace of God will not enter to expel our destructive obsessions until we are willing to try this.
299.
Just saying it over and over will often enable us to clear a channel choked up with anger, fear, frustration, or misunderstanding, and permit us to return to the surest help of all -- our search for God's will, not our own, in the moment of stress.
300.
True humility and an open mind can lead us to faith, and every A.A. meeting is an assurance
that God will restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to Him.
301.
We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show
us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one.
302.
We urge you to try our program, for nothing will be so helpful to your husband as the radically changed attitude toward him which God will show you how to have.
303.
304.
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.
305.
At no time had we asked what God's will was for us; instead we had
been telling Him what it ought to be.
306.
307.
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.
308.
309.
They live today in the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous,
which -- God willing -- shall sustain us in unity for so long as He may need us.
310.
311.
When they drive us blindly,
or we willfully demand
that they supply us with more
satisfactions or pleasures than are possible or due us, that is the
point at which we depart from
the degree of perfection
that God wishes for us here on earth.
312.
Being wrecked in the same vessel, being restored and united under one God, with hearts and minds attuned to the welfare of others, the things which matter so much to some people no longer signify much to them.
313.
But its object is always the same: to improve our conscious contact with God, with His grace, wisdom, and love.
314.
315.
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