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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.
But not so with the alcoholic illness, for with it there goes
annihilation of all the things worth while in life.
4.
5.
He was positive that this humiliating experience, plus the knowledge he had acquired,
would keep him sober the rest of his life.
6.
Once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence,
they show the underlying
reasons why they were making heavy going of life.
7.
8.
9.
Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Henry Ford once made a wise remark to the effect that experience is
the thing of supreme value in life.
16.
At the very beginning, the
couple ought to frankly face the fact that each will have to yield here and there if the family is
going to play an effective part in the new life.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
In addition to these casual get-togethers, it became customary to set apart one night a week for a meeting to be attended by anyone or everyone interested in a spiritual way of life.
22.
23.
24.
Many people, nonalcoholics, report
that as a result of the practice of A.A.'s Twelve Steps, they have been able to meet other difficulties of
life.
25.
26.
27.
"As material success founded upon no more than these ordinary attributes began to come to us, we felt we were winning at the game of life.
28.
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.
29.
30.
But all who are in the least reasonable will agree upon one point: that there is plenty wrong with us alcoholics about which plenty will have to be done if we are to expect sobriety, progress, and any real ability to cope with life.
31.
To him, this proposition will be no theory at all; it will be just about the largest fact in his life.
32.
Here their powerful instinct to live can cooperate fully with their Creator's desire to give them new life.
33.
34.
Nor do we enter into debate with the many who still so passionately cling to the belief that to satisfy our basic natural desires is the main object of life.
35.
Instead of regarding the
satisfaction of our material desires as the means by which we could live and
function as human beings, we had taken these satisfactions to be the final end and aim of life.
36.
37.
38.
But when they are logically related and interwoven,
the result is an unshakable foundation
for life.
39.
We have sometimes seen families broken apart by misunderstanding, tensions, or actual infidelity, who are reunited by the A.A. way of life.
40.
But also like others, we often discover a greater challenge in the lesser and
more continuous problems of life.
41.
42.
As to our grandiose behavior, we insisted that
we had been possessed of nothing but a high and legitimate ambition to win the battle of life.
43.
44.
Nearly every sound human being experiences, at some
time in life, a compelling desire to find a mate of the opposite sex with whom the fullest possible union can be made -- spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical.
45.
46.
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.
47.
48.
49.
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.
50.
51.
52.
To those now in its fold, Alcoholics Anonymous has
made the difference between misery and sobriety, and often the difference between life and death.
53.
54.
55.
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.
56.
As soon as we begin to feel confident in our new way of life and have begun, by our behavior and example, to convince those about us that
we are indeed changing for
the better, it is usually
safe to talk in complete frankness with those who have been seriously
affected, even those who may be only a little
or not at all aware of what we have done to them.
57.
He may not see at once that he
has barely scratched a limitless lode which will pay dividends only if he mines it
for the rest of his life and insists on giving away the entire product.
58.
59.
If I keep on turning my life and my will over to the care of Something or Somebody else, what will become of me?
60.
And so it is: the beginning of the end of his old life, and the beginning of his emergence into a new one.
61.
62.
63.
64.
Then perhaps life, as it has
a way of doing, suddenly hands us a great big lump that we can't begin to swallow, let alone digest.
65.
Though in some cases we
cannot make restitution
at all, and in some cases action ought to be deferred, we should nevertheless make an accurate and really exhaustive survey of our past life as it has affected other people.
66.
But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been
living it.
67.
There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it.
68.
When, however, the perfectly logical assumption is suggested that underneath the material
world and life as we see it, there is an All Powerful, Guiding, Creative Intelligence,
right there our perverse streak comes to the surface and we laboriously set out to convince ourselves it isn't so.
69.
70.
We, who have collectively seen a great deal of business life, at least from the alcoholic angle, had to smile at this gentleman's sincere opinion.
71.
Then he had, in effect, been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he had ever known!
72.
To a surprising extent,
A.A. has offset the damage to family life brought about by years of alcoholism.
73.
We have seen that we were prodded by unreasonable
fears or anxieties into making a life business of winning fame, money, and what we thought was leadership.
74.
75.
A.A.'s Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in
their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.
76.
Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay
sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy.
77.
78.
79.
Tradition One -- "Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity." Without unity, A.A. dies. Individual liberty, yet great unity. Key to paradox: each A.A.'s life depends on obedience to spiritual principles.
The group must survive or the individual
will not. Common welfare comes first. How best to live and work together as groups.
80.
81.
It mattered little whether we had sat on the shore of life drinking ourselves into forgetfulness or had plunged in recklessly and
willfully beyond our depth and ability.
82.
83.
84.
85.
And if these are facts of life
for the many alcoholics
who have recovered in A.A.,
they can become the facts of
life for many more.
86.
And if these are facts of life
for the many alcoholics
who have recovered in A.A.,
they can become the facts of
life for many more.
87.
Groups have tried to expel members, but the banished have come back to sit in the meeting place, saying, "This is life for us; you
can't keep us out."
88.
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.
89.
90.
And considering the rough deal life had given us, we felt it perfectly natural that we were sensitive.
91.
92.
93.
Never once in my life have I had a headache, which
fact leads me to believe that I was an alcoholic almost from the start.
94.
Looking back over his life, he can readily get under way by consideration of questions such as these:
95.
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.
96.
At first he goes along because he must, but later he discovers a way of life he really wants to live.
97.
98.
I have since been brought into a way of living infinitely more satisfying and, I hope, more useful than the life I lived before.
99.
Ask the polio sufferer confined to an iron lung who depends with complete trust upon a motor to keep the breath of life in him.
100.
We could not prove life in the
sense that you can prove a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, yet, there it was.
101.
Among many employers nowadays, we think of one member who has spent much of his life in the world of big business.
102.
103.
You, as well as your husband,
ought to think of what you can
put into life instead of how much you can take out.
104.
We cannot subscribe to the belief that this life is a vale of tears, though it once was just that for many of us.
105.
106.
107.
108.
Today's life is measured against that of other years and, when it falls short, the family may be unhappy.
109.
He has been set on a path which
tells him he is really going somewhere, that life is not a dead end, not something to be endured or mastered.
110.
111.
Of course the sponsor points out that our friend's life is still unmanageable even though he is sober, that after all, only a bare start on A.A.'s program has been made.
112.
113.
114.
Since recovery from alcoholism is life itself to us, it is imperative that we preserve in full strength our means of survival.
115.
116.
117.
118.
119.
120.
We have found nothing incompatible between a
powerful spiritual experience and a life of sane and happy usefulness.
121.
122.
Much of the political, economic, and religious
life of the world is dependent upon publicized leadership.
123.
124.
125.
Were our contentions true, it would follow that life originated out of nothing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere.
126.
127.
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.
128.
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?
129.
Isn't it true that in all matters touching upon alcohol, each of them has decided to turn his or her life over to the care, protection, and guidance
of Alcoholics Anonymous?
130.
So how, exactly, can the willing person continue to turn his will and his life over to the Higher Power?
131.
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.
132.
133.
134.
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.
135.
The first requirement is
that we be convinced that any life run
on self-will can hardly be a success.
136.
Showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worth while to us now.
137.
My whole life seemed to be centered around doing what I wanted to do, without regard for the rights, wishes, or privileges of anyone else; a state of mind which became more and more predominant as the years passed.
138.
139.
140.
He will appreciate knowing you are not bothering your head about him,
that you are not suspicious nor are you trying to run his life so he will be shielded from temptation to drink.
141.
But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all their life story.
142.
As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we
could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter.
143.
So we of A.A. do obey spiritual principles, first because we must, and ultimately because we love the kind of life such obedience brings.
144.
Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay
sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy.
145.
He may either plunge into a
frantic attempt to get on his feet in business, or he may be so enthralled by his new life that he talks or thinks of little else.
146.
I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, in a
way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes.
147.
It is nowhere evident, at
least in this life, that our Creator expects us fully to eliminate our instinctual drives.
148.
He may tell mother, who has
been religious all her life, that she doesn't know what it's
all about, and that she had better get his brand of spirituality while there
is yet time.
149.
He finally realizes that
he has undergone a profound alteration in
his reaction to life; that
such a change could hardly have been brought about
by himself alone.
150.
By now the newcomer has probably arrived at the following conclusions:
that his character defects, representing instincts gone astray, have been the primary
cause of his drinking and
his failure at life; that unless he is now willing to work hard at the elimination of
the worst of these defects,
both sobriety and peace of mind will still elude him; that all the faulty
foundation of his life will have to be torn out and built anew on bedrock.
151.
It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control
our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life, that we
were in full flight from reality, or were outright mental defectives.
152.
153.
154.
155.
For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he
could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead.
156.
If I am unable to change the
present state of affairs, am I willing to take the measures necessary to shape my life to conditions as they are?
157.
158.
As he gained confidence,
he felt it right to explain his new way of life to his employer and business associates.
159.
We do not tire so easily, for
we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did
when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.
160.
On the third day the lawyer gave his life to the care and direction of his Creator,
and said he was perfectly
willing to do anything necessary.
161.
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.
162.
When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
163.
For the wise have always known that no one can make much of his life until self-searching becomes a regular habit, until he is able to admit and accept what he finds, and until he patiently and persistently tries to correct what is wrong.
164.
We A.A.'s are active folk, enjoying the satisfactions of dealing with the realities
of life, usually for the first time in our lives, and strenuously trying to help the next alcoholic who comes along.
165.
We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from
which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of
our intolerable situation as best we could;
and the other, to accept spiritual help.
166.
My old manner of life was by no means a bad one, but I would not exchange its best moments for the worst I have now.
167.
168.
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.
169.
These fears are the termites that ceaselessly devour the foundations of whatever
sort of life we try to build.
170.
If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would
have recovered long ago.
171.
But am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring and glum, like some righteous people I see?
172.
Many a razor-edged question can arise in other departments of life where
this same principle is involved.
173.
174.
He will perceive that his spiritual growth is lopsided, that for an average man like himself, a spiritual life which does not
include his family obligations may not be so perfect after all.
175.
176.
Being somewhat weakened, and faced with physical and mental readjustment to a life
which knows no alcohol, he may overdo.
177.
178.
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.
179.
Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.
180.
181.
182.
By now the newcomer has probably arrived at the following conclusions:
that his character defects, representing instincts gone astray, have been the primary
cause of his drinking and
his failure at life; that unless he is now willing to work hard at the elimination of
the worst of these defects,
both sobriety and peace of mind will still elude him; that all the faulty
foundation of his life will have to be torn out and built anew on bedrock.
183.
184.
185.
186.
187.
188.
189.
Life would be wonderful.
190.
This is a condition which, in ordinary life, would produce untold grief; there might be scandalous gossip, laughter at the expense of
other people, and a tendency to take advantage of intimate information.
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