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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.
In some circumstances we have gone out deliberately to get drunk, feeling ourselves justified by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy or the like.
2.
That is the emotional hangover, the direct result of yesterday's and sometimes today's excesses of negative emotion -- anger, fear, jealousy, and the like.
3.
This much could be a fragment of what is called meditation, perhaps our very first attempt at a mood, a flier into the realm of spirit, if you like.
4.
5.
Out of this alloy of drink and speculation, I commenced to forge the weapon that one day would turn in its flight like a boomerang and all but cut me to ribbons.
6.
7.
Why is it, they ask, that in A.A. no member
can be set in personal authority over another, that nothing like a central government can anywhere
be seen?
8.
9.
10.
If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the right-about-face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to
him.
11.
12.
13.
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.
14.
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.
15.
16.
I put on thirty pounds of weight in about two months, looked like a pig, and was uncomfortable
from shortness of breath.
17.
This reopening of emotional wounds, some old, some perhaps forgotten, and some still painfully festering, will at first look like a purposeless and pointless piece of surgery.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
But just like all other societies, we do have
sex and marital problems, and sometimes
they are distressingly acute.
26.
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.
27.
Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way.
28.
29.
This seemed to me like an opportunity to be helpful, so I spent two hours talking about alcoholism,
the malady, and described
the symptoms and results
as well as I could.
30.
Maybe this all sounds mysterious and remote, something like Einstein's theory of relativity or a proposition in nuclear physics.
31.
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.
32.
Hardly an alcoholic we approached paid any attention; most of those who did join us were like flickering candles in a windstorm.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
You need this information
to put yourself in his place, to see how you would like him to approach you if the tables were turned.
38.
If not irritable, he may seem dull and boring, not gay and affectionate as the family would like him to be.
39.
He and all like him who "view
with alarm for the good of A.A." meet the most stubborn resistance or,
worse still, laughter.
40.
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.
41.
42.
But point out that we alcoholics have much in common and that you would like,
in any case, to be friendly.
43.
When we had taken the opposite tack and had insisted, like infants ourselves, that people protect and take care of us or that the world owed us a living, then the result had
been equally unfortunate.
44.
We still like it.
45.
46.
We'd form groups of depressive and paranoid
folks; the deeper the neurosis, the better we'd
like it.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
Our stories disclose in a
general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like
now.
54.
55.
56.
Before we leveled off a bit, A.A. looked more like one prodigious squabble than
anything else, at least on the surface.
57.
58.
We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for
months or years, he reacts much like other men.
59.
Neither does there appear
to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men.
60.
Our loyalty and the desire
that our husbands hold up their heads and be like other men
have begotten all sorts of
predicaments.
61.
If these thoughts occur,
they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people.
62.
Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been
characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
But also like others, we often discover a greater challenge in the lesser and
more continuous problems of life.
68.
We women carry with us a picture of the ideal man, the sort of chap we would like our husbands to be.
69.
70.
71.
Though we did not like their
symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
79.
They grinned, which I didn't like so much, and then asked me if I thought myself alcoholic and if I
were really licked this time.
80.
Like so much of A.A.'s basic text, those words have proved to be far more visionary than the founding members could ever have imagined.
81.
You may not like some of them.
82.
But am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring and glum, like some righteous people I see?
83.
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.
84.
To a person who has had experience with an alcoholic, this may seem like tempting Providence, but it isn't.
85.
Drinkers are like that.
86.
With us it is just like that.
87.
In fairness we must say that she may understand,
but what are we going to do about a thing like that?
88.
89.
90.
91.
Then came the inevitable
explosion -- something
like that day the boiler burst in Wombley's Clapboard Factory.
92.
If you have a drinking problem, we hope that you may pause in reading one of the forty-two personal stories and think: "Yes, that happened to me"; or,
more important, "Yes, I've felt like that"; or, most important,
"Yes, I believe this program can work for me too."
93.
Well, meditation is like that, too; it helps to envision our spiritual objective before we try to move toward it.
94.
Compared to this prospect, the ten thousand dollars under consideration
wasn't much, but like the alcoholic's first drink it would, if taken, inevitably set up a disastrous chain reaction.
95.
96.
97.
Many of us also like the experience of an occasional retreat from
the outside world where we
can quiet down for an undisturbed day or so of self-overhaul and meditation.
98.
99.
100.
His only chance for sobriety would be some place
like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything!
101.
102.
I didn't like the idea.
103.
While grateful that he drinks no more, they may not like the idea that God has accomplished the miracle
where they failed.
104.
105.
We saw that the group, exactly like the individual, must eventually conform to whatever tested principles would guarantee survival.
106.
Practicing Step Three is like the opening of a door which to all
appearances is still closed and locked.
107.
We are like the passengers
of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when
camaraderie, joyousness and democracy
pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain's table.
108.
They sound like the philosophy of the man who,
having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can't feel the
ache.
109.
110.
He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the twentieth century; politicians and reformers who are sure all
would be Utopia if the rest of
the world would only behave;
the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and
the alcoholic who has lost
all and is locked up.
111.
XII. The Conference shall observe the spirit of A.A. tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority
over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion,
vote, and, whenever possible, by substantial
unanimity; that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that
it never perform acts of government, and that,
like the Society it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and
action.
112.
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.
113.
Though we did not like their
symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too.
114.
But today, in well-matured A.A.'s, these distorted drives have been
restored to something
like their true purpose and direction.
115.
It is no exaggeration to
say that half of A.A.'s membership has been led to us through channels like these.
116.
Surveying his business
or employment record, almost any alcoholic can ask questions like these: In addition to my drinking problem, what character defects contributed to my
financial instability?
117.
Questions like these, more of which will come to mind easily in each individual case, will help turn up the root causes.
118.
119.
120.
121.
122.
123.
When, by such simple devices, we have placed ourselves in a mood in which
we can focus undisturbed
on constructive imagination, we might proceed like this:
124.
125.
126.
Men have cried out to me in sincere and despairing appeal: "Doctor, I cannot go on like this! I have everything to
live for! I must stop, but I cannot! You must help me!"
127.
Questioning directed
to this end might run like this: Looking at both past and present, what sex situations have caused me
anxiety, bitterness, frustration, or depression?
128.
When ready, we say something like this: "My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad.
129.
130.
Straightway he appeared at New York's A.A. headquarters, asking, "Is
there anything in our tradition that suggests I
shouldn't take a job like this one?
131.
When others showed us that
"God-sufficiency" worked with them, we began to feel like those who had insisted the Wrights would never fly.
132.
Just would he like to?
133.
134.
135.
136.
137.
Who, for example, doesn't like to feel just a little superior to the next fellow, or even quite a lot superior?
138.
139.
140.
You might say you appreciate his abilities, would like to keep him, but cannot if he continues to drink.
141.
142.
143.
Perhaps we had been leaning too heavily on Reason that last mile and we did not like to lose our support.
144.
145.
Seldom did we look at character-building as something desirable in itself, something we would
like to strive for whether our instinctual
needs were met or not.
146.
It will become more and more evident as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry, or to get hurt by people who, like us, are suffering from the
pains of growing up.
147.
We won't be biased or scared
off by that fact, because although he was not an alcoholic he did, like us, go through the emotional wringer.
148.
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.
149.
Like us, they had suddenly
found themselves saved from death, but still floating upon a perilous sea.
150.
We have come to believe He
would like us to keep our heads in the clouds with Him,
but that our feet ought to be
firmly planted on earth.
151.
Our stories disclose in a
general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like
now.
152.
153.
154.
155.
156.
157.
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