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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 the doctor's judgment
he was utterly hopeless;
he could never regain his position in society and he
would have to place himself
under lock and key or hire a bodyguard if he expected
to live long.
2.
3.
When our friend related his
experience, the man agreed that no amount of will power he might muster could stop his drinking for long.
4.
5.
6.
Not long after the man with the double stigma knocked for admission, A.A.'s other group received into its membership a salesman we
shall call Ed.
7.
This may hang on for months,
long after their mother has accepted dad's new way
of living and thinking.
8.
Not long afterward he had
called me from Hartford on
two successive days, so drunk he could hardly speak.
9.
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.
10.
11.
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.
12.
But long ago, trustees and staff members alike found they could do no more than make suggestions, and very mild ones at that.
13.
14.
The unselfishness of these men as we have come to know them, the entire absence of profit motive, and their community
spirit, is indeed inspiring to one who has labored long and wearily in this alcoholic
field.
15.
Can he talk frankly with you
so long as he does not bear business tales or criticize his associates?
16.
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.
17.
18.
I know, in my own particular case, that nothing my company could have
done would have stopped me
for, so long as I was able to hold my position, I could not
possibly realize how serious my situation was.
19.
Most of us must admit that we
have loved but a few; that we
have been quite indifferent to the many so
long as none of them gave us trouble; and as for the
remainder -- well, we have
really disliked or hated them.
20.
Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will be prejudiced for as long as
some of us were.
21.
22.
The wording was, of course,
quite optional so long as we expressed the idea, voicing it without reservation.
23.
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.
As long as we placed self-reliance first, a genuine reliance upon a Higher Power was out of the question.
26.
And we will be comforted
and assured that our own destiny in that realm will be secure for so long as we try, however falteringly, to find and do
the will of our own Creator.
27.
For just so long as we were convinced that we could live
exclusively by our own individual strength and
intelligence, for just
that long was a working faith in a Higher Power impossible.
28.
29.
They should have been weaned long before, and if they have not
been, they should wake up to the
fact.
30.
31.
32.
33.
Because of the employee's
special ability, or of his
own strong personal attachment to
him, the employer has sometimes kept such a man at work long beyond a reasonable period.
34.
35.
36.
37.
Show any longshoreman a Sunday supplement describing a
proposal to explore the
moon by means of a rocket and he will say, "I bet they do it -- maybe not so long either."
38.
The prospective partners need to be solid A.A.'s and long enough acquainted to know that their
compatibility at spiritual, mental, and emotional levels is a fact and not wishful thinking.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
Until we actually sit down and talk aloud about what we have so
long hidden, our willingness to clean house is still largely theoretical.
46.
You have been starving for his companionship, yet he spends long hours helping other men and their families.
47.
48.
There my drinking became
so much worse that the boys in the fraternity house where I lived felt forced to send for my father, who made a long journey in the vain endeavor to get me straightened around.
49.
50.
Then, as year by year we walk back through our lives as far as memory will reach, we shall be bound to construct a long list of people who have, to some
extent or other, been affected.
51.
To get completely away from our aversion to the
idea of being humble, to gain a vision of humility as the avenue to true freedom of the human spirit, to be willing to work for humility as something to be desired for
itself, takes most of us a
long, long time.
52.
53.
54.
55.
We have heard of a few instances where people, who
showed definite signs of alcoholism, were able to stop for a long period because of an overpowering desire to do
so.
56.
57.
58.
Then he fell victim to a belief which practically
every alcoholic has --
that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified
him to drink as other men.
59.
60.
It was only at the end of a long
road, marked by successive defeats and humiliations, and the final crushing of our self-sufficiency, that we began to feel humility as something more than a condition of groveling despair.
61.
This is the experience which has led us to the conclusion that
our group conscience, well-advised by its elders, will be in the long run wiser than any single leader.
62.
There was a long silence.
63.
64.
The consideration of long-standing difficulties had better
be postponed, when possible, to times deliberately set aside for that purpose.
65.
Most of us have believed that if we remained sober for a long stretch, we could thereafter drink normally.
66.
67.
We had long talks when I would
still her forebodings by
telling her that men of genius conceived their best projects when drunk; that the most majestic
constructions of philosophic thought were
so derived.
68.
69.
70.
To get completely away from our aversion to the
idea of being humble, to gain a vision of humility as the avenue to true freedom of the human spirit, to be willing to work for humility as something to be desired for
itself, takes most of us a
long, long time.
71.
72.
73.
74.
To be gravely affected,
one does not necessarily
have to drink a long time nor take
the quantities some of us have.
75.
We doctors have realized
for a long time that some form of moral psychology was of urgent importance to alcoholics, but its application presented
difficulties beyond
our conception.
76.
77.
78.
79.
For just so long as we were convinced that we could live
exclusively by our own individual strength and
intelligence, for just
that long was a working faith in a Higher Power impossible.
80.
He was interested and conceded that he had some of the symptoms, but he was a long way from admitting that he
could do nothing about it himself.
81.
But he is yet a long way from making good to the wife or parents whom for years he has
so shockingly treated.
82.
He goes on to explain that any person capable of enough willingness and honesty
to try repeatedly Step Six on all his faults -- without any reservations whatever -- has indeed come a long way spiritually, and is therefore entitled to be
called a man who is sincerely trying to grow in the image and likeness of his own Creator.
83.
Before long, your listener may well tell a story or two about himself which will place you even more at ease.
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