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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 this statement he confirms what we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe -- that the body of the
alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What used to be the hunch or
the occasional inspiration gradually
becomes a working part of the mind.
6.
If he is not interested in your solution, if he expects you
to act only as a banker for his
financial difficulties or a nurse
for his sprees, you may have to drop him until he changes his mind.
7.
8.
But these scrapes can generally be charged, no matter how bad, to the abnormal action of alcohol on his mind.
9.
10.
The man in the bed was told of the acute poisoning from which he suffered, how it deteriorates the body of an
alcoholic and warps his
mind.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Time after time, my instructors held up to me the basic principle of all scientific progress: search and research, again and again, always with the open mind.
16.
17.
18.
If we lie or cheat, we deprive others not only of
their worldly goods, but of
their emotional security and peace of mind.
19.
Three years ago, when my head doctor, Silkworth, began to tell me of the idea of helping drunks by spirituality, I
thought it was crackpot
stuff, but I've changed my
mind.
20.
21.
22.
We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
23.
Doubtless you are curious to discover how and
why, in the face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless
condition of mind and body.
24.
25.
26.
This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom.
27.
Above all, he believed he
had acquired such a profound knowledge of the
inner workings of his mind and its hidden springs that relapse was unthinkable.
28.
He finds himself in possession of a degree of
honesty, tolerance, unselfishness, peace of
mind, and love of which he had
thought himself quite incapable.
29.
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.
30.
While we may be quite willing to reveal the very worst, we must be sure to remember that we cannot buy our
own peace of mind at the expense of others.
31.
The girl we wanted to marry had other notions; we prayed God that she'd change her mind, but she didn't.
32.
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.
33.
34.
Questions like these, more of which will come to mind easily in each individual case, will help turn up the root causes.
35.
The doctor said: "You have the
mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover, where that state of
mind existed to the extent that it does in you."
36.
Yet no alcoholic, soberly analyzing his destructive behavior, whether the destruction
fell on the dining-room furniture or his own moral fiber, can claim "soundness of mind" for himself.
37.
38.
39.
In Step Eleven we saw that if a Higher Power had restored us to sanity and had enabled us to
live with some peace of mind in a sorely troubled world, then such a Higher Power was worth knowing better, by as direct contact as possible.
40.
One instance comes to mind in which a malicious individual was
always making friendly little jokes about an alcoholic's drinking exploits.
41.
42.
Why don't you try some more controlled drinking, bearing in mind meanwhile what we have told you about alcoholism?"
43.
The doctor said: "You have the
mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover, where that state of
mind existed to the extent that it does in you."
44.
45.
It was then discovered that when one alcoholic had planted in the mind of another the true nature of his malady, that person could never be the same again.
46.
These are some of the questions which race through the mind of every woman who has an alcoholic husband.
47.
48.
I could go for such conceptions as Creative
Intelligence, Universal Mind or Spirit of Nature but I resisted the thought of a Czar of the Heavens, however loving His sway might be.
49.
50.
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.
51.
52.
This went from bad to worse until sophomore spring when, after a prolonged period of drinking, I made up my mind that I could not complete my
course, so I packed my grip and went South to spend a month on a large farm owned by a friend of mine.
53.
"Suddenly the thought crossed my mind that if I were
to put an ounce of whiskey in my milk it couldn't
hurt me on a full stomach.
54.
As I crossed the threshold of the dining room, the thought came to mind that it would be nice to have a couple of cocktails with dinner.
55.
He made up his mind that until he had been successful in business
and had retired, he would not touch another drop.
56.
As to two of you men, whose stories I have heard, there is no doubt in my mind that you were 100% hopeless, apart from divine help.
57.
58.
I now remembered what my alcoholic friends had told me, how they prophesied
that if I had an alcoholic mind, the time and place would come -- I would drink again.
59.
An alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic mind; there is something the matter with
his spiritual status.
60.
After all his pleas for help had been rebuffed, these
words rang in his fevered mind: "They have deserted me. I have been deserted by my own kind. This is the end ... nothing is left."
61.
Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can
recover, provided he does
not close his mind to all spiritual concepts.
62.
The almost certain consequences that follow
taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us.
63.
But the moment I made up my mind to go
through with the process,
I had the curious feeling
that my alcoholic condition was relieved, as
in fact it proved to be.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
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.
71.
72.
And they have increasingly found a peace of mind which can stand firm in the face of difficult circumstances.
73.
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.
74.
The question which might naturally come into your mind would be: "what did the man do or
say that was different from
what others had done or said?"
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Alcoholics Anonymous, the
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