The 164 and More book is sold on this website at the Publisher List Price of $20.00 plus postage.
The book may also be sold by Intergroup/Central Offices or recovery book stores at List Price
or slightly higher. But beware of others that sell the book marked up 400% or more.
For the same money, you could buy 4 books and use 3 as sponsee gifts.
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.
Dr. W. W. Bauer, broadcasting under the auspices of The American Medical Association in 1946, over the NBC network, said, in part: "Alcoholics Anonymous are
no crusaders; not a temperance society.
2.
3.
4.
If there were no social instinct, if men cared nothing for the society of one another, there would be no society.
5.
Using his best judgment of what has been right and what has been wrong, he
might make a rough survey of his conduct with respect to his primary instincts for sex, security, and society.
6.
We have not once sought to be
one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society.
7.
The Washingtonian Society, a movement among alcoholics which started in Baltimore a century ago, almost discovered the answer to alcoholism.
8.
Why did we dare to say, contrary to the experience of society and government everywhere,
that we would neither punish nor deprive any A.A. of membership, that we must never compel anyone to pay anything, believe anything, or conform to anything?
9.
Because this book has become the basic text for our Society and has helped such large numbers of alcoholic men and women to recovery, there exists strong sentiment against any radical changes being made in it.
10.
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.
11.
Just resign from the debating society and quit bothering yourself with such deep questions as whether it was the hen or the egg that came first.
12.
As we lay aside these very human aspirations, we believe
that each of us takes part in the weaving of a protective mantle which covers our whole Society and under which we may grow and work in unity.
13.
He had also been greatly helped by the late Dr. William D. Silkworth, a New York specialist in alcoholism who is now accounted no less than a medical saint by A.A. members, and whose story of the early days of our Society appears in the next pages.
14.
While our literature has
preserved the integrity of the A.A. message, sweeping changes in society as a whole are reflected in new customs and practices within the Fellowship.
15.
But it is from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most.
16.
When the satisfaction of our instincts for sex, security, and society becomes the sole object of our lives, then pride steps in to justify our excesses.
17.
18.
So did a friend of mine who
was a one-time vice-president of the American Atheist Society, but he got through with room to spare."
19.
Our growth made it plain that we couldn't be a secret society, but it was equally plain that we couldn't
be a vaudeville circuit, either.
20.
By temperament, nearly
every one of us had been an irrepressible promoter, and the prospect
of a society composed almost entirely of promoters was frightening.
21.
When a society composed entirely of alcoholics says it's going to pay its bills, that's really news.
22.
After three years of trial and error in selecting the most
workable tenets upon which the Society could be based, and after a large amount of failure in getting alcoholics to recover, three successful groups emerged -- the first at Akron, the second at New York, and the third at Cleveland.
23.
Maybe the society could have survived the abolition controversy, but it didn't have a chance from the moment it determined to reform America's drinking habits.
24.
25.
Nevertheless, the infant Society determined to set down its experience in a book which finally reached the public in April 1939.
26.
Instead, the Washingtonians permitted politicians
and reformers, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, to use the
society for their own purposes.
27.
28.
Bill W., who along with Dr. Bob S. founded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, wrote the book to share 18 years of collective experience within the Fellowship on how A.A. members recover, and how our
society functions.
29.
It presents an explicit
view of the principles by
which A.A. members recover and by which their Society functions.
30.
31.
The section called "The Doctor's Opinion" has been kept intact, just as it was originally written in 1939 by the late Dr. William D. Silkworth, our
Society's great medical benefactor.
32.
33.
34.
Under these compulsions
of self-preservation, duty, and love, it is not strange that our Society has concluded that it has but one
high mission -- to carry the A.A. message to those who don't know there's a way out.
35.
36.
When told that our Society has
no president having authority to govern it, no treasurer who can compel the payment of any dues, no board of directors who can cast an erring member into outer darkness, when indeed no A.A. can give
another a directive and
enforce obedience, our
friends gasp and exclaim, "This simply can't
be. There must be an angle somewhere."
37.
The principle that we shall find no
enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole
Society has sprung and flowered.
38.
Therefore, every nation, in fact every form of society, has to be a government
administered by human
beings.
39.
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.
40.
II. The General Service Conference of A.A. has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of
our whole Society in its world affairs.
41.
... Society it
serves, it will always remain ...
BB
Appendix VII, Twelve Concepts (Short Form), p.575
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.
42.
Why, we thought, our Society of Alcoholics Anonymous might prove to be
the spearhead of a new spiritual advance!
43.
Every normal person wants, for example, to eat, to reproduce, to be somebody
in the society of his fellows.
44.
Therefore, no society of men and women ever had a more urgent need for continuous effectiveness and permanent unity.
45.
If there were no social instinct, if men cared nothing for the society of one another, there would be no society.
46.
When we take such personality traits as
these into shop, office, and
the society of our fellows,
they can do damage almost as
extensive as that we have caused at home.
47.
Following are excerpts
from the comments of doctors present at the annual meeting(*) of the Medical Society of the State of New York where a paper on A.A. was read:
48.
This dry spell lasted for about three weeks; then I went to Atlantic City to attend several days' meeting of a national society of which I was
a member.
49.
Our desires for sex, for material and emotional security, and for an important place in society often tyrannize us.
50.
Doesn't nearly every society on earth give authority to some of its members to impose obedience upon the rest and to punish or expel offenders?
51.
As we surveyed the wreck of
that movement, early A.A. members resolved to keep our Society out of public controversy.
52.
It was thought that no alcoholic man or woman could be excluded from
our Society; that our leaders
might serve but never govern; that each group was to be autonomous
and there was to be no professional class of therapy.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
In it alcoholism was described from the alcoholic's point of view, the spiritual ideas of the Society were codified for the first time in the Twelve Steps, and the application
of these Steps to the alcoholic's dilemma was made clear.
59.
So the hand of Providence
early gave us a sign that any alcoholic is a member of our
Society when he says so.
60.
Did anyone ever hear of a society which couldn't somehow discipline its members and enforce obedience to necessary rules and regulations?
61.
The fledgling society,
which had been nameless, now
began to be called Alcoholics Anonymous,
from the title of its own book.
62.
Here was something rare in the world -- a society which said it wished to publicize its principles and its work, but not its individual members.
63.
Could any then imagine a society which would include every conceivable kind of character, and cut across every barrier of race, creed, politics, and language with
ease?
64.
In this respect, we do not enter into public controversy, because we
know that our Society will perish if it does.
65.
Though Tradition Nine at first sight seems to deal with a purely practical matter, in its actual operation it discloses a
society without organization, animated
only by the spirit of service -- a true fellowship.
The 164 and More™ Book, eBook, and Web Site
are all CONCORDANCES which display passages from the Big Book
Alcoholics Anonymous, the
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions,
and the A.A. Grapevine (A.A. Preamble only).
Sorting and rendering passages in the proprietary format of the
164 and More concordance does not in any way imply
affiliation with or endorsement by either Alcoholics Anonymous World Services
Inc., or the A.A. Grapevine, Inc. Further A.A.W.S. Inc. and the A.A.
Grapevine Inc. have no objection to the use of this material in the
164 and More concordance.
Copyright © 2005-2023, Recovery Press LLC; All Rights Reserved.