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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.
My wife was at work.
2.
My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the evolutionists, suggested vast laws and forces at work.
3.
It was fortunate, for my old
business associates remained skeptical for a
year and a half, during which I found little work.
4.
5.
As matters grow worse, he begins to use a combination of high-powered sedative and liquor to quiet his nerves so he can go to work.
6.
Our ideas did not work.
7.
It didn't work.
8.
9.
If their old relationship
is to be resumed it must be
on a better basis, since the
former did not work.
10.
11.
12.
When I got the fog out of my brain, I decided that quitting school was very foolish and that I had better
return and continue my
work.
13.
Occasionally, I would yield to the morning craving, but if I did, it would be only a few hours before I would be quite unfit for work.
14.
15.
16.
17.
This present volume proposes to broaden and deepen the understanding
of the Twelve Steps as first written in the earlier work.
18.
This brave philosophy, wherein each man plays God, sounds good in the speaking, but it still has to meet the acid test: how well does it actually work?
19.
Before we ask what a spot-check inventory is, let's look at the kind of setting in which such an inventory can do its work.
20.
21.
22.
There are many opportunities even for those of us who feel unable to speak at meetings or who are so situated that we cannot do much
face-to-face Twelfth Step work.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
When alcoholism strikes, very unnatural situations may
develop which work against marriage partnership and compatible union.
30.
31.
Hence the two men set to work almost frantically upon alcoholics arriving in
the ward of the Akron City Hospital.
32.
If any feel that as psychiatrists directing a hospital for
alcoholics we appear somewhat sentimental, let them stand with us a while on the firing line, see the tragedies, the despairing wives, the little children; let the solving of these problems become a part of their daily work, and even of their sleeping moments, and the
most cynical will not wonder that we have accepted
and encouraged this movement.
33.
34.
35.
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.
36.
Perhaps we think of our day's work and the chances it may afford us to be
useful and helpful, or of
some special problem that
it may bring.
37.
He paid a fine tribute to the Fellowship;
he told how his family had
been reunited; he extolled the virtue of honesty; he recalled the joys of Twelfth Step work; and then he lowered the boom.
38.
His family was re-assembled, and he began to
work as a salesman for the
business he had lost through drinking.
39.
We see that we have no right or need to discourage A.A.'s who wish to work as individuals in these wider
fields.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
Now and then a serious drinker, being dry at the moment says, "I don't miss it at all. Feel better. Work better. Having a better time."
45.
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.
46.
47.
This being so, we think it logically follows that sobriety -- first, last, and all the time -- is the
only thing we need to work for.
48.
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.
49.
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."
50.
Is not our age characterized by the ease
with which we discard old ideas for new, by the complete readiness with
which we throw away the theory or gadget which does not
work for something new which does?
51.
52.
53.
We A.A.'s cannot pretend to offer full answers to age-old perplexities, but our own experience does provide certain answers that work for us.
54.
We do not decry professionalism in other fields, but we accept the sober fact that it does not work for us.
55.
The moment this Twelfth Step work forms a group, another discovery is made -- that most individuals cannot recover unless there is a group.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
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.
61.
And how often we work hard with no better motive than to be secure and slothful later on -- only we call that "retiring."
62.
We are greatly indebted
to the doctor in attendance there, for he, although it might prejudice his own work, has told us of his belief in ours.
63.
Understanding our work,
he can do this with an eye to selecting those who are willing and able to recover on a spiritual basis.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
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.
73.
74.
Committees have instructed many an A.A. to stop working on a chronic backslider, only to be told:
"How I do my Twelfth Step
work is my business.
75.
76.
Twelfth Step work is never paid for, but those who labor in service for us are worthy of their hire.
77.
78.
79.
80.
81.
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.
82.
83.
None of us makes a sole vocation of this work, nor do we think its effectiveness would be increased if we did.
84.
I had no trouble refusing drinks, and began to wonder if I had not
been making too hard work of a simple matter.
85.
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.
86.
(*) The work of present-day staff members has no counterpart among the job categories of commercial organizations. These A.A.'s
bring a wide range of business and professional experience to their service at The General Service Office.
87.
88.
The minute we put our work on a service plane, the alcoholic commences to rely upon our assistance rather than upon God.
89.
90.
He often says that if he had continued to work on them, he
might have deprived many others, who have since recovered, of their chance.
91.
92.
93.
Every doctor concerned would at times wish he could devote himself to his chosen field rather than work only with the group.
94.
95.
Though we work out our solution on the spiritual as well as an altruistic plane, we favor hospitalization
for the alcoholic who is very jittery or befogged.
96.
These work-outs should be regarded as part of your education, for thus you will be learning to live.
97.
98.
We can be the ones who take on
the unspectacular but important tasks that make good Twelfth Step work possible, perhaps arranging for the
coffee and cake after the meetings, where so
many skeptical, suspicious newcomers
have found confidence and
comfort in the laughter
and talk.
99.
100.
101.
But he will be curious to learn why his own convictions have not worked and why yours seem to work so well.
102.
103.
As our work spreads and our
numbers increase, we hope your employees may be put in personal contact with some of us.
104.
... Work staff,
says, "Alcoholics Anonymous is natural; ...
BB
Appendix V, The Religious View on A.A., p.572
Edward Dowling, S.J.,(*) of the Queen's Work staff, says, "Alcoholics Anonymous is natural; it is
natural at the point where
nature comes closest to the supernatural, namely in
humiliations and in consequent humility.
105.
106.
Father knows he is to blame; it may take him many seasons of hard work to be restored financially,
but he shouldn't be reproached.
107.
The test that it faced was
this: Could these large numbers of erstwhile erratic alcoholics successfully meet and work together?
108.
We alcoholics see that we
must work together and hang together, else most of us will finally die alone.
109.
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.
110.
111.
But it was by no means sure that such great numbers of yet erratic people could live and work together with harmony and good effect.
112.
113.
114.
115.
By a great deal of ardent Twelfth Step work we sometimes carry the message to so many alcoholics that they place
us in a position of trust.
116.
117.
118.
Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if
we kept close to Him and performed His work well.
119.
We found that dependence
upon His perfect justice, forgiveness, and
love was healthy, and that it
would work where nothing else would.
120.
121.
This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day.
122.
We shall be interested to
hear from those who are getting results from this book, particularly from those who have commenced
work with other alcoholics.
123.
Practical experience
shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive
work with other alcoholics.
124.
... work with
other alcoholics, he remains sober ...
BB
Appendix III, The Medical View on A.A., p.570
Learning to depend upon a higher power and absorb himself in his work with other alcoholics, he remains sober day by day.
125.
126.
127.
128.
Almost from the beginning, we have been positive that face-to-face work with the alcoholic who suffers could
be based only on the desire
to help and be helped.
129.
130.
Alcoholics Anonymous
can be likened to a group of
physicians who might find
a cure for cancer, and upon whose concerted work would depend the answer for sufferers of this disease.
The 164 and More™ Book, eBook, and Web Site
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Alcoholics Anonymous, the
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164 and More concordance.
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