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.
It was now time, the struggling groups thought, to place their message and unique experience before the world.
2.
Since the third edition was
published in 1976, worldwide membership of
A.A. has just about doubled, to an estimated two million or more, with nearly 100,800 groups meeting in approximately 150 countries around the world.
3.
Taking advantage of technological advances, for example, A.A. members with computers can participate in meetings
online, sharing with fellow alcoholics across the country or around the world.
4.
5.
These tiny bodies are governed by precise laws, and these laws hold true throughout the material
world.
6.
7.
8.
9.
He may bring new hope and new courage to many a priest, minister, or rabbi, who gives his all to minister to our troubled
world.
10.
In the next years alcoholics flocked to A.A. by tens of thousands, largely as the
result of excellent and
continuous publicity
freely given by magazines and newspapers
throughout the world.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
We forgot that most alcoholics in A.A. have an earning power considerably above average; we forgot the immense goodwill of our brother A.A.'s who were only too
eager to help us to better jobs when we deserved them; we forgot the
actual or potential financial insecurity of
every human being in the world.
16.
We might transform the world.
17.
His connection with A.A.
would be valuable, because the Fellowship stood high in public favor and hadn't an enemy in the world.
18.
Eight tons of books and literature per month do not package and channel themselves all over the world.
19.
20.
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.
21.
Of course the depressive
and the power-driver are personality extremes, types with which A.A. and the whole world abound.
22.
They outline the means by
which A.A. maintains its unity and relates itself to the world about it, the way it lives and grows.
23.
For it is only by accepting and solving our problems that we
can begin to get right with ourselves and with
the world about us, and with Him who presides over us all.
24.
25.
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.
26.
27.
28.
29.
When, however, the perfectly logical assumption is suggested that underneath the material
world and life as we see it, there is an All Powerful, Guiding, Creative Intelligence,
right there our perverse streak comes to the surface and we laboriously set out to convince ourselves it isn't so.
30.
Nor does it mean that the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, now restored as citizens of the
world, are going to back away from their individual responsibilities to act
as they see the right upon issues of our time.
31.
Without unity, the heart of A.A. would cease to beat; our world arteries would no longer carry the life-giving grace of God; His gift to us would be spent aimlessly.
32.
I need to concentrate not
so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what
needs to be changed in me
and in my attitudes.
33.
34.
Here were three exceptional men lost to this world because I did not understand alcoholism
as I do now.
35.
Almost no recovery from alcoholism
has ever been brought about
by the world's best professionals, whether
medical or religious.
36.
If he means to right his past wrongs, why all this concern for everyone in the world but his
family?
37.
38.
39.
... world center,
referring you to the nearest ...
BB
Appendix VI, How to Get in Touch With A.A., p.573
If you cannot find A.A. in your locality, visit our Web site: www.aa.org; or a letter addressed to Alcoholics
Anonymous, Box 459, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163, USA, will receive a prompt reply from this world center, referring you to the nearest A.A. group.
40.
... world clearing
house for the Al-Anon Family ...
BB
Appendix VI, How to Get in Touch With A.A., p.573
This is a world clearing house for the Al-Anon Family Groups, composed largely of the wives, husbands and friends of A.A. members.
41.
But we are sure that no class of people in the world ever made
a worse mess of trying to live by this formula than alcoholics.
42.
43.
This dream world has been replaced by a great sense of purpose, accompanied by a growing
consciousness of the power of God in our lives.
44.
Since Dr. Silkworth's first endorsement of Alcoholics Anonymous, medical societies and physicians throughout
the world have set their approval upon us.
45.
46.
47.
Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well?
48.
Throughout the world, immense and favorable publicity of every description has been the principal means of bringing alcoholics into
our Fellowship.
49.
50.
In Step Eight, we continued our housecleaning, for we saw
that we were not only in conflict with ourselves, but also with people and situations in
the world in which we lived.
51.
Much of the political, economic, and religious life of the world is dependent upon publicized leadership.
52.
53.
We had failed to see that though adult in years we were still behaving childishly, trying to turn everybody -- friends, wives, husbands, even the world itself -- into protective
parents.
54.
55.
Follow the dictates of a
Higher Power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstances!
56.
Perhaps your husband has
been living in that strange
world of alcoholism where
everything is distorted and exaggerated.
57.
Among many employers nowadays, we think of one member who has spent much of his life in the world of big business.
58.
59.
60.
This world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than in all the millenniums which went before.
61.
Those of us who have spent much time in the world of spiritual make-believe have eventually seen the childishness of it.
62.
By late 1937, the number of members having substantial sobriety time behind them was sufficient to convince
the membership that a new
light had entered the dark world of the alcoholic.
63.
64.
We looked upon this world of warring individuals, warring theological systems, and
inexplicable calamity, with deep skepticism.
65.
It is the most natural thing
in the world, once his liquor problem is solved, to feel that he will now measure up to that cherished vision.
66.
67.
68.
Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in
the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God's sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that
we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God's scheme of things -- these are
the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes.
69.
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.
70.
Yet we had been seeing another kind of flight, a spiritual liberation from this world,
people who rose above their problems.
71.
Each day, somewhere in the world, recovery begins when one alcoholic talks with another alcoholic, sharing experience, strength, and
hope.
72.
73.
One of these men, staff member of a world-renowned hospital, recently made this statement to some of
us: "What you say about the general hopelessness of
the average alcoholic's
plight is, in my opinion,
correct.
74.
75.
... world service
affairs. The Conference Charter is ...
BB
Appendix VII, Twelve Concepts (Short Form), p.575
VII. The Charter and Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees
to manage and conduct world service affairs. The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the A.A. purse for final effectiveness.
76.
This fourth edition includes the Twelve Concepts for World Service and revises the three sections of personal stories as follows.
77.
... world service
leadership, once exercised by the ...
BB
Appendix VII, Twelve Concepts (Short Form), p.575
IX. Good service leadership at all
levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, once exercised by the founders,
must necessarily be assumed by the trustees.
78.
... world service
matters should be exercised by ...
BB
Appendix VII, Twelve Concepts (Short Form), p.574
VI. The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service matters should be exercised
by the trustee members of
the Conference acting as
the General Service Board.
79.
If there is no Al-Anon listing in your local telephone book, you may obtain further information on Al-Anon/Alateen Family Groups by writing to its World Service Office, 1600 Corporate Landing Parkway, Virginia Beach, VA 23454-5617.
80.
... World Service
provide a group of related ...
BB
Appendix VII, Twelve Concepts (Short Form), p.574
Written by co-founder Bill W. in 1962, the Twelve Concepts for World Service provide a group of related principles to help ensure that various elements of A.A.'s service structure remain responsive and responsible to those they
serve.
81.
82.
... World Services,
Inc., and our monthly magazine, ...
BB
Appendix VI, How to Get in Touch With A.A., p.573
The General Service Board of A.A. (the trustees) administers A.A.'s General Service Office, A.A. World Services, Inc., and our monthly magazine, the A.A. Grapevine.
83.
... world services
should always reside in the ...
BB
Appendix VII, Twelve Concepts (Short Form), p.574
I. Final responsibility and ultimate authority for A.A. world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole Fellowship.
84.
85.
It is being constantly revealed, as mankind studies the material world, that outward appearances are not inward
reality at all.
86.
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.
87.
Our hope is that when this chip
of a book is launched on the
world tide of alcoholism, defeated drinkers will seize upon it, to follow its suggestions.
88.
89.
We try not to indulge in cynicism over the state of the nations, nor do we carry the world's troubles on our shoulders.
90.
91.
92.
So far, upon the total problem of several million actual and potential alcoholics in the world, we
have made only a scratch.
93.
We are certain that our intelligence, backed by
willpower, can rightly
control our inner lives and guarantee us success in the world we live in.
94.
Even when our fortunes had
not ebbed that much and we nevertheless found ourselves alone in the world, we still vainly tried to be secure by some unhealthy kind of domination or dependence.
95.
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.
96.
They are abetted in this blindness by a world which
does not understand the difference between sane drinking and alcoholism.
97.
98.
News of this got on the world wires; inquiries poured in again and many people went to the bookstores to get the book "Alcoholics Anonymous."
99.
God has abundantly supplied this world with fine doctors, psychologists, and practitioners of various kinds.
100.
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.
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.