260 Inward Reality It is being constantly revealed, as mankind studies the material world, that its outward appearances are not inward reality at all. The prosaic steel girder is a mass of electrons whirling around each other at incredible speed, and these tiny bodies are governed by precise laws. Science tells us so. We have no reason to doubt it. When, however, the perfectly logical assumption is suggested that, infinitely beyond the material world as we see it, there is an all powerful, guiding, creative Intelligence, our perverse streak comes to the surface and we set out to convince ourselves that it isn't so. Were our contention true, it would follow that life originated out of nothing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, PP. 48-49 261 "Fearless and Searching" My self-analysis has frequently been faulty . Sometimes I'vefailed to share my defects with the right people; at other times, I've confessed their defects, rather than my own; and still other times, my confession of defects has been more in the nature of loud complaints about my circumstances and my problems. << << << >> >> >> When A.A. suggests a fearless moral inventory, it must seem to every newcomer that more is being asked of him than he he can do. Every time he tries to look within himself, Pride says, "You need not pass this way," and Fear says, "You dare not look!" But pride and fear of this sort turn out to be bogymen, nothing else. Once we have a complete willingness to take inventory, and exert ourselves to do the job thoroughly, a wonderful light falls upon this foggy sceneene. As we persist, a brandnew kind ofcinfidence is born, and the sense of relief at finally facing ourselves is indescribable. 1. GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1958 2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, PP. 49-50 262 Individual Responsibilities Let us emphasize that our reluctance to fight one another, or anybody else, is not counted as some special virtue which entitles us A.A.'s to feel superior to other people. Nor does this reluctance mean that the members of A.A. are going to back away from their individual responsibilities as citizens. Here theyshould feel free to act as they see the right upon the public issues of our times. But when it comes to A.A. as a whole, that's quite a different matter. As a group we do not enter into public controversy, because we are sure that our Society will perish if we do. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 177 263 Fear and Faith The achievement of freedom from fear is a lifetime undertaking, one that can never be wholly completed. When under heavy attack, acute illness, or in other conditions of serious insecurity, we shall all react to this emotion -- well or badly, as the case may be. Only the self-deceived will claim perfect freedom from fear. << << << >> >> >> We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up. Sometimes we had to search persistently, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. 1. GRAPEVINE, JANUARY 1962 2. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, P. 55 264 The Step That Keeps Us Growing Sometimes, when friends tell us how well we are doing, we know better inside. We know we aren't doing well enough. We still can't handle life, as life is. There must be a serious flaw somewhere in our spiritual practice and development. What, then, is it? The chances are better than even that we shall locate our trouble in our misunderstanding or neglect of A.A.'s Step Eleven -- prayer, meditation, and the guidance of God. The other Steps can keep most of us sober and somehow functioning. But Step Eleven can keep us growing, if we try hard and work at it continually. GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1958 265 Neither Dependence nor Self-Sufficiency When we insisted, like infants, that people protect and take care of us or that the world owed us a living, then the result was unfortunate. The people we most loved often pushed us aside or perhaps deserted us entirely. Our disillusionment was hard to bear. We 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. We refused to learn that overdependence upon people is unsuccessful because all people are fallible, and even the best of them will sometimes let us down, especially when our demands for attention become unreasonable. << << << >> >> >> We are now on a different basis: the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us do, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity. 1. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 115 2. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, P. 68 266 Give Thanks Though I still find it difficult to accept today's pain and anxiety with any great degree of serenity -- as those more advanced in the spiritual life seemable to do -- I can give thanks for present pain nevertheless. I find the willingness to do this by contemplating the lessons learned from past suffering -- lessons which have led to the blessings I now enjoy. I can remember how the agonies of alcoholism, the pain of rebellion and thwarted pride, have often led me to God's grace, and so to a new freedom. GRAPEVINE, MARCH 1962 267 Behind Our Excuses As excuse-makers and rationalizers, we drunks are champions. It is the business of the psychiatrist to find the deeper causes for our conduct. Though uninstructed in psychiatry, we can, after a little time in A.A., see that our motives have not been what we thought they were, and that we have been motivated by forces previously unknown to us. Therefore we ought to look, with the deepest respect, interest, and profit, upon the example set us by psychiatry. << << << >> >> >> "Spiritual growth through the practice of A.A.'s Twelve Steps, plus the aid of a good sponsor, can usually reveal most of the deeper reasons for our character defects, at least to a degree that meets our practical needs. Nevertheless, we should be grateful that our friends in psychiatry have so strongly emphasized the necessity to search for false and often unconscious motivations." 1. A.A. COMES OF AGE, P. 236 2. LETTER, P. 1966 268 Those Other People "Just like you, I have often thought myself the victim of what other people say and do. Yet every time I confessed the sins of such people, especially those whose sins did not correspond exactly with my own, I found that I only increased the total damage. My own resentment, my self-pity would often render me well-nigh useless to anybody. "So, nowadays, if anyone talks to me so as to hurt, I first ask myself if there is any truth at all in what they say. If there is none, I try to remember that I too have had my periods of speaking bitterly to others; that hurtful gossip is but a symptom of our remaining emotional illness; and consequently that I must never be angry at the unreasonableness of sick people. "Under very trying conditions I have had, again and again, to forgive others -- also myself. Have you recently tried this?" LETTER 1946 269 When Infancy Is Over "You must remember that every A.A. group starts, as it should, through the efforts of a single man and his friends -- a founder and his hierarchy. There is no other way. "But when infancy is over, the original leaders always have to make way for that democracy which springs up through the grass roots and will eventuallysweep aside the self-chosen leadership of the past." << << << >> >> >> Letter to Dr. Bob: "Everywhere the A.A. groups have taken their service affairs into their own hands. Local founders and their friends are now on the side lines. Why so many people forget that, when thinking of the future of our world services, I shall never understand. "The groups will eventually take over, and maybe they will squander their inheritance when they get it. It is probable, however, that they won't. Anyhow, they really have grown up; A.A. is theirs; let's give it to them." LETTERS 1. 1950 2. 1949 270 Honesty and Recovery In taking an inventory, a member might consider questions such as: How did my selfish pursuit of the sex relation damage other people and me? What people were hurt, and how badly? Just how did I react at the time? Did I burn with guilt? Or did I insist that I was the pursued and not the pursuer, and thus absolve myself? How have I reacted to frustration in sexual matters? When denied, did I become vengeful or depressed? Did I take it out on other people? If there was rejection or coldness at home, did I use this as a reason for promiscuity? << << << >> >> >> Let no alcoholic say he cannot recover unless he has his family back. This just isn't so. His recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his relationship with God, however he may define Him. 1. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 50-51 2. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, PP. 99-100 271 A.A. in Two Words TALK, 1965 (PRINTED IN GRAPEVINE, JANUARY 1966) 272 Troubles of Our Own Making Selfishness -- self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly withoutprovocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt. So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, P. 62 273 Compelling Love The life of each A.A. and of each group is built around our Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. We know that the penalty for extensive disobedience to these principles is death for the individual and dissolution for the group. But an even greater force for A.A.'s unity is our compelling love for our fellow members and for our principles. << << << >> >> >> You might think the people at A.A.'s headquarters in New York would surely have to have some personal authority. But, long ago, trustees and secretaries alike found they could do no more than make very mild suggestions to the A.A. groups. They even had to coin a couple of sentences which still go into half the letters they write: "Of course you are at perfect liberty to handle this matter any way you please. But the majority experience in A.A. does seem to suggest..." A.A. world headquarters is not a giver of orders. It is, instead, our largest transmitter of the lessons of experience. 1. TWELVE CONCEPTS, P. 11 2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, PP. 173-174 274 Going It Alone Going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous. How many times have we heard well-intentioned people claim the guidance of God when it was plain that they were mistaken? Lacking bothpractice and humility, they had deluded themselvelvelves and so were able to justify the most arrant nonsense on the ground that this was what God had told them. People of of very high spiritual development almost always insist on checking with friends or spiritual advisers the guidance they have received from God. Surely, then, a novice ought not lay himself open to the chance of making foolish, perhaps tragic, blunders. While the comment or advice of others may not be infallible, it is likely to be far more specific than any direct guidance we may receive while we wre still inexperienced in establishing contact with a Power greater than ourselves. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 60 275 Recovery Through Giving For a new prospect, outline the program of action, explaining how you made a self-appraisal, how you straightened out your past, and why you are now endeavoring to be helpful to him. It is important for him to realize that your attempt to pass this on tohim plays a vital part in your own recovery. Actualually, he may be helping you more than you are helping him. Make it plain that he is under no obligation to you. << << << >> >> >> In the first six months of my own sobriety, I worked hard with many alcoholics. Not a one responded. Yet this work kept me sober. It wasn't a question of those alcoholics giving me anything. My stability came out of trying to give, not out of demanding that I receive. 1. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, P. 94 2. GRAPEVINE, JANUARY 1958 276 A Higher Power for Atheists "I have had many experiences with atheists, mostly good. Everybody in A.A. has the right to his own opinion. It is much better to maintain an open and tolerant society than it is to suppress any small disturbances their opinions might occasion. Actually, I don't know anybody who went off and died of alcoholism because some atheist's opinions on the cosmos. "But I do always entreat these folks to look to a `Higher Power' -- namely, their own group. When they come in, most of their A.A. group is sober, and they are drunk. Therefore, the group is a`Higher Power'. That's a good enough start, and most of them do progress from there. I know how they feel, because I was once that way myself." LETTER, 1962 277 To Lighten Our Burden Only one consideration should qualify our desire for a complete disclosure of the damage we have done. That will arise where a full revelation would seriously harm the one to whom we are making amends. Or -- quite as important -- other people. We cannot,for example, unload a detailed account of extramarital adventuring upon the shoulders of our unsuspecting wife or husband. It does not lighten our burden when we recklessly make the crosses of others heavier. << << << >> >> >> In making amends, we should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping. As God's people we stand on our feet; we don't crawl before anyone. 1. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 86 2. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, P. 83 278 Speak Up Without Fear Few of us are anonymous so far as our daily contacts go. We have dropped anonymity at this level because we think our friends and associates ought to know about A.A. and what it has done dor us. We also wish to lose the fear of admitting that we are alcoholics. Though we earnestly request reporters not to disclose our identities, wefrequently speak before semipublic gatherings. We wish to convince audiences that our alcoholism is a sickness we no longer fear to discuss before anyone. If, however, we venture beyond this limit, we shall surely lose the principle of anonymity forever. If every A.A. felt free to publish his own name, picture, and story, we would soon be launched upon a vast orgy of personal publicity. << << << >> >> >> "While the so-called public meeting is questioned by many A.A. members, I favour it myself providing only that anonymity is respected in press reports and that we ask nothing for ourselves except understanding." 1. GRAPEVINE, JANUARY 1946 2. LETTER, 1949 279 The Fine Art of Alibis The majority of A.A. members have suffered severely from self-justification during their drinking days. For most of us, self-justification was the maker of excuses for drinking and for all kinds of crazy and damaging conduct. We had made the invention of alibis a fine art. We had to drink because times were hard or times were good. We had to drink because at home we were smothered with love or got none at all. We had to drink because at work we were great successes or dismal failures. We had to drink because our nation hadwon a war or lost a peace. And so it went, ad infinitum. << << << >> >> >> To see how our own erratic emotions victimized us often took a long time. Where other people were concerned, we had to drop the word "blame" from our speech and thought. TWELVE AND TWELVE 1. PP. 46-47 2. P. 47 280 Spiritually Fit Assuming we are spiritually fit, we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do. People have said we must not go where liquor is served; we must not have it in our homes; we must shun friends who drink; we must avoid moving pictures which show drinking scenes; we must not go into bars; our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses; we mustn't think or be reminded about alcohol at all. Our experience shows that this is not necessarily so. We meet these conditions every day. An alcoholic who cannot meet them still has an alcoholic mind; there is something the matter with his spiritual status. His only chance for sobriety would be some place like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything! ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, PP. 100-101 281 Ourselves as Individuals There is only one sure test of all spiritual experiences: "By their fruits, ye shall know them." This is why I think we should question no one's transformation -- whether it be sudden or gradual. Nor should we demand anyone's special type for ourselves, because experience suggests that we are apt to receive whatever may be the most useful for our own needs. << << << >> >> >> Human beings are never quite alike, so each of us, when making an inventory, will need to determine what his individual character defects are. Having found the shoes that fit, he ought to step into them and walk with new confidence that he is at last on the right track. 1. GRAPEVINE, JULY 1962 2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 48 282 Instincts Run Wild Every time a person imposes his instincts unreasonable upon others, unhappiness follows. If the pursuit of wealth tramples upon people who happen to be in the way, then anger, jealousy, and revenge are likely to be aroused. If sex runs riot, there is a similar uproar. Demands made upon other people for too much attention, protection, and love can invite only domination or revulsion in the protectors themselves -- two emotions quite as unhealthy as the demands which evoke them. When an individual's desire for prestige becomes uncontrollable, whether in the sewing circle or at the international conference table, other people suffer and often revolt. This collision of instincts can produce anything from a cold snub to a blazing revolution. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 44 283 "Powerless over Alcohol" I had gone steadily downhill, and on that day in 1934 I lay upstairs in the hospital, knowing for the first time that I was utterly hopeless. Lois was downstairs, and Dr. Silkworth was trying in his gentle way to tell her what was wrong with me and that I was hopeless. "But Bill has a tremendous amount of will power," she said. "He has tried desperately to get well. We have tried everything. Doctor, why can't he stop?" He explained that my drinking, once a habit, had become an obsession, a true insanity that condemned me to drink against my will. << << << >> >> >> "In the late stages of our drinking, the will to resist has fled. Yet when we admit complete defeat and when we become entirely ready to try A.A. principles, our obsession leaves us and we enter a new dimension -- freedom under God as we understand Him." 1. A.A. COME OF AGE, P. 52 2. LETTER, 1966 284 Faith -- a Blueprint -- and Work "The idea of `twenty-four-hour living' applies primarily to the emotional life of the individual. Emotionally speaking, we must not live in yesterday, nor in tomorrow. "But I have never been able to see that this means the individual, the group, or A.A. as a whole should give no thought whatever to how to function tomorrow or even in the more distant future. Faith alone never constructed the house you live in. There had to be a blueprint and a lot of work to bring it into reality. "Nothing is truer for us of A.A. than the Biblical saying `Faith without works is dead.' A.A.'s services, all designed to make more and better Twelfth Step work possible, are the `works' that insure our life and growth by preventing anarchy or stagnation." LETTER, 1954 285 False Pride The alarming thing about pride-blindness is the ease with which it is justified. But we need not look far to see that self-justification is a universal destroyer of harmony and of love. It sets man against man, nation against nation.By it, every form of folly and violence can be made to look right, and even respectable. << << << >> >> >> It would be a product of false pride to claim that A.A. is a cure-all, even for alcoholism. 1. GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1961 2. A.A. COMES OF AGE, P. 232 286 Mastering Resentments We began to see that the world and its people had really dominated us. Under that unhappy condition, the wrongdoing of others, fancied or real, had the power to actually kill us, because we could be driven back to drink through resentment. We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? We could not wish them away. This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. So we asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. Today, we avoid retaliation or argument. We cannot treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, PP. 66-67 287 Aspects of Spirituality "Among A.A.'s there is still a vast amount of mix-up respecting what is material and what is spiritual. I prefer to believe that it is all a matter of motive. If we use our worldly possessions too selfishly, then we are materialists. But if we share these possessions in helpfulness to others, then the material aids the spiritual." << << << >> >> >> "The idea keeps persisting that the instincts are primarily bad and are the roadblocks before which all spirituality falters. I believe that the difference between good and evil is not the difference between spiritual and instinctual man; it is the difference between properand improper use of the instinctual. Recognition and right channeling of the instinctual are the essence of achieving wholeness." 1. LETTER, 1958 2. LETTER, 1954 288 Emotional Sobriety If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling liabilities. Then we can be set free to live and love; we may then be able to twelth-step ourselves, as well as others, into emotional sobriety. GRAPEVINE, JANUARY 1958 289 When Conflicts Mount Sometimes I would be forced to look at situations where I was doing badly. Right away, the search for excuses would become frantic. "These," I would exclaim, "are really a good man's faults." When that pet gadget broke apart, I would think, "Well, if those people would only treat me right, I wouldn't have to behave the way I do." Next was this: "God well knows that I do have awful compulsions. I just can't get over this one. So He will have to release me." At last came the time when I would shout, "This, I positively will not do! I won't even try." Of course, my conflicts went right on mounting, because I was simply loaded with excuses, refusals, and outright rebellion. << << << >> >> >> In self-appraisal, what comes to us alone may be garbled by our own rationalization and wishful thinking. The benefit of talking to another person is that we can get his direct comment and counsel on our situation. 1. GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1961 2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 60 290 Time Versus Money Our attitude toward the giving of time when compared with our attitude toward giving money presents an interesting contrast. We give a lot of our time to A.A. activities for our own protection and growth, but also for the sake of our groups, our areas, A.A. as a whole, and, above all, the newcomer. Translated into terms of money, these collective sacrifices would add up to a huge sum. But when it comes to the actual spending of cash, particularly for A.A. service overhead, many of us are apt to turn a bit reluctant. We think of the loss of all that earning power in our drinking years, of those sums we might have laid by for emergencies or for education of the kids. In recent years, this attitude is everywhere on the decline; it quickly disappears when the real need for a given A.A. service becomes clear. Donors can seldom see what the exact result has been. They well know, however, that countless thousands of other alcoholics and their families are being helped. TWELVE CONCEPTS, PP. 66-67 291 Pain-Killer -- or Pain-Healer "I believe that when we were active alcoholics we drank mostly to kill pain of one kind or another -- physical or emotional or psychic. Of course, everybody has a cracking point, and I suppose you reached yours -- hence, the resort once more to the bottle. "If I were you, I wouldn't heap devastating blame on myself for this; on the other hand, the experience should redouble your conviction that alcohol has no permanent value as a pain-killer." << << << >> >> >> In every A.A. story, pain has been the price of admission into a new life. But this admission price purchased more than we expected. It let us to a measure of humility, which we soon discovered to be a healer of pain. We began to fear pain less, and desire humility more than ever. 1. LETTER, 1959 2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 75 292 Toward Partnership When the distortion of family life through alcohol has been great, a long period of patient striving may be necessary. After the husband joins A.A., the wife may become discontented, even highly resentful that A.A. has done the very thing that all her years of devotion had failed to do. Her husband may become so wrapped up in A.A. and his new friends that he is inconsiderately away from home more than when he drank. Each then blames the other. But eventually the alcoholic, now fully understanding how much he did to hurt his wife and children, nearly always takes up his marriage responsibilities with a willingness to repair what he can and accept what he can't. He persistently tries all of A.A.'s Twelve Steps in his home, often with fine results. He firmly but lovingly commences to behave like a patner instead of like a bad boy. TWELVE AND TWELVE, PP. 118-119 293 Rebellion or Acceptance All of us pass through times when we can pray only with the greatest exertion. Occasionally we go even further than this. We are seized with a rebellion so sickening that we simply won't pray. When these things happen, we should not think too ill of ourselves. We should simply resume prayer as soon as we can, doing what we know to be good for us. << << << >> >> >> A man who persists in prayer finds himself in possession of great gifts. When he has to deal with hard circumstances, he finds he can face them. He can accept himself and the world around him. He can do this because he now accepts a God who is All -- and who loves all. When he says, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name," he deeply and humbly means it. When in good meditation and thus freed from clamors of the world, he knows that he is in God's hands, that his own ultimate destiny is really secure, here and hereafter, come what may. 1. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 105 2. GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1958 294 Love + Rationality = Growth "It seems to me that the primary object of any human being is to grow, as God intended, that being the nature of all growing things. "Our search must be for what reality we can find, which includes the best definition and feeling of love that we can acquire. If the capability of loving is in the human being, then it must surely be in his Creator. "Theology helps me in that many of its concepts cause me to believe that I live in a rational universe under a loving God, and that my own irrationality can be chipped away, little by little. This is, I suppose, the process of growth for which we are intended." LETTER, 1958