124 Grapevine, may 1960
         Looking back, we see that our freedom to choose badly was not, after all, a very
real freedom.
         When we chose because we "must" this was not a free choice, either. But it got us
started in the right direction.
         When we chose because "ought to" we were really doing better. This time we
were earning some freedom, making ourselves ready for more.
         But when, now & then, we could gladly make right choices without rebellion,
holdout, or conflict, then we had our first view of what perfect freedom under God's
will could be like.
      
125 AA Today p-7
         My workshop stands on a hill back of our home. Looking over the valley,
I see the village community house where our local group meets. Beyond the circle of
my horizon lies the whole world of A.A.
       
125 Twelve & Twelve p-129
         The unity of A.A. is the most cherished quality our society has. Our lives, the
lives of all to come, depend squarely upon it. Without unity, the heart of A.A. would
cease to beat; our world arteries would no longer carry the live giving grace of God.
       
126 Twelve & Twelve p-62
        Provided you hold back nothing in taking the fifth step, your sense of relief will
mount from minute to minute. The dammed up emotions of years break out of their
confinement & miraculously vanish as soon as they are exposed. As the pain
subsides, a healing tranquility takes its place. & when humility & serenity are so
combined, something else of great moment is apt to occur.
        Many an A.A., once agnostic or atheist, tells us that it was during this stage of Step
Five that he first actually felt the presence of God. & even those who already had
faith often became conscious of God as they never were before.
       
127 Twelve & Twelve p-104
        In A.A. we have found that the actual good results of prayer are beyond question.
They are matters of knowledge & experience. All those who have persisted have
found strength not ordinarily their own. They have found wisdom beyond their usual
capability. & they have increasingly found a peace of mind which can stand firm in
the face of difficult circumstances.
       
128 Grapevine August 1961
        It is possible for us to use the alleged dishonesty of other people as a plausible
excuse for not meeting our own obligations.
        Once, some prejudiced friends exhorted me never to go back to Wall Street. They
were sure that the rampant materialism & double dealing down there would stunt my
spiritual growth. Because this sounded so high minded, I continued to stay away from
the only business that I knew.
        When, finally, my household went broke, I realized I had not been able to face the
prospect of going back to work. So I returned to Wall Street, & I have ever since been
glad that I did. I needed to rediscover that there are many fine people in New York's
financial district. Then, too, I needed the experience of staying sober in the very
surroundings where alcohol had cut me down.
        A Wall Street business trip to Akron, Ohio, first brought me face to face with Dr.
Bob. So the birth of A.A. hinged on my effort to meet my bread & butter
responsibilities.
       
129 Alcoholics Anonymous p-68
        We need not apologize to anyone for depending upon the Creator.
We have good reason to disbelieve those who think spirituality is the way of weakness.
For us, it is the way of strength.
        The verdict of the ages is that men of faith seldom lack courage. They trust their
God. So we never apologize for our belief in Him. Instead, we try to let Him
demonstrate, through us, what He can do.
       
130 Alcoholics Anonymous p-22/23
        We know that as long as the alcoholic keeps away from drink, he usually reacts
much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever
into his system, something happens, in both the bodily & the mental sense, which
makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will
abundantly confirm this.
        These observations would be academic & pointless if our friend never took the
first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of
the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body.
       
131 Twelve & Twelve p-67
        We live in a world riddled with envy. To a greater or lesser degree, everybody is
infected with it.
        From this defect we must surely get a warped yet definite satisfaction. Else why
would we consume so much time wishing for what we have not, rather than working for
it, or angrily looking for attributes we shall never have, instead of adjusting to the fact
& accepting it?
       
131 Twelve & Twelve p-76
        Each of us would like to live at peace with himself & with his fellow. We would
like to be assured that the grace of God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
        We have seen that character defects based upon shortsighted or unworthy desires
are the obstacles that block our path toward these objectives. We now clearly see that
we have been making unreasonable demands upon ourselves, upon others, & upon
God.
       
132 Twelve & Twelve p-90/91
        A spot check inventory taken in the midst of disturbances can be of very great help
in quieting stormy emotions. Today's spot check finds its chief application to situations
which arise in each days march. The consideration of long standing difficulties had
better be postponed, when possible, to times deliberately set aside for that purpose.
        The quick inventory is aimed at our daily ups & downs, especially those where
people or new events throw us off balance & tempt us to make mistakes.
       
133 Grapevine July 1946
        I saw that I had been living too much alone, too much aloof from my fellows, &
too deaf to that voice within. Instead of seeing myself as a simple agent bearing the
message of experience, I had thought of myself as a founder of A.A.
        How much better it would have been had I felt gratitude rather than self
satisfaction - gratitude that I had once suffered the pains of alcoholism, gratitude that a
miracle of recovery had been worked upon me from above, gratitude for the privilege
of serving my fellow alcoholics, & gratitude for those fraternal ties which bound me
ever closer to them in a comradeship such as few societies of men have ever known.
        Truly did a clergyman say to me, "Your misfortune has become your good
 live to become elder statesmen. They become the real & permanent leadership of
A.A.
       
139 Twelve & Twelve  p-72
        For just so long as we were convinced that we could live exclusively by our own
individual strength & intelligence, for just that long was a working faith in a Higher
Power impossible.
        This was true even when we believed that God existed. We could actually gave
earnest religious beliefs which remained barren because we were still trying to play
God ourselves. As long as we placed self-reliance first, a genuine reliance upon a
Higher Power was out of the question.
        The basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek & do God's will was
missing.
       
140 Alcoholics Anonymous p-73
        More than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the
actor. To the outer world he presents his stage character. This is the one he likes his
fellows to see. He wants to enjoy a certain reputation, but knows in his heart he does
not deserve it.
       
140 Grapevine June 1961
        Guilt is really the reverse side of the coin of pride. Guilt aims at self-destruction,
& pride aims at the destruction of others.
       
140 letter 1957
        The moral inventory is a cool examination of the damages that occurred to us
during life & a sincere effort to look at them in a true perspective. This has the effect
of taking the ground glass out of us, the emotional substance that still cuts & inhibits.
       
141 Twelve & Twelve p-32/34
        Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics who have any idea how irrational they
are, or, seeing their irrationality can bear to face it. For example, some will be willing to
term themselves "problem drinkers", but cannot endure the suggestion that they are in
fact mentally ill.
        They are abetted in this blindness by a world which does not understand the
difference between sane drinking & alcoholism, 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.
       
142 Twelve & Twelve p-42
        Creation gave us instincts for a purpose. Without them we would not be complete
human beings. If men & women did not exert themselves to be secure in their
persons, made no effort to harvest food or construct shelter, there would be no survival.
If they did not reproduce, the earth would not be populated. If there were no social
instinct, there would be no society.
        Yet these instincts, so necessary for our existence, often far exceed their proper
functions. Powerfully blindly, many times subtly, they drive us, dominate us, & insist
upon ruling our lives.
       
142 Alcoholics Anonymous p-69
        We tried to shape a sane ideal for our future sex life. We subjected each relation to
this test: Was it selfish or not? We asked God to mold our ideals & help us to live up
to them. We remembered always that our sex powers were God given & therefor
good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised & loathed.
       
143 A.A. Comes Of Age p-233
        Within A.A., I suppose, we shall always quarrel a good bit. Mostly,
I think, about how to do the greatest good for the greatest number of drunks. We shall
have our childish spats & snits over small questions of money management & who
is going to run our groups for the next six months. Any bunch of growing children (&
that is what we are) would hardly be in character if they did less.
        These are the growing pains of infancy, & we actually thrive on them.
Surmounting such problems, in A.A.s rather rugged school of life, is a healthy exercise.
       
144 letter 1966
        Most surely, there can be no trust where there is no love, nor can there be real love
where distrust holds its malign sway.
        But does trust require that we be blind to other peoples motives or, indeed, to our
own? Not at all; this would be folly. Most certainly, we should assess the capacity for
harm as well as the capability for good in every person that we would trust. Such a
private inventory can reveal the degree of confidence we should extend in any given
situation.
        However, this inventory needs to be taken in a spirit of understanding & love.
Nothing can so much bias our judgment as the negative emotions of suspicion,
jealousy, or anger.
        Having vested our confidence in another person, we ought to let him know of our
full support. Because of this, more often than not he will respond magnificently, & far
beyond our first expectations.
       
145 Twelve & Twelve p-77
        Learning how to live in the greatest peace, partnership, & brotherhood with all
men & women, of whatever description, is a moving & fascinating adventure.
        But every A.A. has found that he can make little headway in this new adventure of
living until he first backtracks & really makes an accurate & unsparing survey of the
human wreckage he has left in his wake.
       
145 Twelve & Twelve p-87
        The readiness to take the full consequences of our past acts, & to take
responsibility for the well being of others at the same time, is the very spirit of Step
Nine.
       
146 Grapevine April 1961
        Perhaps more often than we think, we make no contact at depth with alcoholics
who are suffering the dilemma of no faith.
        Certainly none are more sensitive to spiritual cocksureness, pride, & aggression
than they are. I am sure this is something we too often forget.
        In A.A.s first years, I all but ruined the whole undertaking with this sort of
unconscious arrogance. God as I understood Him had to be for everybody. Sometimes
my aggression was subtle & sometimes it was crude. But either way it was damaging 
- perhaps fatally so - to numbers of nonbelievers.
        Of course this sort of thing is not confined to Twelfth Step work. It is very apt to
leak out into our relations with everybody. Even now, I catch myself chanting that same
old barrier building refrain: "Do as I do, Believe as I do - or else!"
       
147 Grapevine March 1958
        We can be grateful for every agency or method that tries to solve the problem of
alcoholism - whether of medicine, religion, education, or research. We can be open
minded toward all such efforts & we can be sympathetic when the ill advised ones
fail. We can remember that A.A. itself ran for years on "trial & error".
        As individuals, we can & should work with those that promise success - even a
little success.
       
147 Grapevine March 1958
        Every one of the pioneers in the total field of alcoholism will generously say that
had it not been for the living proof of recovery in A.A., they could not have gone on.
A.A. was the lodestar of hope & help that kept them at it.
       
148 Grapevine March 1962
        When I am feeling depressed, I repeat to myself statements such as these: "Pain is
the touchstone of progress."...." Fear no evil"... "this too shall pass"..."This experience
can be turned to benefit".
        These fragments of prayer bring far more than mere comfort. They keep me on the
track of right acceptance; they break up my compulsive themes of guilt, depression,
rebellion, & pride; & sometimes they endow me with the courage to change the
things I can, & the wisdom to know the difference.
       
149 Alcoholics Anonymous p-25
        Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the
confession of shortcomings which the Steps require. But we saw that the program really
worked in others, & we had come to believe in the hopelessness of life as we had been
living it.
        When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been
solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid
at our feet.
       
149 A.A. Comes Of Age p-96
        Implicit throughout A.A.'s Traditions is the confession that our Fellowship has its
sins. We admit that we have character defects as a society & that these defects
threaten us continually. Our Traditions are a guide to better ways of working & living,
& they are to group survival & harmony what A.A.'s Twelve Steps are to each
member's sobriety & peace of mind.
       
150 Twelve & Twelve p-101/102
        Meditation is something which can always be further developed. It has no
boundaries, of width or height or depth. Aided by such instruction & example as we
can find, it is essentially an individual adventure, something which each one of us
works out in his own way. But its object is always the same: to improve our conscious
contact with God, with His grace, wisdom, & love.
        & let us always remember that meditation is in reality intensely practical. One of
its first fruits is emotional balance. With it we can broaden & deepen the channel
between ourselves & God as we understand Him.
       
151 Twelve & Twelve p-78
        The moment we ponder a twisted or broken relationship with another person, our
emotions go on the defensive. To escape looking at the wrongs we have done another,
we resentfully focus on the wrong he has done us. Triumphantly we seize upon his
slightest misbehavior as the perfect excuse for minimizing or forgetting our own.
        Right here we need to fetch ourselves up sharply. Let us remember that alcoholics
are not the only ones bedeviled by sick emotions. In many instances we are really
dealing with fellow sufferers, people whose woes we have increased.
        If we are about to ask forgiveness for ourselves, why should not we start out by
forgiving them, one & all?
       
152 Alcoholics Anonymous p-55
        Deep down in every man, woman, & child is the fundamental idea of a God. It
may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or
other it is there. For faith in Power greater than ourselves, & miraculous
demonstrations of that Power in human lives are facts as old as man himself.
      
152 letter 1966
        Faith may often be given through inspired teaching or a convincing personal
example of it fruits. It may sometimes be had through reason. For instance, many
clergymen believe that St. Thomas Aquinas actually proved God's existence by sheer
logic. But what can one do when all these channels fail? This was my own grievous
dilemma.
        It was only when I came fully to believe I was powerless over alcohol, only when I
appealed to a God who just might exist, that I experienced a spiritual awakening. This
freedom giving experience came first, & then faith followed afterward - a gift indeed!
  
153 Twelve Concepts p-70
        Suppose A.A. falls under sharp public attack or heavy ridicule, having little or no
justification in fact. Our best defense in these situations would be no defense whatever -
namely, complete silence at the public level. If in good humor we let unreasonable
critics alone, they are apt to subside the more quickly. If their attacks persist & it is
plain that they are misinformed, it may be wise to communicate with them privately in
a temperate & informative way.
        If, however, a given criticism of A.A. is partly or wholly justified, it may be well
to acknowledge this privately to the critics, together with our thanks.
        But under no conditions should we exhibit anger or any punitive intent.
       
153 Twelve & Twelve p-66/67
        What we must recognize is that we exult in some of our defects. Self-righteous
anger can be very enjoyable. In a perverse way we can actually take satisfaction from
the fact that many people annoy us; it brings a comfortable feeling of superiority.

154 A.A. Comes Of Age p-97
        An early fear was that of slips or relapses. At first nearly every alcoholic we
approached began to slip, if indeed he sobered up at all. Others would stay dry six
months or maybe a year & then take a skid. This was always a genuine catastrophe.
We would all look at each other & say, "who next?"
        Today, though slips are a very serious difficulty, as a group we take them in stride.
Fear has evaporated. Alcohol always threatens the individual, but we know that it
cannot destroy the common welfare.
     
154 letter 1942
        It does not seem to pay to argue with "slippers" about the proper method of getting
dry. After all, why should people who are drinking tell people who are dry how it
should be done?
        Just kid the boys along - ask them if they are having fun. If they are too noisy or
troublesome, amiably keep out of their way.
       
155 A.A. Comes Of Age p-234
        We give thanks to our Heavenly Father, who, through so many friends & through
so many means & channels, has allowed us to construct this wonderful edifice of the
spirit in which we are now dwelling - this cathedral whose foundations already rest
upon the corners of the earth.
        On its great floor we have inscribed our Twelve Steps of recovery. On the side
walls, the buttresses of the A.A. Traditions have been set in place to contain us in unity
for as long as God may will it so. Eager hearts & hands have lifted the spire of our
cathedral into its place. That spire bears the name of service. May it ever point straight
upward toward God.
      
155 talk 1959
        It is not only to the few that we owe the remarkable developments in our unity &
in our ability to carry A.A.'s message everywhere. It is to the many; indeed, it is to the
labors of all of us that we owe these prime blessings.
      
156 Twelve & Twelve p-74/75
        An improved perception of humility starts a revolutionary change in our outlook.
Our eyes begin to open to the immense values which have come straight out of painful
ego puncturing. Until now, our lives have been largely devoted to running from pain
& problems. Escape via the bottle was always our solution.
        Then in A.A., we looked & listened. Every where we saw failure & misery
transformed by humility into priceless assets.
       
Twelve & Twelve p-58
        To those who have made progress in A.A., humility amounts to a clear recognition
of what & who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could
be.
       
157 Twelve & Twelve p-100
        We recall, a little ruefully, how much store we used to set by imagination as it
tried to create reality out of bottles. Yes, we reveled in that sort of thinking, did we not?
&, though sober nowadays, do we not often try to much the same thing?
        Perhaps our trouble was not that we used our imagination. Perhaps the real trouble
was our almost total inability to point imagination toward the right objectives. There is
nothing the matter with truly constructive imagination; all sound achievement rests
upon it. After all, no man can build a house until he first visions a plan for it.
       
158 letter 1940
        We found that the principle of tolerance & love had to be emphasized in actual
practice. We can never say (or insinuate) to anyone that he must agree to our formula or
be excommunicated. The atheist may stand up in an A.A. meeting still denying the
Deity, yet reporting how vastly he has been changed in attitude & outlook. Much
experience tells us he will presently change his mind about God, but nobody tells him
he must do so.
        In order to carry the principle of inclusiveness & tolerance still further, we make
no religious requirement of anyone. All people having an alcoholic problem who wish
to get rid of it & so make a happy adjustment with the circumstances of their lives,
become A.A. members by simply associating with us. Nothing but sincerity is needed.
But we do not demand even this.
        In such an atmosphere the orthodox, the unorthodox, & the unbeliever mix
happily & usefully together. An opportunity for spiritual growth is open to all.
   
159 letter 1959
        The real question is whether we can learn anything from our experiences upon
which we may grow & help others to grow in the likeness & image of God.
        We know that if we rebel against doing that which is reasonably possible for us,
then we will be penalized. & we will be equally penalized if we presume in ourselves
a perfection that simply is not there.
        Apparently, the course of relative humility & progress will have to lie
somewhere between these extremes. In our slow progress away from rebellion, true
perfection is doubtless several millennia away.
      
160 A.A. Comes Of Age p-292/293
        We alcoholics are the biggest rationalizers in the world. Fortified with the excuse
that we are doing great things for A.A., we can, through broken anonymity, resume our
old & disastrous pursuit of personal power & prestige, public honors, & money -
the same implacable urges that, when frustrated, once caused us to drink.
       
160 A.A. Comes Of Age p-136/137
        Dr. Bob was essentially a far more humble person than I, & anonymity came
rather easily to him. When it was sure that he was mortally afflicted, some of his friends
suggested that there should be a monument erected in honor of him & his wife, Anne
- befitting a founder & his lady. Telling me about this, Dr. Bob grinned broadly &
said, "God bless 'em. They mean well. But let's you & me get buried just like other
folks".
        In the Akron cemetery where Dr. Bob & Anne lie, the simple stone says not a
word about A.A. This final example of self-effacement is of more permanent worth to
A.A. than any amount of public attention or any great monument.
 

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