215 Twelve Concepts p-41
        There are those in A.A. whom we call "destructive" critics. They power drive, they
are "politickers", they make accusations to gain their ends - all for the good of A.A., of
course! But we have learned that these folks need not be really destructive.
        We ought to listen carefully to what they say. Sometimes they are telling the
whole truth; at other times, a little truth. If we are within their range, the whole truth,
the half-truth, or no truth at all can prove equally unpleasant to us. If they have got the
whole truth, or even a little truth, then we had better thank them & get on with our
respective inventories, admitting we were wrong. If they are talking nonsense, we can
ignore it, or else try to persuade them. Failing this, we can be sorry they are too sick to
listen, & we can try to forget the whole business.
        There are few better means of self-survey & of developing patience than the
workouts these usually well meaning but erratic members so often afford us.
       
216 letter 1954
        For most of us, the first years of A.A. are something like a honeymoon. There is a
new & potent reason to stay alive, joyful activity aplenty. For a time, we are diverted
from the main life problems. That is all to the good.
        But when the honeymoon has worn off, we are obliged to take our lumps, like
other people. This is where the testing starts. Maybe the group has pushed us onto the
sidelines. Maybe difficulties have intensified at home, or in the world outside. Then the
old behavior patterns reappear. How well we recognize & deal with them reveals the
extent of our progress.
       
216 Twelve & Twelve p-88
        The wise have always known that no one can make much of his life until self
searching becomes a regular habit, until he is able to admit & accept what he finds,
& until he patiently & persistently tries to correct what is wrong.
       
217 Grapevine January 1963
        Letter to Dr. Carl Jung:
        Most conversion experiences, whatever their variety, do have a common
denominator of ego collapse at depth. The individual faces an impossible dilemma.
        In my case the dilemma had been created by my compulsive drinking, & the
deep feeling of hopelessness had been vastly deepened by my doctor. It was deepened
still more by my alcoholic friend when he acquainted me with your verdict of
hopelessness respecting Rowland H.
        In the wake of my spiritual experience there came a vision of a society of
alcoholics. If each sufferer were to carry the news of the scientific hopelessness of
alcoholism to each new prospect, he might be able to lay every new comer wide open to
a transforming spiritual experience. This concept proved to be the foundation of such
success as A.A. has since achieved.
       
218 Alcoholics Anonymous p-151
        For most normal folks, drinking means release from care, boredom, & worry. It
means joyous intimacy with friend & a feeling that life is good.
        But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were
gone. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did & a heartbreaking
delusion that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it. There was always
one more attempt  - & one more failure.
       
218 Alcoholics Anonymous p-151
        We are sure God would like to see us happy, joyous, & free. Hence, we cannot
subscribe to the belief that this life necessarily has to be a vale of tears, though it once
was just that for many of us. But it became clear that most of the time we had made our
own misery.
       
219 Alcoholic Anonymous p-47
        Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from
honestly asking yourself what they might mean to you. At the start, this was all we
needed to commence spiritual growth, to effect our first conscious relation with God as
we understood Him, Afterward, we found ourselves accepting many things which had
seemed entirely out of reach. That was growth. But if we wished to grow we had to
begin somewhere. So at first we used our own conceptions of God, however limited
they were.
        We needed to ask ourselves but one short question: "Do I now believe, or am I
even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?" As soon as a man
can say that he does believe, even in this small degree, or is willing to believe, we
emphatically assure him that he is on his way.
       
220 Twelve & Twelve p-115/116
        As we made spiritual progress, it became clear that, if we ever were to feel
emotionally secure, we would have to put our lives on a give & take basis; we would
have to develop the sense of being in partnership or brotherhood with all those around
us. We saw that we would need to give constantly of ourselves without demand for
repayment. When we persistently did this, we gradually found that people were
attracted to us as never before. & even if they failed us, we could be understanding
& not too seriously affected.
       
220 A.A. Comes Of Age p-287/288
        The unity, the effectiveness, & even the survival of A.A. will always depend
upon our continued willingness to give up some of our personal ambitions & desires
for the common safety & welfare. Just as sacrifice means survival for the individual
alcoholic, so does sacrifice mean unity & survival for the group & for A.A.s entire
fellowship.
       
221 letter 1966
        Word comes to me that you are making a magnificent stand in adversity - this
adversity being the state of your health. It gives me a chance to express my gratitude for
your recovery in A.A. & especially for the demonstration of its principles you are now
so inspiringly giving to us all.
        You will be glad to know that A.A.s have an almost unfailing record in this
respect. This, I think, is because we are so aware that God will not desert us when the
chips are down; indeed, He did not when we were drinking. & so it should be with
the remainder of life.
        Certainly, He does not plan to save us from all troubles & adversity. Nor, in the
end, does He save us from so called death since this but an opening of a door into a new
life, where we shall dwell among His many mansions. Touching these things I know
you have a most confident faith.
       
222 Alcoholics Anonymous p-67
        At step four we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been
selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, & frightened? Though a given situation had not been
entirely our fault, we often tried to cast the whole blame on the other person involved.
        We finally saw that the inventory should be ours, not the other mans. So we
admitted our wrongs honestly & became willing to set these matters straight.
       
223 A.A.  Comes Of Age p-231
        As a society we must never become so vain as to suppose that we are authors &
inventors of a new religion. We will humbly reflect that every one of A.A.s principles
has been borrowed from ancient sources.

223 A.A. Comes Of Age p-81
        A minister in Thailand wrote, " We took A.A.s Twelve Steps to the largest
Buddhist monastery in this province, & the head priest said, "Why these Steps are
fine! For us as Buddhists, it might be slightly more acceptable if you had inserted the
word "good" in your steps instead of "God". Nevertheless, you say that it is God as you
understand Him, & that must certainly include the good. Yes, A.A.s twelve steps will
surely be accepted by the Buddhists around here.
       
223 A.A. Comes Of Age p-37
        St. Louis old timers recall how Father Edward Dowling helped start their group; it
turned out to be largely Protestant, but this fazed him not bit.
       
224 Twelve Concepts p-39/40
        No society can function well without able leadership at all its levels, & A.A. can
be no exception. But we A.A.s sometimes cherish the thought that we can do without
much personal leadership at all. We are apt to warp the traditional idea of "principles
before personalities" around to such a point that there would be no "personality" in
leadership whatever. This would imply rather faceless robots trying to please
everybody.
        A leader in A.A. service is a man or woman who can personally put principles,
plans, & policies into such dedicated & effective action that the rest of us naturally
want to back him up & help him with his job. When a leader power drives badly, we
rebel but when he too meekly becomes an order taker & he exercises no judgment of
his own - well, he is not a leader at all.
       
225 Twelve & Twelve p-37
         While drinking, we were certain that our intelligence, backed by will power, could
rightly control our inner lives & guarantee us success in the world around us. This
brave philosophy, wherein each man played God, sounded good in the speaking, but it
still had to meet the acid test: How well did it actually work? One good look in the
mirror was answer enough.
       
225 Grapevine January 1962
        My spiritual awakening was electrically sudden & absolutely convincing. At
once I became a part - if only a tiny part - of a cosmos that was ruled by justice &
love in the person of God. No matter what had been the consequences of my own
willfulness & ignorance, or those of my fellow travelers on earth, this was still the
truth. Such was the new & positive assurance, & this has never left me.
       
226 A.A. Comes Of Age p-224
        We of A.A. sometimes brag of the virtues of our fellowship. Let us remember that
few of these are actually earned virtues. We were forced into them, to begin with, by
the cruel lash of alcoholism. We finally adopted them, not because we wished to, but
because we had to.
        Then, as time confirmed the seeming rightness of our basic principles, we began to
conform because it was right to do so. Some of us, notably myself, conformed even
then with reluctance.
        But at last we came to a point where we stood willing to conform gladly to the
principles which experience, under the grace of God, had taught us.
       
227 Alcoholics Anonymous p-82
        The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts
are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted. Selfish &
inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil.
        We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough. He is like the
farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his home ruined. To his wife, he
remarked, "Don't see anything the matter here, Ma. Ain't it grand the wind stopped
blowin?"
       
227 Twelve & Twelve p-80
        We ask ourselves what we mean when we say that we have "harmed" other people.
What kinds of "harm" do people do one another, anyway? To define the word "harm" in
a practical way, we might call it the result of instincts in collision, which cause
physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual damage to those about us.
       
228 Twelve & Twelve p-57
        When we reached A.A., & for the first time in our lives stood among people who
seemed to understand, the sense of belonging was tremendously exciting. We thought
the isolation problem had been solved.
        But we soon discovered that, while we were not alone any more in a social sense,
we still suffered many of the old pangs of anxious apartness. Until we had talked with
complete candor of our conflicts, & had listened to someone else do the same thing,
we still did not belong.
        Step five was the answer. It was the beginning of true kinship with man & God.
      
229 letter 1949
        As sobriety means long life & happiness for the individual so does unity mean
exactly the same thing to our society as a whole. Unified we live; disunited we shall
perish.
       
229 talk 1959
        We must think deeply of all those sick ones still to come to A.A. As they try to
make their return to faith & to life, we want them to find everything in A.A. that we
have found, & yet more, if that be possible. No care, no vigilance, no effort to
preserve A.A.s constant effectiveness & spiritual strength will ever be too great to
hold us in full readiness for the day of their homecoming.
      
230 Twelve & Twelve p-92/93
        Not many people can truthfully assert that they love everybody. Most of us must
admit that we have loved but a few; that we have been quite indifferent to the many. As
for the remainder - well, we have really disliked or hated them.
        We A.A.s find we need something much better than this in order to keep our
balance. The idea that we can be possessively loving of a few, can ignore the many, &
can continue to fear or hate anybody at all, has to be abandoned, if only a little at a
time.
        We can try to stop making unreasonable demands upon those we love. We can
show kindness where we had formerly shown none. With those we dislike we can at
lest begin to practice justice & courtesy, perhaps going out of our way at times to
understand & help them.
       
231 Grapevine October 1959
        Everyone must agree that we A.A.s are unbelievably fortunate people; fortunate
that we have suffered so much; fortunate that we can know, understand, & love each
other so supremely well.
        These attributes & virtues are scarcely of the earned variety. Indeed, most of us
are well aware that these are rare gifts which have their true origin in our kinship born
of a common suffering & a common deliverance by the grace of God.
        Thereby we are privileged to communicate with each other to a degree & in a
manner not very often surpassed among our nonalcoholic friend in the world around us.
       
231 letter 1954
        I used to be ashamed of my condition & so did not talk about it. But nowadays I
freely confess I am a depressive, & this has attracted other depressives to me.
Working with them has helped a great deal.
       
232 Twelve & Twelve p-40
        Many new comers, having experienced little but constant deflation, feel a growing
conviction that human will is of no value whatever. They have become persuaded,
sometimes rightly so, that many problems besides alcohol will not yield to a headlong
assault powered only by the individuals will.
        However, there are certain things which the individual alone can do. All by
himself, & in the light of his own circumstances, he needs to develop the quality of
willingness. When he acquire willingness, he is the only one who can then make the
decision to exert himself along spiritual lines. Trying to do this is actually an act of his
own will. It is a right use of this faculty.
        Indeed, all of A.A.s Twelve Steps require our sustained & personal exertion to
conform to their principles & so, we trust, to God's will.
      
233 Twelve & Twelve p-89/90
        The A.A. emphasis on personal inventory is heavy because a great many of us
have never really acquired the habit of accurate self appraisal.
        Once this healthy practice has become a habit, it will prove so interesting &
profitable that the time it takes won't be missed. For the minutes & often hours spent
in self examination are bound to make all the other hours of our day better & happier.
At length, our inventories become a necessity of everyday living, rather than something
unusual or set apart.
       
234 letter 1949
        LETTER TO A PRISON GROUP
        Every A.A. has been, in a sense, a prisoner, Each of us has walled himself out of
society; each has known social stigma. The lot of you folks has been even more
difficult: In your case, society has also built a wall around you. But there is not any
really essential difference, a fact that practically all A.A.s now know.
        Therefore, when you members come into the world of A.A. on the outside, you
can be sure that no one will care a fig that you have done time. What you are trying to
be - not what you were - is all that counts with us.
       
234 letter 1964
        Mental & emotional difficulties are sometimes very hard to take while we are
trying to maintain sobriety. Yet we do see, in the long run, that transcendence over such
problems is the real test of the A.A. way of living. Adversity gives us more opportunity
to grow than does comfort or success.
       
235 Twelve & Twelve p-28/29
        Any number of A.A.s can say, "We were diverted from our childhood faith". As
material success began to come, we felt we were winning at the game of life. This was
exhilarating, & it made us happy.
        Why should we be bothered with theological abstractions & religious duties, or
with the state of our souls, here or hereafter? The will to win should carry us through.
        But then alcohol began to have its way with us. Finally, when all our score cards
read "zero", & we saw that one more strike would put us out of the game forever, we
had to look for our lost faith. It was in A.A. that we rediscovered it.
       
236 Grapevine June 1961
        There can be no absolute humility for us humans. At best, we can merely glimpse
the meaning & splendor of such a perfect ideal. Only God Himself can manifest in the
absolute; we human beings must needs live & grow in the domain of the relative.
        So we seek progress in humility for today.
      
236 Twelve & Twelve p-68
        Few of us can quickly or easily become ready even to look at spiritual & moral
perfection; we want to settle for only as much development as may get us by in life,
according, of course, to our various & sundry ideas of what will get us by.
Mistakenly, we strive for a self-determined objective, rather than for the perfect
objective which is God.
       
237 Twelve & Twelve p-173
        Neither the A.A. General Service Conference, its Board of Trustees, nor the
humblest group committee can issue a single directive to an A.A. member & make it
stick, let alone mete out any punishment. We have tried this lots of times, but utter
failure is always the result.
        Groups have sometimes tried to expel members, but the banished have come back
to sit in the meeting place, saying, "This is the life for us; You can not keep us out".
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. Who are you to
judge?"
        This does not mean that an A.A. will not take good advice or suggestions from
more experienced members. He simply objects to taking orders.
       
238 letter 1966
        Self-pity is one of the most unhappy & consuming defects that we know. It is a
bar to all spiritual progress & can cut off all effective communication with our fellows
because of its inordinate demands for attention & sympathy. It is a maudlin form of
martyrdom, which we can ill afford.
        The remedy? Well, let us have a hard look at ourselves, & a still harder one at
A.A.s Twelve Steps to recovery. When we see how many of our fellow A.A.s have
used the steps to transcend great pain & adversity, we shall be inspired to try these life
giving principles for ourselves.
       
239 Alcoholics Anonymous p-98
        Men who cry for money & shelter as a condition of their sobriety are on the
wrong track. Yet we sometimes do provide a new prospect with these very things -
when it becomes clear that he is willing to place his recovery first.
        It is not whether we shall give that is the question, but when & how to give.
Whenever we put our work on a material plane, the alcoholic commences to rely upon
alms rather than upon a Higher Power & the A.A. group. He continues to insist that he
cannot master alcohol until his material needs are cared for.
        Nonsense! Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: that job or
no job, wife or no wife, we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place material
dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.
       
240 Alcoholics Anonymous p-74
        We cannot disclose anything to our wives or our parents which will hurt them &
make them unhappy. We have no right to save our own skins at their expense.
        Such damaging parts of our story we tell to someone else who will understand, yet
be unaffected. The rule is, we must be hard on ourselves, but always considerate of
others.
       
240 Twelve & Twelve p-84
        Good judgement will suggest that we ought to take our time in making amends to
our families. It may be unwise at first to rehash certain harrowing episodes. While we
may be quite willing to reveal the very worst, we must be sure to remember that we
cannot buy our own peace of mind at the expense of others.
       
241 letter 1959
        In some sections of A.A., anonymity is carried to the point of real absurdity.
Members are on such a poor basis of communication that they do not even know each
others last names or where each lives. It is like the cell of an underground.
        In other sections, we see exactly the reverse. It is difficult to restrain A.A.s from
shouting too much before the whole public, by going on spectacular "lecture tours" to
play the big shot.
        However, I know that from these extremes we slowly pull ourselves into a middle
ground. Most lecture-giving members do not last too long, & the super anonymous
people are apt to come out of hiding respecting their A.A. friends, business associates,
& the like. I think the long time trend is toward the middle of the road - which is
probably where we should be.
242 A.A. Comes Of Age p-13
        After failure on my part to dry up any drunks, Dr. Silkworth reminded me of
Professor William James' observation that truly transforming spiritual experiences are
nearly always founded on calamity & collapse. "Stop preaching at them", Dr
Silkworth said, "& give them the hard medical facts first. This may soften them up at
depth so that they will be willing to do anything to get well. Then they may accept
those spiritual ideas of yours, & even a Higher Power."
      
242 Alcoholics Anonymous p-58
        We beg of you to be fearless & thorough from the very start. Some of us have
tried to hold on to our old ideas & the result was nil - until we let go absolutely.
      
243 Alcoholics Anonymous p- 86/87
        On awakening, let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We ask God to
direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self pity & from
dishonest or self seeking motives. Free of these, we can employ our mental faculties
with assurance, for God gave us brains to use. Our thought life will be on a higher plane
when our thinking begins to be cleared of wrong motives.
        If we have to determine which of two courses to take, we ask God for inspiration,
an intuitive thought, or a decision. Then we relax & take it easy, & we are often
surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.
        We usually conclude our meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through
the day what our next step is to be, asking especially for freedom from damaging self
will.
       
244 Grapevine January 1958
        Many oldsters who have put our A.A. "booze cure" to severe but successful tests
still find they often lack emotional sobriety. To attain this, we must develop real
maturity & balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with
our fellows, & with God.
       
244 A.A. Comes Of Age p-232/233
        Let A.A. never be a closed corporation; let us never deny our experience, for
whatever it may be worth, to the world around us. Let our individual members heed the
call to every field of human endeavor. Let them carry the experience & spirit of A.A.
into all these affairs for whatever good they may accomplish. For not only has God
saved us from alcoholism; the world has received us back into its citizenship.
       
245 Twelve & Twelve p-22
        Few indeed are those who, assailed by the tyrant alcohol, have ever won through
in single-handed combat. It is a statistical fact that alcoholics almost never recover on
their personal resources alone.
       
245 A.A. Comes Of Age p-82/83
        Way up toward Point Barrow in Alaska, a couple of prospectors got themselves a
cabin & a case of scotch. The weather turned bitter, fifty below, & they got so drunk
they let the fire go out. Barely escaping death by freezing, one of them woke up in time
to rekindle the fire. He was prowling around outside for fuel, & he looked into an
empty oil drum filled with frozen water. Down in the ice cake he saw a reddish yellow
object. When thawed out, it was seen to be an A.A. book. One of the pair read the book
& sobered up. Legend has it that he became the founder of one of our farthest north
groups.
       
246 Twelve & Twelve p-64
        When men & women pour so much alcohol into themselves that they destroy
their lives, they commit a most unnatural act. Defying their instinctive desire for self-
preservation, they seem bent upon self-destruction. They work against their own
deepest instinct.
        As they are progressively humbled by the terrific beating administered by alcohol,
the grace of God can enter them & expel their obsession. Here their powerful instinct
to live can cooperate fully with their Creator's desire to give them new life.
       
246 letter 1965
        The central characteristic of the spiritual experience is that it gives the recipient a
new & better motivation out of all proportion to any process of discipline, belief, or
faith.
        These experiences cannot make us whole at once; they are a rebirth to a fresh &
certain opportunity.

247 letter 9150
        Since open mindedness & experimentation are supposed to be the indispensable
attributes of our "scientific civilization", it seems strange that so many scientists are
reluctant to try out personally the hypotheses that God came first & man afterward.
They prefer to believe that man is the chance product of evolution; that God, the
Creator, does not exist.
        I can only report that I have experimented with both concepts & that, in my case,
the God concept has proved to be a better basis for living than the man-centered one.
        Nevertheless, I would be the first to defend your right to think as you will. I simply
ask this question: "In your own life, have you ever really tried to think & act as
though there might be a God? Have you experimented?"
 

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  Part 6

Part 7  Part 8  Part 9  Part 10  Part 11  Part 12