Watch any A.A. of six months working with a Twelfth Step prospect. If the newcomer says, “To the devil with you,” the twelfth-stepper only smiles and finds another alcoholic to help. He doesn’t feel frustrated or rejected. If this next drunk responds, and in turn starts to give love and attention to other sufferers, yetContinue reading “Giving Without Demand – As Bill Sees It #69”
Category Archives: Self Restraint
A Program Of Action – Grapevine Article March 1989 by J.L.
Step Three – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. As an atheist with long-term sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous, I am occasionally asked how I resolve my atheist philosophies with the program’s strong reliance on belief in God’s participation in recovery fromContinue reading “A Program Of Action – Grapevine Article March 1989 by J.L.”
Responsibility Is Our Theme – Grapevine Article July 1965 by Bill W
MARKING AA’s thirtieth year we shall, in this month of July, 1965, hold our International Convention at Toronto. It is most fitting that the chosen keynote for this gala occasion will be “AA’s Responsibility.” There we shall review the three decades of AA life that are now history. Stirred by gratitude beyond expression, we shallContinue reading “Responsibility Is Our Theme – Grapevine Article July 1965 by Bill W”
Self Knowledge Is Not Enough – Big Book pg 38/39
However intelligent we may have been in other respects, where alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane. It’s strong language – but isn’t it true? Some of you are thinking: “Yes, what you tell us is true, but it doesn’t fully apply. We admit we have some of these symptoms, but we haveContinue reading “Self Knowledge Is Not Enough – Big Book pg 38/39”
4th Step Fear Inventory – Practice These Principles by Ray A.
Healthy and Unhealthy Fear Overcoming our fear is not always a good thing. We ought to have feared drinking, suggests the Big Book, for we knew how much suffering and humiliation it had wrought. But we did not. We lacked “the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove”Continue reading “4th Step Fear Inventory – Practice These Principles by Ray A.”
The Twelve Promises following the 9th Step – Big Book pg 83,84
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. The Twelve Promises Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
Not My Weak Will But A Greater Power – Grapevine Article February 1968 by Anonymous
The key is this: A human being stops depending on his own will and turns his life over to some other kind of will RECENTLY I had to sit and endure a mournful song and dance, delivered over a glass of vodka and grapefruit juice, by a woman who had called AA for help, toContinue reading “Not My Weak Will But A Greater Power – Grapevine Article February 1968 by Anonymous”
That Day On The Bridge – Grapevine Article September 1962 by M.D.B
My thoughts were on a collision course with the oncoming train (yet all my troubles were within myself) IN May or June of 1948, I stood on the side of a viaduct in western Oregon and played host to a legion of morbid thoughts. A fast freight train rushed towards the tracks directly below. SinceContinue reading “That Day On The Bridge – Grapevine Article September 1962 by M.D.B”
Coping With Anger – As Bill Sees It #179
Few people have been more victimized by resentments than have we alcoholics. A burst of temper could spoil a day, and a well-nursed grudge could make us miserably ineffective. Nor were we ever skillful in separating justified from unjustified anger. As we saw it, our wrath was always justified. Anger, that occasional luxury of moreContinue reading “Coping With Anger – As Bill Sees It #179”