THE GREATEST GIFT that can come to anybody is a spiritual awakening. Without doubt this would be the certain verdict of every well-recovered alcoholic in AA’s entire fellowship. So, then, what is this “spiritual awakening” this “transforming experience”? How can we receive it and what does it do? To begin with, a spiritual awakening isContinue reading “The Greatest Gift – Grapevine Article December 1957 by AA Co-founder Bill W”
Category Archives: Spiritual Experience
AA 12 Principles
Here are one version of the principles that underlie each of AA steps. This is not definitive but one presentation that is generally accepted about what principles may be useful in the practice of these in “all of our affairs”. Step 1. Honesty Step 2. Hope Step 3. Faith Step 4. Courage Step 5. IntegrityContinue reading “AA 12 Principles”
Life Is Not A Dead End – As Bill Sees It #85
When a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and resources alone. He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new state ofContinue reading “Life Is Not A Dead End – As Bill Sees It #85”
Big Book Story – 2nd Edition ‘He Thought He Could Drink Like a Gentleman’
I WAS BORN in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1889, the last child of a family of eight children. My parents were hard working people. My father was a railroad man and a Civil War veteran. I can remember that in my childhood, he was ill at ease with the children because he attempted to assert anContinue reading “Big Book Story – 2nd Edition ‘He Thought He Could Drink Like a Gentleman’”
Living Sober – Chapter 25 Getting Out Of The If Trap
Emotional entanglements with people are not the only way we can get our sobriety dangerously hooked to something extraneous . Some of us have a tendency to put other conditions on our sobriety , without intending to . One A.A . member says , “ We drunks * are very ‘ iffy ’ people .Continue reading “Living Sober – Chapter 25 Getting Out Of The If Trap”
Time To Be Kind – Grapevine Article December 2020 By Matt M
Through a little faith and effort, a husband’s longtime holiday resentment becomes a gift to someone he loves. Cliff, an old-timer in my home group, used to say that in order to recover, I would have to see things I don’t want to see, hear things I don’t want to hear and do things IContinue reading “Time To Be Kind – Grapevine Article December 2020 By Matt M”
We Seek Through Meditation – Grapevine Article March 1985 By C.C.
Step Eleven SEEKING “through prayer and meditation,” the Eleventh Step tells us, was among the vital actions that brought sobriety to the earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Obviously, if we want what those pioneers had and if we are “willing to go to any length to get it,” we should pray and meditate. As IContinue reading “We Seek Through Meditation – Grapevine Article March 1985 By C.C.”
What Is Meditation? Grapevine Article November 1999 By Sim G.
Step Eleven As with most people, I gave this Step much thought when I began working the program. It seemed straightforward enough to me–I was to take some time each day to improve my conscious contact with God. But as time went on, things which appeared simple on first hearing began to take on aContinue reading “What Is Meditation? Grapevine Article November 1999 By Sim G.”
Room In My Heart – Grapevine Article November 2020 By Candace T
Today I decided to write out my thoughts and share them with someone I have learned to trust. That’s how we build bridges of trust and understanding I’ve heard it said that there’s no loneliness like that of alcoholic isolation. I believe it. The shadow of this disease has been with me as long asContinue reading “Room In My Heart – Grapevine Article November 2020 By Candace T”
On Cultivating Tolerance – Grapevine Article by AA Co-Founder Dr. Bob July 1944
During nine years in A.A. I have observed that those who follow the Alcoholics Anonymous program with the greatest earnestness and zeal, not only maintain sobriety, but often acquire finer characteristics and attitudes as well. One of these is tolerance. Tolerance expresses itself in a variety of ways: in kindness and consideration toward the manContinue reading “On Cultivating Tolerance – Grapevine Article by AA Co-Founder Dr. Bob July 1944”