A THANKFUL HEART I try to hold fast to the truth that a full and thankful heart cannot entertain great conceits. When brimming with gratitude, one's heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love, the finest emotion that we can ever know. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 37 My sponsor told me that I should be a grateful alcoholic and always have "an attitude of gratitude"—that gratitude was the basic ingredient of humility, that humility was the basic...
MYSTERIOUS PARADOXES Such is the paradox of A.A. regeneration: strength arising out of complete defeat and weakness, the loss of one's old life as a condition for finding a new one. A.A. COMES OF AGE, p. 46 What glorious mysteries paradoxes are! They do not compute, yet when recognized and accepted, they reaffirm something in the universe beyond human logic. When I face a fear, I am given courage; when I support a brother or sister, my capacity...
GUIDANCE . . . this means a belief in a Creator who is all power, justice, and love; a God who intends for me a purpose, a meaning, and a destiny to grow, however . . . haltingly, toward His own likeness and image. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 51 As I began to understand my own powerlessness and my dependence on God, as I understand Him, I began to see that there was a life which, if I could have it, I would have chosen for myself from the beginning. It...
I'M PART OF THE WHOLE At once, I became a part—if only a tiny part—of a cosmos. . . . AS BILL SEES IT, p. 225 When I first came to A.A., I decided that "they" were very nice people — perhaps a little naive, a little too friendly, but basically decent, earnest people (with whom I had nothing in common). I saw "them" at meetings—after all, that was where "they" existed. I shook hands with "them" and, when I went out the door, I forgot...
THE GIFT OF LAUGHTER At this juncture, his A.A. sponsor usually laughs. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 26 Before my recovery from alcoholism began, laughter was one of the most painful sounds I knew. I never laughed and I felt that anyone else's laughter was directed at me! My self-pity and anger denied me the simplest of pleasures or lightness of heart. By the end of my drinking not even alcohol could provoke a drunken giggle in me....
