ACCEPTING OUR HUMANNESS We finally saw that the inventory should be ours, not the other man's. So we admitted our wrongs honestly and became willing to set these matters straight. — AS BILL SEES IT, p. 222 Why is it that the alcoholic is so unwilling to accept responsibility? I used to drink because of the things that other people did to me. Once I came to A.A. I was told to look at where I had been wrong. What did I have to do with all these...
CHARACTER BUILDING Demands made upon other people for too much attention, protection, and love can only invite domination or revulsion. . . . — TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 44 When I uncovered my need for approval in the Fourth Step, I didn't think it should rank as a character defect. I wanted to think of it more as an asset (that is, the desire to please people). It was quickly pointed out to me that this "need" can be very...
LOOKING WITHIN Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. — TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 42 Step Four is the vigorous and painstaking effort to discover what the liabilities in each of us have been, and are. I want to find exactly how, when, and where my natural desires have warped me. I wish to look squarely at the unhappiness this has caused others and myself. By discovering what my emotional deformities are, I can...
NO ONE DENIED ME LOVE On the A.A. calendar it was Year Two. . . . A newcomer appeared at one of these groups. . . . He soon proved that his was a desperate case, and that above all he wanted to get well. . . . , “Since I am the victim of another addiction even worse stigmatized than alcoholism, you may not want me among you.” — TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, pp. 141-42 I came to you—a wife, mother, woman who had walked out on her...
OUR GROUP CONSCIENCE “. . . sometimes the good is the enemy of the best.” — ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS COMES OF AGE, p. 101 I think these words apply to every area of A.A.’s Three Legacies: Recovery, Unity and Service! I want them etched in my mind and life as I “trudge the Road of Happy Destiny” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 164). These words, often spoken by cofounder Bill W., were appropriately said to him as the result of the group’s...
