WOULD A DRINK HELP? By going back in our own drinking histories, we could show that years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 23 When I was still drinking, I couldn't respond to any of life's situations the way other, more healthy, people could. The smallest incident triggered a state of mind...
HAPPINESS COMES QUIETLY "The trouble with us alcoholics was this: We demanded that the world give us happiness and peace of mind in just the particular order we wanted to get it-by the alcohol route. And we weren't successful. But when we take time to find out some of the spiritual laws, and familiarize ourselves with them, and put them into practice, then we do get happiness and peace of mind. . . . There seem to be some rules that we have to...
HITTING BOTTOM Why all this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom. For practicing A.A.'s remaining eleven Steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p, 24 Hitting bottom opened my mind and I became willing to try...
AN UNSUSPECTED INNER RESOURCE With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pp. 567-68 From my first days in A.A., as I struggled for sobriety, I found hope in these words from our founders. I often pondered the phrase: "they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource." How, I asked myself,...
NO REGRETS We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 83 Once I became sober, I began to see how wasteful my life had been and I experienced overwhelming guilt and feelings of regret. The program's Fourth and Fifth Steps assisted me enormously in healing those troubling regrets. I learned that my self-centeredness and dishonesty stemmed largely from my drinking and that I drank because I was an...
