IT DOESN'T HAPPEN OVERNIGHT We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 85 The most common alcoholic fantasy seems to be: "If I just don't drink, everything will be all right." Once the fog cleared for me, I saw—for the first time—the mess my life had become. I had family, work, financial and legal problems; I was hung up on old...
ACCEPTING OUR PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are, ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even begin. Again and again, we shall need to return to that unflattering point of departure. This is an exercise in acceptance that we can profitably practice every day of our lives. Provided we...
THE 100% STEP Only Step One, where we made the 100 percent admission we were powerless over alcohol, can be practiced with absolute perfection. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 68 Long before I was able to obtain sobriety in A.A., I knew without a doubt that alcohol was killing me, yet even with this knowledge, I was unable to stop drinking. So, when faced with Step One, I found it easy to admit that I lacked the power to not drink. But...
UNITED WE STAND We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 30 I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because I was no longer able to control my drinking. It was either my wife's complaining about my drinking, or maybe the sheriff forced me to go to A.A. meetings, or...
AN ACT OF PROVIDENCE It is truly awful to admit that, glass in hand, we have warped our minds into such an obsession for destructive drinking that only an act of Providence can remove it from us. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 21 My act of Providence, (a manifestation of divine care and direction), came as I experienced the total bankruptcy of active alcoholism—everything meaningful in my life was gone. I telephoned Alcoholics...
