FEAR AND FAITH The achievement of freedom from fear is a lifetime undertaking, one that can never be wholly completed. When under heavy attack, acute illness, or in other conditions of serious insecurity, we shall all react to this emotion — well or badly, as the case may be. Only the self-deceived will claim perfect freedom from fear. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 263 Fear has caused suffering when I could have had more faith. There are times when fear...
RELEASE FROM FEAR The problem of resolving fear has two aspects. We shall have to try for all the freedom from fear that is possible for us to attain. Then we shall need to find both the courage and grace to deal constructively with whatever fears remain. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 61 Most of my decisions were based on fear. Alcohol made life easier to face, but the time came when alcohol was no longer an alternative to fear. One of the greatest gifts...
"A.A. REGENERATION" 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 A thousand beatings by John Barleycorn did not encourage me to admit defeat. I believed it was my moral obligation to conquer my "enemy-friend." At my first A.A. meeting I was blessed with a feeling that it was all right to admit defeat to a...
A FELLOWSHIP OF FREEDOM . . . if only men were granted absolute liberty, and were compelled to obey no one, they would then voluntarily associate themselves in the common interest. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 50 When I no longer live under the dictates of another or of alcohol, I live in a new freedom. When I release the past and all the excess baggage I have carried for so very long, I come to know freedom. I have been introduced into a life and a...
"DEEP DOWN WITHIN US" We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. . . search diligently within yourself. . . . With this attitude you cannot fail. The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 55 It was out of the depths of loneliness, depression and despair that I sought the help of A.A. As I recovered and began to face the emptiness and ruin of...
