A SPIRITUAL KINDERGARTEN We are only operating a spiritual kindergarten in which people are enabled to get over drinking and find the grace to go on living to better effect. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 95 When I came to A.A., I was run down by the bottle and wanted to lose the obsession to drink, but I didn't really know how to do that. I decided to stick around long enough to find out from the ones who went before me. All of a sudden I was thinking...
TRUSTING OTHERS But does trust require that we be blind to other people's motives or, indeed, to our own? Not at all; this would be folly. Most certainly, we should assess the capacity for harm as well as the capability for good in every person that we would trust. Such a private inventory can reveal the degree of confidence we should extend in any given situation. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 144 I am not a victim of others, but rather a victim of my...
TODAY, I'M FREE This brought me to the good healthy realization that there were plenty of situations left in the world over which I had no personal power – that if I was so ready to admit that to be the case with alcohol, so I must make the same admission with respect to much else. I would have to be still and know that He, not I, was God. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 114 I am learning to practice acceptance in all circumstances of my life, so that I...
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...
