"Growing pains now beset the group. Panhandlers panhandle. Lonely hearts pine. Problems descend like an avalanche. Still more important, murmurs are heard in...
"How could we then guess that all those fears were to prove groundless? How could we know that thousands of these sometimes frightening people were to make...
"When AA was still young, lots of eager groups were forming. In a town we'll call Middleton, a real crackerjack had started up. The townspeople were as hot as...
"'I was soon sitting beside a big hulk of a man. Decidedly unfriendly, he stared at me out of eyes which were slits in his red and swollen face. I had to agree...
"In consternation, we saw ourselves getting married to all kinds of enterprises, some good and some not so good. Watching alcoholics committed willy-nilly to...
"In this connection, Bill likes to tell the following pointed story. He explains that when Jack Alexander's Saturday Evening Post piece broke in 1941,...
"Take the case of the club janitor and cook. If a club is going to function, it has to be habitable and hospitable. We tried volunteers, who were quickly...
"At this juncture, we can hear a churchman exclaim, 'They are making disobedience a virtue!' He is joined by a psychiatrist who says, 'Defiant brats! They...
"The Washingtonian Society, a movement among alcoholics which started in Baltimore a century ago, almost discovered the answer to alcoholism. At first, the...
"In the beginning, the press could not understand our refusal of all personal publicity. They were genuinely baffled by our insistence upon anonymity. Then...
"This phenomenon of contrast really set us thinking. Squarely before us was the question 'How anonymous should an AA member be?' Our growth made it plain that...
"It is a tremendous satisfaction to record that in the following years this changed. Alcoholics who still had their health, their families, their jobs, and...
"Then I woke up. I had to admit that AA showed results, prodigious results. I saw that my attitude regarding these had been anything but scientific. It wasn't...
"The trouble is that this kind of thinking takes no real account of the facts. And the facts seem to be these: The more we become willing to depend upon a...
"But that is not all of the danger. Every time a person imposes his instincts unreasonably upon others, unhappiness follows. If the pursuit of wealth tramples...
"This practice of admitting one's defects to another person is, of course, very ancient. It has been validated in every century, and it characterizes the lives...
"It is nowhere evident, at least in this life, that our Creator expects us fully to eliminate our instinctual drives. So far as we know, it is nowhere on the...
"Some of us, though, tripped over a very different snag. We clung to the claim that when drinking we never hurt anybody but ourselves. Our families didn't...
"After taking this preliminary trial at making amends, we may enjoy such a sense of relief that we conclude our task is finished. We will want to rest on our...
"Before we ask what a spot-check inventory is, let's look at the kind of setting in which such an inventory can do its work. It is a spiritual axiom that every...
"As we have seen, self-searching is the means by which we bring new vision, action, and grace to bear upon the dark and negative side of our natures. It is a...
"At Step Six, many of us balked--for the practical reason that we did not wish to have all our defects of character removed, because we still loved some of...
"Countless times, in as many cities and hamlets, we reenacted the story of Eddie Rickenbacker and his courageous company when their plane crashed in the...
"Now comes the election. If the founder and his friends have served well, they may--to their surprise--be reinstated for a time. If, however, they have heavily...
"Why did AA finally drop all its membership regulations? Why did we leave it to each newcomer to decide himself whether he was an alcoholic and whether he...
"'How much does your scheme cost?' I was thankful I could tell him, 'Nothing at all.' His next question: 'What are you getting out of it?' Of course, my answer...
"To my surprise, the response of the groups was slow. I got mighty sore about it. Looking at this avalanche of mail one morning at the office, I paced up and...
"Neither could AA itself function without fulltime workers. At the Foundation and inter-group offices, we couldn't employ non-alcoholics as secretaries; we had...
"The same stern threat applies to the group itself. Unless there is approximate conformity to AA's Twelve Traditions, the group, too, can deteriorate and die....
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