"At first glance, it did look like a good thing. Then doubt crept in. The association wanted to use our member's full name in all its advertising; he was to be...
"There is another story about money. One night in 1948, the trustees of the Foundation were having their quarterly meeting. The agenda discussion included a...
"No individuals have been more buffeted by such emotional gusts than those AA's bold enough to accept employment with outside agencies dealing with the alcohol...
"These experiences taught us that anonymity is real humility at work. It is an all-pervading spiritual quality which today keynotes AA life everywhere. Moved...
"Any number of AA's can say to the drifter, 'Yes, we were diverted from our childhood faith, too. The overconfidence of youth was too much for us. Of course,...
"We realize that the word 'dependence' is as distasteful to many psychiatrists and psychologists as it is to alcoholics. Like our professional friends, we,...
"We also clutch at another wonderful excuse for avoiding an inventory. Our present anxieties and troubles, we cry, are caused by the behavior of other...
"More realism and therefore more honesty about ourselves are the great gains we make under the influence of Step Five. As we took inventory, we began to...
"Some who feel they have done well may dispute this, so let's try to think it through a little further. Practically everybody wishes to be rid of his most...
"But again we are driven on by the inescapable conclusion which we draw from AA experience, that we surely must try with a will, or else fall by the wayside....
"Having carefully surveyed this whole area of human relations, and having decided exactly what personality traits in us injured and disturbed others, we can...
"Disagreeable or unexpected problems are not the only ones that call for self-control. We must be quite as careful when we begin to achieve some measure of...
"Lord, make me a channel of thy peace...that where there is hatred, I may bring love...that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness...that...
"Even the newest of newcomers finds undreamed rewards as he tries to help his brother alcoholic, the one who is even blinder than he. This is indeed the kind...
"When AA was only three years old, an event occurred demonstrating this principle. One of the first members of AA, entirely contrary to his own desires, was...
"At first the elders could look only at the objections. 'We deal,' they said, 'with alcoholics only. Shouldn't we sacrifice this one for the sake of the many?'...
"Thus it was that under Tradition Four an AA group had exercised its right to be wrong. Moreover, it had performed a great service for Alcoholics Anonymous,...
"The minute we saw this compromising fact for what it was, we asked the prospective publicity director how he felt about it. 'Great guns!' he said. 'Of course...
"What a debate we had on that one! The Foundation was really hard up just then; the groups weren't sending in enough for the support of the office; we had been...
"We think the answer is 'No. Members who select such full-time careers do not professionalize AA's Twelfth Step.' The road to this conclusion was long and...
"We are sure that humility, expressed by anonymity, is the greatest safeguard that Alcoholics Anonymous can ever have." (Twelve and Twelve, Tradition Twelve,...
"When World War II broke out, this spiritual principle had its first major test. AA's entered the services and were scattered all over the world. Would they be...
"At this stage of the inventory proceedings, our sponsors come to the rescue. They can do this, for they are the carriers of AA's tested experience with Step...
"Hence it was most evident that a solitary self-appraisal, and the admission of our defects based upon that alone, wouldn't be nearly enough. We'd have to have...
"We who have escaped these extremes are apt to congratulate ourselves. Yet can we? After all, hasn't it been self-interest, pure and simple, that has enabled...
"But when we have taken a square look at some of these defects, have discussed them with another, and have become willing to have them removed, our thinking...
"Now that we're in AA and sober, and winning back the esteem of our friends and business associates, we find we still need to exercise special vigilance. As an...
"As beginners in meditation, we might now reread this prayer (St. Francis) several times very slowly, savoring every word and trying to take in the deep...
"Practically every AA member declares that no satisfaction has been deeper and no joy greater than in a Twelfth Step job well done. To watch the eyes of men...
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