"The real tests of the situation are your own willingness to confide and your full confidence in the one with whom you share your first accurate self-survey....
"If we would gain any real advantage in the use of this Step on problems other than alcohol, we shall need to make a brand new venture into open-mindedness. We...
"The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear...primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get...
"As we glance down the debit side of the day's ledger, we should carefully examine our motives in each thought or act that appears to be wrong. In most cases...
"This much could be a fragment of what is called meditation, perhaps our very first attempt at a mood, a flier into the realm of spirit, if you like. It ought...
"The AA answer to these questions about living is 'Yes, all of these things are possible.' We know this because we see monotony, pain, and even calamity turned...
"Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics who have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it. Some will be willing...
"Now let's ponder the need for a list of the more glaring personality defects all of us have in varying degrees. To those having religious training, such a...
"This feeling of being at one with God and man, this emerging from isolation through the open and honest sharing of our terrible burden of guilt, brings us to...
"Looking again at those defects we are still unwilling to give up, we ought to erase the hard-and-fast lines that we have drawn. Perhaps we shall be obliged in...
"The Seventh Step is where we make the change in our attitude which permits us, with humility as our guide, to move out from ourselves toward others and toward...
"But in other instances only the closest scrutiny will reveal what our true motives were. There are cases where our ancient enemy, rationalization, has stepped...
"Now, what of prayer? Prayer is the raising of the heart and mind to God...and in this sense it includes meditation. How may we go about it? And how does it...
"Of course all AA's, even the best, fall far short of such achievements as a consistent thing. Without necessarily taking that first drink, we often get quite...
"In a neighboring state, Ed had holed up in a cheap hotel. After all his pleas for help had been rebuffed, these words rang in his fevered mind: 'They have...
"Therefore, Step Two is the rallying point for all of us. Whether agnostic, atheist, or former believer, we can stand together on this Step. True humility and...
"To avoid falling into confusion over the names these defects should be called, let's take a universally recognized list of major human failings...the Seven...
"Let's dispose of what appears to be a hazardous open end we have left. It is suggested that we ought to become entirely willing to aim toward perfection. We...
"We 'constructively criticized' someone who needed it, when our real motive was to win a useless argument. Or, the person concerned not being present, we...
"In the morning we think of the hours to come. Perhaps we think of our day's work and the chances it may afford us to be useful and helpful, or of some special...
"The best-intentioned of us can fall for the 'two-step' illusion. Sooner or later the pink cloud stage wears off and things go disappointingly dull. We begin...
"Nowadays, when old-timers who know Ed fore-gather, they exclaim, 'What if we had actually succeeded in throwing Ed out for blasphemy? What would have happened...
"All these failings generate fear, a soul-sickness in its own right. Then fear, in turn, generates more character defects. Unreasonable fear that our instincts...
"The moment we say, 'No, never!' our minds close against the grace of God. Delay is dangerous, and rebellion may be fatal. This is the exact point at which we...
"Having so considered our day, not omitting to take due note of things well done, and having searched our hearts with neither fear nor favor, we can truly...
"As the day goes on, we can pause where situations must be met and decisions made, and renew the simple request: 'Thy will, not mine, be done.' If at these...
"Then perhaps life, as it has a way of doing, suddenly hands us a great big lump that we can't begin to swallow, let alone digest. We fail to get a worked-for...
"So when AA suggests a fearless moral inventory, it must seem to every newcomer that more is being asked of him than he can do. Both his pride and his fear...
"Of Course, it is reasonable and understandable that the question is often asked: 'Why can't we take a specific and troubling dilemma straight to God, and in...
"What then? Have we alcoholics in AA got, or can we get, the resources to meet these calamities which come to so many? These were problems of life which we...
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