"'Shoemaker, stick to thy last!'...better do one thing supremely well than many badly. That is the central theme of this Tradition. Around it our Society...
"The moment we saw that we had an answer for alcoholism, it was reasonable (or so it seemed at the time) for us to feel that we might have the answer to a lot...
"Self-supporting alcoholics? Who ever heard of such a thing? Yet we find that's what we have to be. This principle is telling evidence of the profound change...
"Alcoholics Anonymous will never have a professional class. We have gained some understanding of the ancient words 'Freely ye have received, freely give.' We...
"When Tradition Nine was first written, it said that 'Alcoholics Anonymous needs the least possible organization.' In years since then, we have changed our...
"Never since it began has Alcoholics Anonymous been divided by a major controversial issue. Nor has our Fellowship ever publicly taken sides on any question in...
"Without its legions of well-wishers, AA could never have grown as it has. Throughout the world, immense and favorable publicity of every description has been...
"The spiritual substance of anonymity is sacrifice. Because AA's Twelve Traditions repeatedly ask us to give up personal desires for the common good, we...
"No other kind of bankruptcy is like this one. Alcohol, now become the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all self-sufficiency and all will to resist its...
"Like all the remaining Steps, Step Three calls for affirmative action, for it is only by action that we can cut away the self-will which has always blocked...
"Before tackling the inventory problem in detail, let's have a closer look at what the basis problem is. Simple examples like the following take on a world of...
"AA experience has taught us we cannot live alone with our pressing problems and the character defects which cause or aggravate them. If we have swept the...
"Of course, the often disputed question of whether God can and will, under certain conditions--remove defects of character will be answered with a prompt...
"Humility, as a word and as an ideal, has a very bad time of it in our world. Not only is the idea misunderstood; the word itself is often intensely disliked....
"This is a very large order. It is a task which we may perform with increasing skill, but never really finish. Learning how to live in the greatest peace,...
"Most of us begin making certain kinds of direct amends from the day we join Alcoholics Anonymous. The moment we tell our families that we are really going to...
"A continuous look at our assets and liabilities, and a real desire to learn and grow by this means, are necessities for us. We alcoholics have learned this...
"To certain newcomers and to those one-time agnostics who still cling to the AA group as their higher power, claims for the power of prayer may, despite all...
"Our Twelfth Step also says that as a result of practicing all the Steps, we have each found something called a spiritual awakening. To new AA's, this often...
"'Does this mean,' some will anxiously ask, 'that in AA the individual doesn't count for much? Is he to be dominated by his group and swallowed up in it?' We...
"Being the founder, he is at first the boss. Who else could be? Very soon, though, his assumed authority to run everything begins to be shared with the first...
"To establish this principle of membership took years of harrowing experience. In our early time, nothing seemed so fragile, so easily breakable as an AA...
"Over the years, every conceivable deviation from our Twelve Steps and Traditions has been tried. That was sure to be, since we are so largely a band of...
"Alcoholics Anonymous can be likened to a group of physicians who might find a cure for cancer, and upon whose concerted work would depend the answer for...
"Here are some of the things we dreamed. Hospitals didn't like alcoholics, so we thought we'd build a hospital chain of our own. People needed to be told what...
"Probably no AA Tradition had the labor pains this one did. In early times, we were all broke. When you add to this the habitual supposition that people ought...
"Alcoholics simply will not listen to a paid twelfth-stepper. Almost from the beginning, we have been positive that face-to-face work with the alcoholic who...
"Well, let's see. Did anyone ever hear of a nation, a church, a political party, even a benevolent association that had no membership rules? Did anyone ever...
"As by some deep instinct, we AA's have known from the very beginning that we must never, no matter what the provocation, publicly take sides in any fight,...
"The inquiring voices are not all alcoholics or their families. Doctors read medical papers about Alcoholics Anonymous and call for more information. Clergymen...
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