Dear friend of Bill W. for July

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

When we retire at night, we constructively review our
day. Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to
ourselves which should be discussed with another
person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all?
What could we have done better? Were we thinking of
ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of
what we could do for others, of what we could pack
into the stream of life? But we must be careful not
to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for
that would diminish our usefulness to others. After
making our review we ask God's forgiveness and inquire
what corrective measures should be taken.

from page 86 of the Bug Book

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

For me, A.A. is a synthesis of all the philosophy I've ever read, all the
positive, good philosophy, all of it based on love. I have seen that there
is only one law, the law of love, and there are only two sins; the first is
to interfere with the growth of another human being, and the second is to
interfere with one's own growth.

from page 542 of the Big Book, 3rd edition

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

In the first few chapters a number of sudden
revolutionary changes are described. Though it was
not our intention to create such an impression, many
alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order
to recover they must acquire an immediate and
overwhelming "God-consciousness" followed at once by a
vast change in feeling and outlook.

Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of
alcoholics such transformations, though frequent, are
by no means the rule. Most of our experiences are
what the psychologist William James calls the
"educational variety because they develop slowly over
a period of time. Quite often friends of th newcomer
are aware of the difference long before he is himself.
He finally realizes that he has undergone a profound
alteration in his reaction to life; that such a change
could hardly have been brought about by himself alone.
What often takes place in a few month could seldom
have been accomplished by years of self discipline.
With few exceptions our members find that they have
tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they
presently identify with their own conception of a
Power greater than themselves.

from page 569 of the Big Book

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater
than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience.
Our more religious members call it
"God-consciousness."
Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic
capable of honestly facing his problems in the light
of our experience can recover, provided he does not
close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only
be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or
belligerent denial.
We find that no one need have difficulty with the
spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and
open mindedness are the essentials of recovery, But
these are indispensable.

"There is a principle which is a bar against all
information, which is proof against all arguments and
which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting
ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to
investigation."

-Herbert Spencer

from page 570 of the Big Book

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

There is the type of man who is unwilling to admit
that he cannot take a drink. He plans various ways of
drinking. He changes his brand or his environment.
There is the type who always believes that after being
entirely free from alcohol for a period of time he can
take a drink without danger. There is the
manic-depressive type, who is, perhaps, the least
understood by his friends, and about whom a whole
chapter could be written.
Then there are types entirely normal in every
respect except in the effect alcohol has upon them.
They are often able, intelligent, friendly people.
All these, and many others, have one symptom in
common: they cannot start drinking without developing
the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we
have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy
which differentiates these people, and sets them apart
as a distinct entity. It has never been, by any
treatment with which we are familiar, permanently
eradicated. The only relief we have to suggest is
entire abstinence.

from page xxviii of the Big Book

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

About one year prior to this experience, a man was
brought in to be treated for chronic alcoholism. He
had but partially recovered from a gastric hemorrhage
and seemed to be a case of pathological mental
deterioration. He had lost everything worthwhile in
life and was only living, one might say, to drink. He
frankly admitted and believed that for him there was
no hope. Following the elimination of alcohol, there
was found to be no permanent brain injury. He
accepted the plan outlined in this book. One year
later he called to see me, and I experienced a very
strange sensation. I knew the man by name, and partly
recognized his features, but there all resemblance
ended. From a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck,
had emerged a man brimming over with self-reliance and
contentment. I talked with him for some time, but was
not able to bring myself to feel that I had known him
before. To me he was a stranger, and so he left me.
A long time has passed with no return to alcohol.

from page xxix of the Big Book

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea.
He said, "Why don't you choose your own conception of
God?"
That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy
intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and
shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last.
It was only a matter of being willing to believe in
a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was
required of me to make a beginning. I saw that growth
could start from that point. Upon a foundation of
complete willingness I might build what I saw in my
friend, Would I have it? Of course I would!

from page 12 of the Big Book

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

But my friend sat before me, and he made the
point-blank declaration that God had done for him what
he could not do for himself. His human will had
failed. Doctors had pronounced him incurable. Society
was about to lock him up. Like myself, he had
admitted complete defeat. Then he had, in effect been
raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap
heap to a level of life better than the best he had
ever known!
Had this power originated in him? Obviouly it had
not. There had been no more power in him than there
was in me at that minute; and this was none at all.

from page 11 of the Big Book

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,
No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I
found in that bitter morass of self-pity. Quicksand
stretched around me in all directions. I had met my
match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my
master.
Trembling, I stepped from the hospital a broken man.
Fear sobered me for a bit. Then came the insidious
insanity of that first drink, on Armistice Day 1934, I
was off again. Everyone became resigned to the
certainty that I would have to be shut up somewhere,
or would stumble along to a miserable end, How dark
it is before the dawn! In reality that was the
beginning of my last debauch. I was soon to be
catapulted into what I like to call the fourth
dimension of existence. I was to know happiness,
peace, and usefulness, in a way of life that is
incredibly more wonderful as time passes.

from page 7 of the Big Book

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

I woke up. This had to be stopped. I saw I could
not take so much as one drink. I was through forever.
Before then, I had written lots of sweet promises, but
my wife happily observed that this time I meant
business. And so I did.
Shortly afterward I came home drunk. There had been
no fight. Where had been my high resolve? I simply
didn't know. It hadn't even come to mind. Someone
had pushed a drink my way, and I had taken it. Was I
crazy? I began to wonder, for such an appalling lack
of perspective seemed near being just that.

from page 5 of the Big Book

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

It is not the matter of giving that is in question,
but when and how to give. That often makes the
difference between failure and success. The minute we
put our work on a service plane the alcoholic
commences to rely upon our assistance rather than upon
God. He clamors for this or that, claiming he cannot
master alcohol until his material needs are cared for.
Nonsense. Some of us have taken very hard knocks to
learn this truth.
Job or no job-wife or no wife-we simply do not stop
drinking so long as we place dependence upon other
people ahead of dependence on God.

from page 98 of the Big Book

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

An alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature.
Our struggles with them are variously strenuous,
comic, and tragic. One poor chap committed suicide in
my home. He could not, or would not, see our way of
life.
There is, however, a vast amount of fun about it
all. I suppose some would be shocked at our seeming
worldliness and levity. But just underneath there is
deadly earnestness. Faith has to work twenty-four
hours a day in and through us, or we perish.
Most of us feel we need look no further for Utopia.
We have it with us right here and now. Each day my
friend's simple talk in our kitchen multiplies itself
in a widening circle of peace on earth and good will
to men.

from page 16 of the Big Book

[donnyjrmail]

Dear friend of Bill W.,

I went to my doctor again. He knew what I was doing,
how I was trying. I said,"I can't find my middle road
in life. I can't find it. It's either all work, or I
drink.", He said, "Why don't you try Alcoholics
Anonymous?" I was willing to try anything. I was
licked. For the second time, I was licked. The first
time was when I knew I couldn't live with alcohol.
But this second time, I found I couldn't live normally
without it, and I was licked worse than ever.

from page 339 of the Big Book, 3rd edition