293 to 307

The main ideas from this information are: 1. Sometimes we struggle to pray, but we should not think poorly of ourselves and resume prayer when we can. 2. Growing and acquiring love is important, and theology helps in believing in a rational universe under a loving God. 3. We often pray wrongly by asking for our own wishes instead of accepting God's will. 4. When reviewing our day, we should scrutinize our motives and avoid rationalizing our wrong actions. 5. Unity in AA is essential, and large gatherings and conferences help provide a larger vision of the whole. 6. Helping other alcoholics without expecting anything in return brings rewards and leads to new experiences. 7. Confidentiality and anonymity are important in AA, both for personal stories and the organization's reputation. 8. People of faith find purpose and stability in life, which alcoholics can learn from. 9. Personal character defects often contribute to financial and emotional insecurity. 10. The camaraderie and shared e 293 REBELLION OR ACCEPTANCE All of us pass through times when we can pray only with the greatest exertion. Occasionally, we go even further than this. We are seized with a rebellion so sickening that we simply won't pray. When these things happen, we should not think too ill of ourselves. We shall simply resume prayer as soon as we can, doing what we know to be good for us. A man who persists in prayer finds himself in possession of great gifts. When he has to deal with hard circumstances, he finds he can face them. He can accept himself and the world around him. He can do this because he now accepts a God who is all, and who loves all. When he says, O Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, he deeply and humbly means it. When in good meditation and thus freed from clamors of the world, he knows that he is in God's hands, that his own ultimate destiny is really secure, here and hereafter, come what may. 112 and 12, page 105, 2 Grapevine, June 1958, 294, LOVE PLUS RATIONALITY EQUALS GROWTH It seems to me that the primary object of any human being is to grow, as God intended, that being the nature of all growing things. Our search must be for what reality we can find, which includes the best definition and feeling of love that we can acquire. If the capacity of loving is in a human being, then it must surely be in his creator. Theology helps me in that many of its concepts cause me to believe that I live in a rational universe under a loving God, and that my own irrationality can be chipped away, little by little. This is, I suppose, the process of growth for which we are intended, letter 1958, 295, PRAYING RIGHTLY We thought we had been deeply serious about religious practices, however, upon honest appraisal, we found that we have been most superficial, our sometimes going to extremes. We had wallowed in emotionalism and had also taken this for true religious feeling. In both cases, we had been asking something for nothing. We had not prayed rightly. We had always said, grant me my wishes instead of thy will be done. The love of God and man we understood not at all. Therefore we remained self-deceived and so incapable of receiving enough grace to restore us to sanity, 12 and 12, page 32, 296, DAILY INVENTORY Often, as we review each day, only the closest scrutiny will reveal what our true motives were. There are cases where our ancient enemy, rationalization, has stepped in and had justified conduct which was really wrong. The temptation here is to imagine that we had good motives and reasons when we really hadn't. 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 thought we were helping others to understand him when in actuality, our true motive was to feel superior by pulling him down. We hurt those we loved because they needed to be taught a lesson, but we really wanted to punish. We were depressed and complained. We felt bad when in fact we were mainly asking for sympathy and attention, 12 and 12, page 94, 297, A VISION OF THE WHOLE Though many of us have had to struggle for sobriety, never yet has this fellowship had a struggle for lost unity. Consequently, we sometimes take this one great gift for granted. We forgot that should we lose our unity, the millions of alcoholics who still do not know might never get a chance. We used to be skeptical about large AA gatherings, like conventions, thinking they might prove too exhibitionistic, but on balance, their benefit is huge. While each AA's interest should center principality in those about him and upon his own group, it is both necessary and desirable that we all get a larger vision of the whole. The Great Service Conference in New York also produces this effect upon those who attend. It is a vision-stretching process. One letter 1949, two letters 1956, 298, A MIGHTY BEGINNING 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 of giving that actually demands nothing. He does not expect his brother sufferer to pay him or even to love him, and then he discovers that through the divine paradox of this kind of giving, he has found his own reward, whether or not his brother has yet received anything. His own character may still be gravely defected, but he somehow knows that God has enabled him to make a mighty beginning, and he senses that he stands at the edge of new mysteries, joys, and experiences of which he had never before dreamed. 12 and 12, page 109 to 110. 299 ANONYMY AND SOBRIETY As the AA groups multiplied, so did an anonymy problem, enthusiastic over the spectacular recovery of a brother alcoholic. We sometimes discuss those intimate and harrowing aspects of his case meant for his sponsor's ears alone. The aggrieved victim would then rightly declare that his trust had been broken. When stories get into circulation outside of AA, the loss of confidence in our anonymy promise was severe. It frequently turned people from us. Clearly, every AA member's name and story, too, has to be confidential, if he wished. We now fully realize that 100% personal anonymy before the public is just as vital to the life of AA as 100% sobriety is to the life of each and every member. This is not the counsel of fear. It is the prudence voice of long experience. 112 and 12, page 185, to AA comes of age, page 293, 300, PEOPLE OF FAITH We who have traveled a path through agnosticism and atheism beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion. We have learned that whatever the human fatalities of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions. People of faith have a rational idea of what life is about. Actually we used to have no reasonable conception whatever. We used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices when we might have seen that many spiritually minded persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness, and usefulness that we shall have sought ourselves. Alcohol's Anonymous, page 49, 301, TO REBUILD SECURITY In our behavior respecting financial and emotional security, fear, creed, and possessiveness, and pride have too often done their worst. Surveying his business or employment record, almost any alcoholic can ask questions like these. In addition to my drinking problem, what character defects contributed to my financial instability? Did fear and inferiority about my fitness for my job destroy my confidence and fill me with conflict? Or did I overvalue myself and play the big shot? Businesswomen in AA will find that these questions often apply to them too, and the alcoholic housewife can also make the family financially insecure. Indeed, all alcoholics need to cross-examine themselves ruthlessly to determine how their own personality defects have demolished their security. 12 and 12, page 51 through 52, 203, COMRADESHIP IN PERIL We AAs are like the passengers of a great liner, the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness, and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to captain's table. Unlike the feelings of the ship's passengers, however, our joy in escape from the disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feelings of having sharing in a common peril relapsed into alcoholism continues to be an important element in the powerful cement which binds us of AA together. Our first woman alcoholic had been a patient of Dr. Harry Tibet, and he had handed her a republication manuscript copy of the big book. The first reading made her rebellious, but the second convinced. Presently, she came to a meeting held in our living room, and from there she returned to the Santerium carrying this classic message to a few patients, we aren't alone anymore. One Alcoholics Anonymous, page 17, 2AA comes of age, page 18, 303, Loving Advisors. Had I not been blessed with wise and loving advisors, I might have cracked up a long time ago. A doctor once saved me from death by alcoholism because he obliged me to face up to the deadlines of that melee. Another doctor, a psychiatrist, later on helped me save my sanity because he led me to ferret out some of my deep-lined effects. From a clergyman, I acquired the truthful principles by which we AAs now try to live. But these precious friends did far more than supply me with their professional skills. I learned that I could go to them with any problem whatever. Their wisdom and their integrity were mine for the asking. Many of my dearest AA friends have stood with me in the exact same relation. Oftentimes, they could help where others could not simply because they were AA. Grapevine August 1961, 304, Single Purpose. There are those who predict that AA may well become a new spearhead for a spiritual awakening throughout the world. When our friends say these things, they are both generous and sincere, but we of AA must reflect that such a tribute and such a prophecy could well prove to be a heady drink for most ahead. That is, if we really came to believe this to be the real purpose of AA, and if we commence to behave accordingly, our society, therefore, will prudently cleave to its single purpose, the carrying of the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Let us resist the proud assumption that since God has enabled us to do well in one area, we are destined to be a channel for saving grace for everybody. AA comes of age, page 232. 305, From the Taproots. The principle that we should find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole society has sprung and flowered. Every newcomer is told, and soon realizes for himself, that his humble admission of powerlessness over alcohol is his first step towards liberation from his paralyzing grip. So, it is that we first see humbly as a necessity, but this is the barest beginning to get completely away from our aversion to the idea of being humble, to gain a vision of humility as the avenue to true freedom of the human spirit, to be willing to work for humility as something to be desired for itself, takes most of us a long, long time. A whole lifetime geared to self-centeredness cannot be set in reverse all at once. 12 and 12, page 21 through 22, to page 72 through 73. 306, Is Happiness the Goal? I don't think happiness or unhappiness is the point how do we meet the problems we face. How do we best learn from them and transmit what we have learned to others if they would receive the knowledge? In my view, we of this world are pupils in a great school of life. It is intended that we try to grow and that we try to help our fellow travelers to grow in the kind of love that makes no demands. In short, we try to make towards the image and likeness of God as we understand him. When pain comes, we are expected to learn from it willingly and help others to learn. When happiness comes, we accept it as a gift and thank God for it. Letter 1950, 307, Circle and Triangle. Above us at the International Convention at St. Louis in 1955, floated a banner on which we inscribed the then new symbol for AA, a circle enclosing a triangle. The circle stands for the whole growth of AA and the triangle stands for the AA's three legacies, recovery, unity, and service. It is perhaps no accident that priests and spheres of inquity regarded this symbol as a means of warding off spirits of evil. When in 1955, we old timers turned over our three legacies to the whole movement, nostalgia for the old days blended with gratitude for the great days in which I was now living. No more would it be necessary for me to act for, decide for, or protect AA. For a moment, I dreaded the coming change, but this mood quickly passed. The consequence of AA, as moved by the guidance of God, could be depended upon to ensure AA's future. Clearly, my job henceforth was to let go and let God. AA comes of age. AA comes of age. 1, page 1, 139, 2, page 46, and page 48.