Personality Change

"It has often been said of A.A. that we are interested only in alcoholism. This is not true. We have to get over drinking in order to stay alive. But anyone who knows the alcoholic personality by firsthand contact knows that no true alky ever stops drinking permanently without undergoing a profound personality change."

We thought "conditions" drove us to drink, and when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't do so to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics. It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.

As Bill Sees It

1. LETTER, 1940

2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, p. 47

ACCEPTANCE

We admitted we couldn't lick alcohol with our own remaining resources, and so we accepted the further fact that dependence upon a Higher Power (if only our A.A. group) could do this hitherto impossible job. The moment we were able to accept these facts fully, our release from the alcohol compulsion had begun.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 109

Freedom came to me only with my acceptance that I could turn my will and my life over to the care of my Higher Power, whom I call God.

---

Serenity seeped into the chaos of my life when I accepted that what I was going through was life, and that God would help me through my difficulties - and much more, as well. Since then He has helped me through all of my difficulties! When I accept situations as they are, not as I wish them to be, then I can begin to grow and have serenity and peace of mind.

Meeting Adversity

"Our spiritual and emotional growth in A.A. does not depend so deeply upon success as it does upon our failures and setbacks. If you will bear this in mind, I think that your slip will have the effect of kicking you upstairs, instead of down. We A.A.'s have had no better teacher than Old Man Adversity, except in those cases where we refuse to let him teach us."

Roots of Reality

"We started upon a personal inventory, Step Four. A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking a commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock in trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values. We has to do exactly the same thing with our lives. We had to take stock honestly."

Release and Joy

 

"Who can render an account of all the miseries that once were ours, and who can estimate the release and joy that the later years have brought to us? Who can possibly tell the vast consequences of what God's work through A.A. has already set in motion? And who can penetrate the deeper mystery of our wholesale deliverance from slavery, a bondage to a most hopeless and fatal obsession which for centuries possessed the minds and bodies of men and women like ourselves?"

Quantity or Quality

"About this slip business--I would not be too discouraged.  I think you
are suffering a great deal from a needless guilt.  For some reason or
other, the Lord has laid out tougher paths for some of us, and I guess
you are treading one of them.  God is not asking us to be successful.

He is only asking us to try to be. 

No Boundaries

"Meditation is something which can always be further developed. It has no boundaries, of width or height or depth. Aided by such instruction and example as we can find, it is essentially an individual adventure, something which each one of us works out in his own way.

Principle Before Expediency

"Most of us thought good character was desirable. Obviously, good character was something one needed to get on with the business of being self-satisfied.
 
 With a proper display of honesty and morality, we'd stand a better chance of getting what we really wanted. But whenever we had to choose between character and comfort, character-building was lost in the dust of our chase after what we thought was happiness.
 

THE FALSE COMFORT OF SELF-PITY

Self-pity is one of the most unhappy and consuming defects that we know. It is a bar to all spiritual progress and can cut off all effective communication with our fellows because of its inordinate demands for attention and sympathy. It is a maudlin form of martyrdom, which we can ill afford.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 238

The false comfort of self-pity screens me from reality only momentarily and then demands, like a drug, that I take an ever bigger dose.

Pushing thru

"When I was tired and couldn't concentrate, I used to fall back on an affirmation toward life that took the form of simple walking and deep breathing. I sometimes told myself that I couldn't do even this - that I was too weak.
 
 But I learned that this was the point at which I could not give in without becoming still more depressed. So I would set myself a small stint. I would determine to walk a quarter of a mile. And I would concentrate by counting my breathing - say, six steps to each slow inhalation and four to each exhalation.
 

True Ambition - and False

We have had a much keener look at ourselves and those about us. We have seen that we were prodded by unreasonable fears or anxieties into making a life business of winning fame, money, and what we thought was leadership.
 
So false pride became the reverse side of that ruinous coin marked "Fear." We simply had to be Number One people to cover up our deep-lying inferiorities.

Will Power And Choice

 
“We A.A.’s know the futility of trying to break the drinking obsession by will power alone. However, we do know that it takes great willingness to adopt A.A.’s Twelve Steps as a way of life that can restore us to sanity.

“No matter how grievous the alcohol obsession, we happily find that other vital choices can still be made. For example, we can choose to admit that we are personally powerless over alcohol; that dependence upon a ‘Higher Power’ is a necessity, even if this be simply dependence upon an A.A. group. Then we can choose to try for a life of honesty and humility, of selfless service to our fellows and to ‘God as we understand Him.’

“As we continue to make these choices and so move toward these high aspirations, our sanity returns and the compulsion to drink vanishes,”

As Bill Sees It Letter, 1966 p. 88

WILLINGNESS TO GROW

If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go on.
— AS BILL SEES IT, p. 8

Sobriety fills the painful "hole in the soul" that my alcoholism created. Often I feel so physically well that I believe my work is done. However, joy is not just the absence of pain; it is the gift of continued spiritual awakening. Joy comes from ongoing and active study, as well as application of the principles of recovery in my everyday life, and from sharing that experience with others. My Higher Power presents many opportunities for deeper spiritual awakening. I need only to bring into my recovery the willingness to grow. Today I am ready to grow.

Personality Change

"It has often been said of A.A. that we are interested only on alcoholism. That is not true. We have to get over drinking in order to stay alive. But anyone who knows the alcoholic personality by first hand contact knows that no true alky ever stops drinking permanently without undergoing a profound personality  change."

<< << << >> >> >>

We thought "conditions" drove us to drink, and when

we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't do so to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics. It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.

1. LETTER, 1940

2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 4

Serenity Prayer

In 1941, a news clipping was called to our attention by a New York member.
In an obituary notice from a local paper, there appeared these words:
"God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can,
and the wisdom to know the difference." Never had we seen so much AA in so few words.
With amazing speed the Serenity Prayer came into general use.
- As Bill Sees It, p. 108


The prayer became more widely known after being brought to the attention of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1941 by an early member. The co-founder, William Griffith Wilson, and the staff liked the prayer and had it printed out in modified form and handed around. It has been part of Alcoholics Anonymous ever since, and has also been used in other twelve-step programs. Grapevine, The International Journal of Alcoholics Anonymous, identified Niebuhr as the author (January 1950, pp. 6–7), and the AA web site continues to identify Niebuhr as the author.

Thought to Ponder . . .
Life is fragile, handle with prayer.
AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
H O P E = Hang On; Pray Every day.

Everyday Living

Everyday Living

The A.A. emphasis on personal inventory is heavy because a great many of us have never really acquired the habit of accurate self-appraisal.

Once this healthy practice has become a habit, it will prove so interesting and profitable that the time it takes won't be missed. For these minutes and often hours spent in self-examination are bound to make all the other hours of our day better and happier. At length, our inventories become a necessity of everyday living, rather than something unusual or set apart.

TWELVE AND TWELVE, pp. 89-90

Complete the Housecleaning, p. 213

 As Bill Sees It

Complete the Housecleaning, p. 213

Time after time, newcomers have tried to keep to themselves
shoddy facts about their lives. Trying to avoid the humbling
experience of the Fifth Step, they have turned to easier methods.
Almost invariably they got drunk. Having persevered with the rest
of the program, they wondered why they fell.

We think the reason is that they never completed their housecleaning.
They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst
items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and
fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had
not learned enough of humility, fearlessness, and honesty, in the
sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else their
entire life story.

Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 72-73

As Bill Sees It

Click to go read As Bill Sees it

Spot-Checking

As Bill Sees It   p. 132

A spot-check inventory taken in the midst of disturbances can be of
very great help in quieting stormy emotions. Today's spot check
finds its chief application to situations which arise in each day's
march. The consideration of long-standing difficulties had better be
postponed, when possible, to times deliberately set aside for that
purpose.

The quick inventory is aimed at our daily ups and downs, especially
those where people or new events throw us off balance and tempt us
to make mistakes.

12 & 12, pp. 90-91

A New Life

Is sobriety all that we are to expect of a spiritual awakening?
 No, sobriety is only a bare beginning; it is only the first gift of the first awakening. If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go on. As it does go on, we find that bit by bit we can discard the old life -- the one that did not work -- for a new life that can and does work under any conditions whatever.