ALL OR NOTHING (0)
Posted 2 April, 2008 in As Bill See's It, Meetings
Acceptance and faith are capable of producing 100 per cent sobriety. In fact, they usually do; and they must, else we could have no life at all. But the moment we carry these attitudes into our emotional problems, we find that only relative results are possivle. Nobody can, for example, become completely free from fear, anger, and pride.
Hence, in this life we shall attain nothing like pefect humility and love. So we shall have to settle, respecting most of our problems, for a very gradual progress, punctuated sometimes by heavy setbacks. Our oldtime attitude of “all or nothing” will have to be abandoned.
GRAPEVINE, MARCH 1962
POWERLESS (0)
Posted 2 April, 2008 in Daily Reflections
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS P. 21
It is no coincidence that the very first Step mentions powerlessness; An admission of personal powerlessness over alcohol is a cornerstone of the foundation of recovery. I’ve learned that I do not have the power and control I once thought I had. I am powerless over what people think about me. I am powerless over having just missed the bus. I am poweress over how other people work (or don’t work) the Steps. But I’ve also learned I am not powerless over my attitudes. I am not powerless over negativity. I am not powerless over assuming responsibility for my own recovery. I have the power to exert a positive influence on myself, my loved ones, and he world in which I live.
EXTERNAL VALUES (0)
Posted 2 April, 2008 in As Bill See's It
Many people will have no truck at all with absolute spiritual values. Perfectionists, they say, are either full of conceit because they fancy they have reached some inpossible goal, or else they are swamped in self-condemnation because they have not done so.
Yet I think that we should not hold this view. It is not the fault of great ideals that they are sometimes misused and so become shallow excuses for guilt, rebellion, and pride. On the contrary we cannot grow very much unless we constantly try to envision what the eternal spiritual vaues are.
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“Day by day” we try to move a little toward God’s perfection. So we need not to be consumed by maudlin guilt for failure to achieve His likeness and image by Thursday next. Progress is our aim, and His perfection is the beacon, light-years away, that draws us on.”
1. GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1961
2. LETTER, 1966
NEWCOMER PROBLEMS (0)
Posted 2 April, 2008 in As Bill See's It
The temptation is to become rather possessive of newcomers. Perhaps we try to give them advice about their affairs which we aren’t really competent to give or ought not give at all. Then we are hurt and confused when the advice is rejected or when it is accepted and brings still greater confusion.
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“You can’t make a horse drink water if he still prefers beer or is too crazy to know what he does want. Set a pail of water beside him, tell him how good it is and why, and leave him alone.
“If people really want to get drunk there is, so far as I know, no way of stopping this - so leave them alone and let them get drunk. But don’t exclude them from the water pail either.”
1. TWELVE AND TWELVE P. 111
2. LETTER, 1942
THE SHARED GIFT (0)
Posted 2 April, 2008 in As Bill See's It
A.A. is more than a set of prinicples; it is a society of alcoholics in action. We must carry the message, else we ourselves can wither and those who haven’t been given the truth may die.
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Faith is more than our greatest gift; its sharing with others is our greatest responsibility May we of A.A. continually seek the wisdom and the willingness by which we may well fulfill that immense trust which the Giver of all perfect gifts has placed in our hands.
1. SERVICE MANUAL P.5
2. GRAPEVINE, APRIL 1961
SEEKING FOOL’S GOLD (0)
Posted 2 April, 2008 in As Bill See's It
Pride is the basic breeder of must human dificulties, the chief block to true progress. Pride lures us into making demands upon ourselves or upon others which cannot be met without perverting or misusing our God-given instincts. When the satisfaction of our instincts for sex, security, and a place in society becomes the primary object of our lives, then pride steps in to justify our excesses.
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I may attain “humility for today” only to the extent that I am able to avoid the bog of guilt and rebellion on one hand and, on the other hand, that fair but deceiving land which is strewn with the fool’s gold coins of pride. This is how I can find and stay on the highroad to humility, which lies between these extremes. Therefore, a constant inventory which can reveal when I am off the road i always in order.
1. TWELVE AND TWELVE pp 48 - 49
2. GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1961
QUANTITY OR QUALITY (0)
Posted 2 April, 2008 in As Bill See's It
“About this slip business - I would not be tood 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. That, you surely are doing, and have been doing. So I would not stay away from A.A. through any feeling of discouragement or shame. It’s just the place you should be. Why don’t you try just as a member? You don’t have to carry the whole A.A. on your back, you know!
“It is not always the quantity of good things that you do, it is also the quality that counts.
“Above all, take it one day at a time”,
LETTER, 1958
OUT OF THE DARK (0)
Posted 2 April, 2008 in As Bill See's It
Self-searching is the means by which we bring new vision, action, and grace to bear upon the dark and negative side of our natures. With it comes the development of that kind of humility that makes it possible for us to receive God’s help. Yet it is only a step. We will want to go further.
We will want the good that is in us all, even in the worst of us, to flower and to grow. But first of all we shall want sunlight; nothing much can grow in the dark. Meditation is our step out into the sun.
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“A clear light seems to fall upon us all - when we open our eyes. Since our blindness is caused by our own defects, we must firstly deeply realize what they are. Constructive meditation is the first requirement for each new step in our spiritual growth”.
“A clear light seems to fall upon us all - when we open our eyes. Since our blindness is caused by our own defects, we must first deeply realize what they are. Constructive meditation is the first requirement for each new step in our spiritual growth”
1. TWELVE AND TWELVE P.98
2. LETTER, 1946
GROUP AND WORLD-WIDE COMMUNITY (2)
Posted 2 April, 2008 in As Bill See's It
The moment Twelfth Step work forms a group, a discovery is made - the most individuals cannot recover unless there is a group. Realization draws on each member that he is but a small part of a great whole; that no personal sacrifice is too great for preservation of the Fellowship. He learns that the clamor of desires and ambitions within him must be silenced whenever these could damage the group.
It becomes plain that the group must survive or the individual will not.
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“The Lone member at sea, the A.A. at war in a far land - all these members know that they belong to A.A.’s world-wide community, that theirs is only a physical separation, that their fellows may be as near as the next port of call. Ever so importantly, they are certain that God’s grace is just as much with them on the high seas or the lonely outpost as it is with them at home.”
1. TWELVE AND TWELVE P. 130
A NEW LIFE (0)
Posted 2 April, 2008 in As Bill See's It
In 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 condition whatever.
Regardless of worldly success or falure, regardless of pain or joy, regardless of sickness or health or even of death itself, a new life of endless possibilities can be lived if we are willing to continue our awakening, through the practice of AA’s Twelve Steps.
Grapevine, December 1957
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