GRAPEVINE, OCTOBER 1959
25
We Cannot Stand Still
In the first days of A.A., I wasn’t much bothered about the areas of life in which I was standing still. There was always the alibi: “After all,” I said to myself, “I’m far too busy with much more important matters.” That was my near perfect prescription for comfort and complacency.
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How many of us would presume to declare, “Well, I’m sober and I’m happy. What more can I want, or do? I’m fine the way I am.” We know that the price of such self-satisfaction is an inevitable backslide, punctuated at some point by a very rude awakening. We have to grow or else deteriorate. For us, the status quo can only be for today, never for tomorrow. Change we must; we cannot stand still.
1. GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1961
2. GRAPEVINE, FEBRUARY 1961
26
True Independence of the Spirit
The more we become willing to depend upon a Higher Power, the more independent we actually are. Therefore, dependence as A.A. practices it is really a means of gaining true independence of the spirit.
At the level of everyday living, it is startling to discover how dependent we really are, and how unconscious of that dependence. Every modern house has electric wiring carrying power and light to its interior. By accepting with delight our dependence upon this marvel of science, we find ourselves personally more independent, more comfortable and secure. Power flows just where it is needed. Silently and surely, electricity, that strange energy so few people understand, meets our simplest daily needs.
Though we readily accept this principle of healthy dependence in many of our temporal affairs, we often fiercely resist the identical principle when asked to apply it as a means of growth in the life of the spirit. Clearly, we shall never know freedom under God until we try to seek His will for us. The choice is ours.
TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 36
27
Daily Reprieve
We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.
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We of A.A. obey spiritual principles, at first because we must, then because we ought to, and ultimately because we love the kind of life such obedience brings. Great suffering and great love are A.A.’s disciplinarians; we need no others.
1. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, P. 85
2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 174
28
Troublemakers Can Be Teachers
Few of us are any longer afraid of what any newcomer can do to our A.A. reputation or effectiveness. Those who slip, those who panhandle, those who scandalize, those with mental twists, those who rebel at the program, those who trade on the A.A. reputation—all such persons seldom harm an A.A. group for long.
Some of these have become our most respected and best loved. Some have remained to try our patience, sober nevertheless. Others have drifted away. We have begun to regard the troublesome ones not as menaces, but rather as our teachers. They oblige us to cultivate patience, tolerance, and humility. We finally see that they are only people sicker than the rest of us, that we who condemn them are the Pharisees whose false righteousness does our group the deeper spiritual damage.
GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1946
29
Gratitude Should Go Forward
“Gratitude should go forward, rather than backward.
“In other words, if you carry the message to still others, you will be making the best possible repayment for the help given to you.”
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No satisfaction has been deeper and no joy greater than in a Twelfth Step job well done. To watch the eyes of men and women open with wonder as they move from darkness into light, to see their lives quickly fill with new purpose and meaning, and above all to watch them awaken to the presence of a loving God in their lives—these things are the substance of what we receive as we carry A.A.’s message.
1. LETTER, 1959
2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 110
30
Getting off a “Dry Bender”
“Sometimes, we become depressed. I ought to know; I have been a champion dry-bender case myself. While the surface causes were a part of the picture—trigger-events that precipitated depression—the underlying causes, I am satisfied, ran much deeper.
“Intellectually, I could accept my situation. Emotionally, I could not.
“To these problems, there are certainly no pat answers. But part of the answer surely lies in the constant effort to practice all of A.A.’s Twelve Steps.”
LETTER, 1954
31
In God’s Economy
“In God’s economy, nothing is wasted. Through failure, we learn a lesson in humility which is probably needed, painful though it is.”
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We did not always come closer to wisdom by reason of our virtues; our better understanding is often rooted in the pains of our former follies. Because this has been the essence of our individual experience, it is also the essence of our experience as a fellowship.
1. LETTER, 1942
2. GRAPEVINE, NOVEMBER 1961
32
Moral Responsibility
“Some strongly object to the A.A. position that alcoholism is an illness. This concept, they feel, removes moral responsibility from alcoholics. As any A.A. knows, this is far from true. We do not use the concept of sickness to absolve our members from responsibility. On the contrary, we use the fact of fatal illness to clamp the heaviest kind of moral obligation onto the sufferer, the obligation to use A.A.’s Twelve Steps to get well.
“In the early days of his drinking, the alcoholic is often guilty of irresponsibility. But once the time of compulsive drinking has arrived, he can’t very well be held fully accountable for his conduct. He then has an obsession that condemns him to drink, and a bodily sensitivity to alcohol that guarantees his final madness and death.
“But when he is made aware of this condition, he is under pressure to accept A.A.’s program of moral regeneration.”
TALK, 1960
33
Foundation for Life
We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order and on our terms.
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