Next Frontier: Emotional Sobriety January 1958
Section One
The Mouth That Roared August 2001
A Remarkable Sensation March 1997
Section Two
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night October 1998
The Value of Life June 2005
Spiritual Coffee-making August 2001
Winners and Whiners October 1994
Faith in Full Flower November 2003
The Scariest Thing June 2006
Section Three
Lonely at the Top May 1991
Anonymity: A Day at a Time in the Real World July 1995
We Get What We Get October 2001
The Root of Our Troubles December 1979
Ready, Willing, and Almost Able April 2000
Thoughts on Step Seven August 1955
It Works at Work June 2000
Simple Program July 1980
Section Four
A Benchmark in Sobriety September 1991
Dropout September 1977
Think Small March 1979
What Will I Get Out of It? December 2003
Made Direct Amends June 1990
The Work at Hand March 1988
Take My Advice – I'm Not Using It May 1997
Section Five
Put Aside Anger July 1965
Some Long-time Views March 1984
An Equal-Opportunity Deplorer March 1983
As Unique As Ham and Eggs June 2000
Miracle In a Burger Joint March 2002
The Ability to Love May 1962
Miracles to Go August 1997
Section Six
The Rhythm of Life October 1998
Hanging in There Together March 1984
Meetings, Meetings, and More Meetings March 1995
Practical Joy February 1997
Savoring Our Sobriety August 1982
Savoring Sobriety August 1997
The Man I've Always Wanted to Be October 1990
A Twig In the Yard July 2001
About AA and AA Grapevine
Preface
In 1958, the Grapevine published an article by AA co-founder Bill W. about the ongoing challenges of recovery that he faced long after he stopped drinking. Called “The Next Frontier: Emotional Sobriety,” the article describes Bill’s insight that his struggle with depression was due to overweening dependencies on other people and outside circumstances. Bill explains how he had found peace of mind by letting go of his expectations and practicing what he calls “outgoing love” — a love less concerned with what one gets and more with what one gives. It was, as he put it, the St. Francis Prayer in action.
For some, the next frontier in recovery from alcoholism may be letting go of faulty, unrealistic dependencies; for others, it may mean illuminating persistent character defects or the “Now what?” malaise that can afflict the long-timer. The stories in this book show that when we have the willingness to find solutions rather than stay stuck in problems, we can let go of fear, selfishness, and resentment, put aside selfish demands, practice outgoing love, and become more connected to our Higher Power and our friends, family, and fellows.
This book does not represent a final definition of emotional sobriety. Growing up in sobriety means different things to each of us, and one’s own idea of it may change over time. But one thing seems true: the rewards for reaching for emotional sobriety are serenity, emotional balance, and an increased joy in living.
— The Editors
The Next Frontier:
Emotional Sobriety
January 1958
I THINK THAT MANY oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA — the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.
Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance — urges quite appropriate to age seventeen — prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven or fifty-seven.
Since AA began, I've taken immense wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up, emotionally and spiritually. My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse! Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round.
How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy and good living — well, that's not only the neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all our affairs.
Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot, literally. How shall our unconscious — from which so many of