The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

by Alcoholics Anonymous

very sick, but we also know that short of some miracle,

native acuteness and usually excelled in his field, regardless of environmental or educational advantages.

“eventually the alcoholic loses all of his capacities as his disease gets progressively worse, and this is a tragedy that is painful to watch; the disintegration of a sound mind and body.

I stayed up all night reading that book.

Mr. T., I was ready and willing to go into the interior of the African jungles, if that was what it took, for me to find what these people had.

and most especially appreciation and sympathetic understanding for their fellow man.

“ex-alkie”

practice these steps in my daily living I began to acquire faith and a philosophy to live by.

and life began to take on color and interest. In time, I found myself looking forward to each new day ...

but retrogression can spell death for us.

Worse state returns

And, as the years go by, working together, sharing our experiences with one another, and also sharing a mutual trust, understanding and love — without strings, without obligation — we acquire relationships that are unique and priceless.

In return for a bottle and a hangover, we have been given the Keys of the Kingdom.

I realized that there were other people in this world who behaved and acted as I did, and that I was a sick person, that I was suffering from an actual disease. It had a name and symptoms, just like diabetes or T.B. I wasn’t entirely immoral; I wasn’t bad; I wasn’t vicious.

this disease, and that I had to learn to live again without alcohol.

or else!

The explanation that alcoholism was a disease of a twofold nature, an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind, cleared up a number of puzzling questions for me. The allergy we could do nothing about. Somehow our bodies had reached the point where we could no longer absorb alcohol in our systems. The why is not important; the fact is that one drink will set up a reaction in our system which requires more; that one drink was too much and one hundred drinks were not enough. The obsession of the mind was a little harder to understand and yet everyone has obsessions of various kinds. The alcoholic has them to an exaggerated degree. Over a period of time he has built up self-pity, resentments toward anyone or anything that interferes with his drinking.

Emmet Fox,

“Alcoholism is an incurable, progressive disease. Whether you are dry one year, ten years or fifty years, you’re still one drink away from a drunk.”

with ginger ale. Oh, boy! Now back to the exam. My pen moves

colored

neurotic manifestation.

Strict moral behavior

About this time an incident took place in grade school that I have never forgotten because it made me realize that I was actually a physical coward.

he was he could only resent it. He could do nothing about it.

“

Vi.

I thought that all women should be perfect.

Husbands and in-laws should be perfect. I now understand that no ones perfect.

pathologically

compulsive; obsessive: a pathological gambler. <DERIVATIVES> path·o·log·i·cal·ly adv. pa·thol·o·gize v. [trans.] regard or treat (someone or something) as psychologically abnormal or unhealthy.

I had been accustomed to and that wasn’t the easiest thing in the world for me.

started drinking alone then.

repeal

repeated

“Maybe the bottles are brother

forward to the week-end’s drinking and pacify myself by saying that the week-ends were mine, that it didn’t interfere with my family or with my business if I drank on the week-ends. But the week-ends

stretched on into Mondays, and the time soon came when I drank every day. My practice at that juncture was just barely getting us a living.

But

I have my ups and downs the same as the rest. It’s no bed of roses, but somehow or other I’ve been able to make it, through the kindness of people in A.A. If something does come along that sort of upsets me, instead of walking in and throwing a buck at the barman and asking for a drink, I walk into a telephone booth, drop a dime in the box, and call somebody who was so kind as to give me his name and telephone number to meet such an emergency. I don’t have any resentments. I had a rough lot, but I don’t worry about that, after hearing the stories of many others.

I was sober for the first time in my life because I had a desire for sobriety greater than any other desire. Meetings and more meetings. Three months went by, and they said, “Bill, get up and say a few words.” We had about eight people in the group then, and I looked at these eight people and I stuttered and stammered, and finally I said, “I’m glad to be here!” And I sat down. The applause was tremendous.

I didn’t walk in, I swept in. All that I’d accomplished in six months was sobriety. I was as dry as dust, and just about as useless.

That is that A.A. doesn’t need me, but I need A.A.

You get just a little sobriety, and you get just a little humility. Not much, just a little. Not the humility of sackcloth and ashes, but the humility of a man who’s glad he’s alive and can serve. You get just a little tolerance, not too much, but just enough to sit and listen to the other guy.

Then I went to my first meeting. I was a very fortunate drunk.

Oh yes, I get the dry jitters once in a while, but that isn’t anything to worry about. It passes away. But I’ve never come close to that first drink. I took the advice of people I had heard at meetings, the people in the group. And I jumped in with both feet. Someone told me, “When you drank, you didn’t get half drunk. You went all the way. In this program there aren’t any half way measures. In here you must go all the way too.”

I no longer fought drinking as an escape. Rather, I embraced it — I must in honesty admit it — with a great sense of relief. I no longer had to pretend. I was giving up the struggle. Things weren’t going as I thought they should, for my greater enjoyment, comfort and fame; therefore, if the universe wouldn’t play my way, I wouldn’t play at all.

Bob, the author of this essay, looked and saw that the universe was beneath my contempt,

(actually, I was afraid),

On that day of decision, I didn’t acknowledge that I was an alcoholic.

despicable thing.

“What happened to Bob? Bob found alcohol!” And having sung that phrase, I’d chuckle with amusement, turning into irony turning into self-contempt turning into self-pity, at the sad fate of Bob, ...

up to accept responsibility so early and so fast and who staggered under his burdens without a whimper until the time came when he thought he was too good for this wo...

The sacred word was broken and you never trusted your father again, and avoided him. And when he died, you were unmoved.