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AS BILL SEES IT
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Personality Change
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"It has often been said of A.A. that we are interested only on
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alcoholism. That is not true. We have to get over drinking in
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order to stay alive. But anyone who knows the alcoholic
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personality by firsthand contact knows that no true alky ever
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stops drinking permanently without undergoing a profound
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personality change."
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We thought "conditions" drove us to drink, and when we
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tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't
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do so to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of
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hand and we became alcoholics. It never ocurred to us that
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we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever
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they were.
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In God's Hands
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When we look back, we realize that the things which came to
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us when we put ourselves in God's hands were better than
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anything we could have planned.
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My depression deepened unbearable, and finally it seemed to
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me as though I were at the very bottom of the pit. For the
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moment, the last vestige of my proud obstinacy was
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crushed. All at once I found myself crying out, "If there is a
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God, let Him show Himself! I am ready to do anything,
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anything!"
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Suddenly the room lit up with a great white light. It seemed to
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me, in the mind's eye, that I was on a mountain and that a
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wind not of air but of spirit was blowing. And then it burst
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upon me that I was a free man. Slowly the ecstasy subsided. I
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lay on the bed, but now for a time I was in another world,a
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new world of consciouness. All about me and through me
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there was a wonderful feeling of Presence, and I thought to
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myself, "So this is the God of the preachers!"
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Pain and Progress
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"Years ago I used to commiserate with all people who
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suffered. Now I commiserate only with those who suffer in
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ignorance, who do not understand the purpose and ultimate
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utility of pain."
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Someone once remarked that pain is the touchstone of
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spiritual progress. How heartily we A.A.'s can agree with him,
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for we know that the pains of alcoholism had to come before
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sobriety, and emotional turmoil before serenity.
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"Believe more deeply. Hold your face up to the Light, even
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though for the moment you do not see."
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Can We Choose?
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We must never be blinded by the futile philosophy that we
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are just the hapless victims of our inheritance, of our life
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experience, and of our surroundings -- that these are the sole
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forces that make our decisions for us. This is not the road to
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freedom. We have to believe that we can really choose.
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"As active alcoholics, we lost our ability to choose
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whetherwe would drink. We were the victims of a compulsion
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which seemed to decree that we must go on with our own
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destruction.
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"Yet we finally did make choices that brought about
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recovery. We came to believe that alone we were powerless
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over alcohol. This was surely a choice, and a most difficult
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one. We came to believe that a Higher Power could restore
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us to sanity when we became willing to practice A.A.'s
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Twelve Steps.
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"In short, we chose to `become willing', and no better choice
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did we ever make."
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Maintenance and Growth
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It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads
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only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that
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we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have
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been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the
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maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this
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business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is
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fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off
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from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns
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and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.
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If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and
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the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious
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luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are
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poison.
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ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, P. 66
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All or Nothing?
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Acceptance and faith are capable of producing 100 per cent
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sobriety. In fact, they usually do; and they must, else we
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could have no life at all. But the moment we carry these
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attitudesinto our emotional problems, we find that only
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relative results are possible. Nobody can, for example,
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become completely free from fear, anger, and pride.
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Hence, in this life we shall attain nothing like perfect humility
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and love. So we shall have to settle, respecting most of our
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problems, for a very gradual progress, punctuated
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sometimes by heavy setbacks. Our oldtime attitude of "all or
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nothing" will have to be abandoned.
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The Realm of the Spirit
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In ancient times material progress was painfully slow. The
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spirit of modern scientific inquiry, research and invention
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was almost unknown.
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In the realm of the material, men's minds were fettered by
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superstition, tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas. Some of
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the contemporaries of Columbus thought a round earth
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preposterous. Others came near putting Galileo to death for
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his astronomical heresies.
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Are not some of us just as biased and unreasonable about
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the realm of the spirit as were the ancients about the realm of
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the material?
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