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Sober
Fellowship AA
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Readings
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I
cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and
wisdom to know the difference.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men
and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each
other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from
alcoholism. The only requirement
for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA
membership; we are self-supporting
through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination,
politics, organization or institution;
does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any
causes. Our primary purpose is to
stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has
thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people
who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program,
usually men and women who are
constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such
unfortunates. They are not at fault;
they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping
and developing a manner of living
which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are
those, too, who suffer from
grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have
the capacity to be honest.
Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what
happened, and what we are like now. If you
have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it
- then you are ready to take
certain steps. At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier,
softer way. But we could not.
With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and
thorough from the very start. Some of
us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go
absolutely. Remember that we deal
with alcohol - cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us.
But there is One who has all power-
that One is God. May you find Him now! Half measures availed us nothing. We
stood at the turning point. We
asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took,
which are suggested as a
program of recovery:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever
possible, except when to do so would injure them or
others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to
improve our conscious contact with God as we understood
Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that
out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the
result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to
alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Many of us exclaimed, "What an order! I
can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us has
been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We
are not saints. The point is, that we
are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are
guides to progress. We claim spiritual
progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the
chapter to the agnostic, and our
personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:
(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage
our own lives.
(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
(c) That God could and would if He were sought.
1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
2. For our group purpose
there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express
Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but
trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
6. An A.A. group ought
never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside
enterprise, lest problems of money, property and
prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Alcoholics Anonymous
should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ
special workers.
9. A.A., as such, ought
never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees
directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Alcoholics Anonymous
has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be
drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations
policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always
maintain personal anonymity at the level of press,
radio and films.
12. Anonymity is the
spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place
principles
before personalities.
God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and
to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my
difficulties, that victory over
them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way
of life. May I do Thy will
always! Amen
"My Creator, I am now
willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now
remove from me every single defect of character
which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.
Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your
bidding. Amen
Lord, make me a channel of thy peace - that
where there is hatred, I may bring love - that where there is wrong,
I may bring the spirit of forgiveness - that where there is discord, I may bring
harmony - that where there is error,
I may bring truth - that where there is doubt, I may bring faith - that where
there is despair, I may bring hope -
that where there are shadows, I may bring light - that where there is sadness,
I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be
comforted - to understand, than to be
understood - to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one
finds. It is by forgiving that one is
forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. Amen.
If we are painstaking about this phase of our
development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We
are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past
nor wish to shut the door on
it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how
far down the scale we have
gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of
uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self -
seeking will slip away. Our whole
attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic
insecurity will leave us. We will
intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will
suddenly realize that God is doing for us
what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think
not. They are being fulfilled
among us sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize
if we work for them.
Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We
realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to
you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for
the man who is still sick. The
answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot
transmit something you haven't got.
See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come
to pass for you and countless others.
This is the Great Fact for us.
Abandon yourself to God as you understand
God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the
wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be
with you in the Fellowship of the
Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy
Destiny. May God bless you and keep
you - until then.