We finally saw that the inventory should be ours, not the other man's. So we admitted our wrongs honestly and became willing to set these matters straight.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 222

Why is it that the alcoholic is so unwilling to accept responsibility? I used to drink because of the things that other people did to me. Once I came to A.A. I was told to look at where I had been wrong. What did I have to do with all these different matters? When I simply accepted that I had a part in them, I was able to put it on paper and see it for what it was-humanness. I am not expected to be perfect! I have made errors before and I will make them again. To be honest about them allows me to accept them-and myself-and those with whom I had the differences; from there, recovery is just a short distance ahead.

Demands made upon other people for too much attention, protection, and love can only invite domination or revulsion. . . .

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 44

When I uncovered my need for approval in the Fourth Step, I didn't think it should rank as a character defect. I wanted to think of it more as an asset (that is, the desire to please people). It was quickly pointed out to me that this "need" can be very crippling. Today I still enjoy getting the approval of others, but I am not willing to pay the price I used to pay to get it. I will not bend myself into a pretzel to get others to like me. If I get your approval, that's fine; but if I don't, I will survive without it. I am responsible for speaking what I perceive to be the truth, not what I think others may want to hear.

Similarly, my false pride always kept me overly concerned about my reputation. Since being enlightened in the A.A. program, my aim is to improve my character.

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 42

Step Four is the vigorous and painstaking effort to discover what the liabilities in each of us have been, and are. I want to find exactly how, when, and where my natural desires have warped me. I wish to look squarely at the unhappiness this has caused others and myself. By discovering what my emotional deformities are, I can move toward their correction. Without a willing and persistent effort to do this, there can be little sobriety or contentment for me.

To resolve ambivalent feelings, I need to feel a strong and helpful sense of myself. Such an awareness doesn't happen overnight, and no one's selfawareness is permanent. Everyone has the capacity for growth, and for self-awareness, through an honest encounter with reality. When I don't avoid issues but meet them directly, always trying to re-solve them, they become fewer and fewer.

We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 568

Am I honest enough to accept myself as I am and let this be the "me" that I let others see? Do I have the willingness to go to any length, to do whatever is necessary to stay sober? Do I have the open-mindedness to hear what I have to hear, to think what I have to think, and to feel what I have to feel?

If my answer to these questions is "Yes," I know enough about the spirituality of the program to stay sober. As I continue to work the Twelve Steps, I move on to the heart of true sobriety: serenity with myself, with others, and with God as I understand Him.

The principles we have set down are guides to progress.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 60

Just as a sculptor will use different tools to achieve desired effects in creating a work of art, in Alcoholics Anonymous the Twelve Steps are used to bring about results in my own life. I do not overwhelm myself with life's problems, and how much more work needs to be done. I let myself be comforted in knowing that my life is now in the hands of my Higher Power, a master craftsman who is shaping each part of my life into a unique work of art. By working my program I can be satisfied, knowing that "in doing the best that we can for today, we are doing all that God asks of us."

On the A.A. calendar it was Year Two. . . . A newcomer appeared at one of these groups. . . . He soon proved that his was a desperate case, and that above all he wanted to get well. . . . [He said], “Since I am the victim of another addiction even worse stigmatized than alcoholism, you may not want me among you.”

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, pp. 141-42

I came to you—a wife, mother, woman who had walked out on her husband, children, family. I was a drunk, a pill-head, a nothing. Yet no one denied me love, caring, a sense of belonging. Today, by God’s grace and the love of a good sponsor and a home group, I can say that—through you in Alcoholics Anonymous—I am a wife, a mother, a grandmother and a woman. Sober. Free of pills. Responsible.

Without a Higher Power I found in the Fellowship, my life would be meaningless. I am full of gratitude to be a member of good standing in Alcoholics Anonymous.

“. . . sometimes the good is the enemy of the best.”

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS COMES OF AGE, p. 101

I think these words apply to every area of A.A.’s Three Legacies: Recovery, Unity and Service! I want them etched in my mind and life as I “trudge the Road of Happy Destiny” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 164). These words, often spoken by cofounder Bill W., were appropriately said to him as the result of the group’s conscience. It brought home to Bill W. the essence of our Second Tradition: “Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.”

Just as Bill W. was originally urged to remember, I think that in our group discussions we should never settle for the “good,” but always strive to attain the “best.” These common strivings are yet another example of a loving God, as we understand Him, expressing Himself through the group conscience. Experiences such as these help me to stay on the proper path of recovery. I learn to combine initiative with humility, responsibility with thankfulness, and thus relish the joys of living my twenty-four hour program.

They are servants. Theirs is the sometimes thankless privilege of doing the group’s chores.

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 134

In Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis describes an encounter between his principal character and an old man busily at work planting a tree. “What is it you are doing?” Zorba asks. The old man replies: “You can see very well what I’m doing, my son, I’m planting a tree.” “But why plant a tree,” Zorba asks, “if you won’t be able to see it bear fruit?” And the old man answers: “I, my son, live as though I were never going to die.” The response brings a faint smile to Zorba’s lips and, as he walks away, he exclaims with a note of irony: “How strange—I live as though I were going to die tomorrow!”

As a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I have found that the Third Legacy is a fertile soil in which to plant the tree of my sobriety. The fruits I harvest are wonderful: peace, security, understanding and twenty-four hours of eternal fulfillment; and with the soundness of mind to listen to the voice of my conscience when, in silence, it gently speaks to me, saying: You must let go in service. There are others who must plant and harvest.

Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 563

Prior to A.A., I often felt that I didn’t “fit in” with the people around me. Usually “they” had more/ less money than I did, and my points of view didn’t jibe with “theirs.” The amount of prejudice I had experienced in society only proved to me just how phony some self-righteous people were. After joining A.A., I found the way of life I had been searching for. In A.A. no member is better than any other member; we’re just alcoholics trying to recover from alcoholism.

We trust that we already know what our several freedoms truly are; that no future generation of AAs will ever feel compelled to limit them. Our AA freedoms create the soil in which genuine love can grow. . . .

THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEART, p. 303

I craved freedom. First, freedom to drink; later, freedom from drink. The A.A. program of recovery rests on a foundation of free choice. There are no mandates, laws or commandments. A.A.’s spiritual program, as outlined in the Twelve Steps, and by which I am offered even greater freedoms, is only suggested. I can take it or leave it. Sponsorship is offered, not forced, and I come and go as I will. It is these and other freedoms that allow me to recapture the dignity that was crushed by the burden of drink, and which is so dearly needed to support an enduring sobriety.