As
Bill
Sees
It
1
Personality Change
"It has often been said of A.A. that we are interested only on
alcoholism. That is not true. We have to get over drinking in order
to stay alive. But anyone who knows the alcoholic personality by
firsthand contact knows that no true alky ever stops drinking
permanently without undergoing a profound personality change."
<< << << >> >> >>
We thought "conditions" drove us to drink, and when we tried to
correct these conditions and found that we couldn't do so to our
entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became
alcoholics. It never ocurred to us that we needed to change ourselves
to meet conditions, whatever they were.
1. LETTER, 1940
2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 47
2
In God's Hands
When we look back, we realize that the things which came to us when
we put ourselves in God's hands were better than anything we could
have planned.
<< << << >> >> >>
My depression deepened unbearable, and finally it seemed to me as
though I were at the very bottom of the pit. For the moment, the last
vestige of my proud obstinacy was crushed. All at once I found myself
crying out, "If there is a God, let Him show Himself! I am ready to
do anything, anything!"
Suddenly the room lit up with a great white light. It seemed to me,
in the mind's eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of
air but of spirit was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I was a
free man. Slowly the ecstasy subsided. I lay on the bed, but now for
a time I was in another world,a new world of consciouness. All about
me and through me there was a wonderful feeling of Presence, and I
thought to myself, "So this is the God of the preachers!"
1. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, P. 100
2. A.A. COMES OF AGE, P. 63
