We’ll try to sell you on this…
From the Original Manuscript;
Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after, have been designed to sell you three pertinent ideas:
(a) That you are alcoholic and cannot manage your own life.
(b) That probably no human power can relieve your alcoholism.
(c) That God can and will.
If you are not convinced on these vital issues, you ought to re-read the book to this point or else throw it away!
That’s right – if you’re unconvinced, throw the book away! And we should practice stroking feathers in recovery? I doubt …read more

Alex has done it again
How Bill W. explained what was meant by the saying that
“A.A. is a SELFISH program.”
…. Another correspondent complained directly that he had been ‘disturbed to hear some A.A. speakers say, ‘A.A. is a selfish program.’” The co-founder’s response was eventually published in “The A.A. Way of Life”:
I can see why you are disturbed…. The word ’selfish’ ordinarily implies that one is acquisitive, demanding, and thoughtless of the welfare of others. Of course, the A.A. way of life does not at all imply such undesirable traits.
What do these speakers mean? Well, any theologian will tell …read more

After a great deal of trial and error, some manufactured, some ill conceived, some forced upon, regarding anonymity, Bill W. learned what may have been the lesson that “saved” Alcoholics Anonymous.
Subsequent to many situations involving the breaking of anonymity by AA members, Bill says (The Language of the Heart, pg. 216);
We now fully realize that 100 percent personal anonymity before the public is just as vital to the life of AA as 100 percent sobriety is to the life of each and every member. This is not the counsel of fear; it is the prudent voice of long experience. I …read more

Is where “it” all began…
Considering Bill Wilson was in an alcoholic stupor, I doubt he really perceived it this way until much later.
From page 196 of “The Language of the Heart” Bill tells us;
“In the late summer of 1934, my well-loved alcoholic friend and schoolmate, Ebbie, had fallen in with these good folks (the Oxford Group) and had promptly sobered up. Being an alcoholic, and rather on the obstinate side, he hadn’t been able to ‘buy’ all the Oxford group ideas and attitudes. Nevertheless, he was moved by their deep sincerity and felt mighty grateful for the fact that their …read more

Trying not to speak too soon again, Comcast appears to have settled their difficulties with their connectivity (we’ve stayed online for 6 hours plus now) so I’d like to repeat this too you from the desk of Dr. Bob;
Humility
“Perpetual quietness of heart. It is to have no trouble. It is never to be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore; to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me.”
“It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised, it is to have a blessed home in myself where …read more

This one has been kicked around and around and around… what does a group do if a real “live” drunk shows up at a meeting?
Let’s Ask Bill W.!
Bill said;
“Groups will usually run amuck on that sort of question. At first we are likely to say that we are going to be supermen and save every drunk in town. The fact is that a great many of them just don’t want to stop. They come, but they interfere very greatly with the meeting. Then, being still rather intolerant, the group will swing way over in the other direction and say, “No …read more