Big book quotables
Bonus for 200: What are the three essentials in Bill's story?
The 12 steps of recovery
Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step 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.
Step 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.
In the 5th step the twelve and twelve talks about the experience of those in AA who have a "perilous resolve" Read the page this is on.
Page 56
Bonus: 100
What is our next function?
Bonus 200
How do I ten step?
Bonus 300
What have we ceased fighting?
What is?
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!
The A.) B.) and C.)
A. 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
pg 72
At the beginning of recovery a man will take, as a rule, one of two directions. He may either plunge into a frantic attempt to get on his feet in business, or he may be so enthralled by his new life that he talks or thinks of little else. In either case certain family problems will arise. With these we have had experience galore.
Bonus 200: What does the book say about each of these examples?
First requirement
(how it works)
What is that we be convinced any life run on self will can hardly be a success
What is 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?
The how and why of it
We had to quit playing God it didnt work, next we decided that hereafter in this drama of life God was going to be our director. He is the principal; we are his agents. He is the father, and we are his children.
What is Prayer meditation and self examination?
"There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation for life."
Pg 64 B.B
The dilemma we face
(we agnostics)
What is lack of power
(12 and 12)
What is?
Lord make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy
O divine master grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life
Amen
Third step promises
(Just after the how and why of it)
"All sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. We were reborn."
Pain
"someone who knew what he was talking about once remarked that pain was the touchstone of all spiritual progress"
What am I
A sally
BB A Vision For You, pp.151-152
The two alternatives I face
What is One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help
(how it works)
The three things we have been trying to get from writing a fourth step?
not in how it works
What are a new attitude, a new relationship with our creator (or the power), and to discover the obstacles in our path?
.."and so we trust to God's will"
What is "All of the Twelve Steps require sustained and personal exertion to conform to their principles and so, we trust, to God's will."
1.That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe.
2. 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.