There may be additional reasons for the program’s success, but these are enough for a start. Remove false gods, such as alcohol and other drugs. Put your trust in God, not frail human beings or shaky institutions. The program actually relies on ancient principles that always amaze people when they are employed: Help Others, and you help yourself. The real reason the program works is neither secret nor magic. Twelve Step meetings often begin with a reading from a famous Fifth chapter, “How it works.” We know that the program does work, but why? Is there a secret or magic to it? We can neither think nor act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic. When we are tempted by the bait, we should train ourselves to step back and think. These are emotional booby traps baited with pride and vengefulness. We must avoid quick-tempered criticism, furious power-driven argument, sulking, and silent scorn. Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen. These “dry benders’ often led straight to the bottle. Anger, that occasional luxury of more balanced people, could keep us on an emotional jag indefinitely. As we saw it, our wrath was always justified. Nor were we ever skillful in separating justified from unjustified anger. A burst of temper could spoil a day, and a well-nursed grudge could make us miserably ineffective. I pray that I may be confident that good things will happen, as long as I am on the right path.įew people have been more victimized by resentments than have we alcoholics. I pray that I may gladly leave my future in God’s hands. The second step is to be confident that God is powerful enough to do anything He wills, and that no miracle in human lives is impossible with Him. Be sure that, if you trust God, what He does for you will be for the best. The first step is to lay your will before God as an offering, ready for God to do what is best for you. That is why God only reveals it to you day by day. You could not bear to know all the future. Your changed mental attitude toward your problems relieves you of their burden and you can face them without fear. Why then should you unduly worry or fret over the problems that arise today? Your attitude toward them can be changed by putting yourself and your problems in God’s hands and trusting Him to see that everything will turn out all right, provided you are trying to do the right thing. You probably will find it difficult to remember. Just try to remember what troubled you most a week ago. You can prove to yourself that life is basically and fundamentally an inner attitude. If I had had to hang on with nothing but hope and a desire not to drink, experiencing rejection wherever I went, I would have sought the easier, softer way and returned to my previous way of life. I look at the hundreds of meetings weekly in the city where I live and I know A.A. would have quickly faded like so many other so-called good causes. If it had not been for the fierce determination of our founders, A.A. A year and six months later these three had succeeded with seven more.
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