In turning my will and my life over to the care of God (as I understood Him) isn’t always an easy thing to do. I keep taking back control - or did I never fully give it up to begin with?
Living in the solution is the answer to all of your problems. Living in the Soltuion is simply doing the oposite of what you’ve been doing all of your life, living in the problem, suffering, obsessing, agonizing. Your reward for all of that unhealthy living was to have anxiety, anger and depression. Your reward for living in the solution is to have peace of mind, to feel healthy and vibrant, to be spiritually connected and wholly useful.
As a bonified alcoholic, I know first hand that my ego is cunning, baffling and powerful. It doesn’t want to die and will do anything to stay alive and kicking. It manipulates me through my mind and drags me down by suplanting delussional thoughts into my head about anything good that is in my life. And if I do catch on to its game, it changes its mask so I only think its gone, as it resumes it assalt from an alternate angle.
Someone to have considered themselves done with the work, simply still doesn’t get it. The old solution for us was to drink, the new solution is to not. The old solution for us was to be selfish, the new solution is to be selfless. The old solution for us was to be self-centered, the new solution for us is to be God-Centered. The old solution for us was to be delusional, the new solution for us is to turn our thinking and our will over to the care and understabnding of God and to remain open to His will for us.
I suffer from a spiritual malady that only a spiritual experience can grant me a daily reprieve based soley on my constant effort to enlarge uppon my spiritual life. Half measures avail me nothing. I cannot get sober on yesterdays work, no more than I can get a full stomache on yesterdays meal.
A Signed First Edition Big Book
Photo by Ed Suba, Jr. - Akron Beacon Journal
A First Printing First Edition Big Book with
the signatures of both our A.A. Co-founders,
Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith.
The writing of the Big Book took several months to accomplish. Drafts were sent back and forth to and from New York and Akron. After the New York members had reviewed each chapter, Akron members were given a chance to give their input.
That was natural, but let us think a little more closely. Without knowing it, had we not been brought to where we stood by a certain kind of faith? For did we not believe in our own reasoning? did we not have confidence in our ability to think? What was that but a sort of faith? Yes, we had been faithful, abjectly faithful to the God of Reason. So, in one way or another, we discovered that faith had been involved all the time!
To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. Certain drinkers, who would be greatly insulted if called alcoholics, are astonished at their inability to stop. We, who are familiar with the symptoms, see large numbers of potential alcoholics among young people everywhere. But try and get them to see it!
Each individual, in the personal stories, describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God. These give a fair cross section of our membership and a clear-cut idea of what has actually happened in their lives.