Step 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
AA 1st Ed p.76, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.64-65, 4th paragraph, line 1
Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning,
which many of us had never attempted. Though our (3rd Step) decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face (steps 4 & 5), and be rid of (steps 6 & 7), the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. (From God p.71)
AA 1st Ed p.76, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.64, 2nd paragraph, line 1
Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory. This was Step Four.
To complete this step, you will need some paper and a pen.
We will construct 3 different charts.
- First - Flaws in our make-up. Self manifested in Various Ways.
- Second - Resentment and Fears
- Third - Sex Inventory
AA 1st Ed p.76, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.64, 3rd paragraph, line 2
AA 1st Ed p.76, 3rd-4th Ed p.64
First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.
(On a piece of paper, make 3 columns and write these words in the first column)
4 Main Classifications pp. 84,86
| Selfishness
| Dishonesty
| Resentment
| Fear
|
| over indulgence (self indulgence)
| excuses (self justification) | criticism | indecision/worry
|
| self pity | false pride | intolerance | suspicion
|
| egotism (self importance) | delay (procrastination) | sarcasm | afraid
|
| remorse (self condemnation) | insincerity | resentment (anger) |
|
| restless irritable discontent (impatience) | dishonesty (lying stealing cheating) | hate |
|
| neglect (laziness) | justification (rationalization) | retaliate (revenge) |
|
| conceit | | |
|
| carelessness | | |
|
| envy | | |
|
| jealousy | | |
|
| selfishness (greed) | | |
|
| lust | | |
|
AA 1st Ed p.77-78, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.64-65, 4th paragraph, line 1
Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper.
We listed PEOPLE, INSTITUTIONS or PRINCIPLES with whom we were angry.
The Cause - We asked ourselves why we were angry.
In most cases it was found that our self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships
(including sex) were hurt or threatened. So we were sore. We were "burned up."
On our grudge list we set opposite each name our injuries. Was it our:
a. Self-esteem
b. Security
c. Ambitions
d. Personal relations
e. Sex relations
Which had been interfered with?
We were usually as definite as this example:
| Angry At | The Cause | Affects My | |
| | 1. Mr. Brown | His attention to my
wife.
Told my wife of my
mistress.
Brown may get my
job at the office.
| Sex relations.
Self-esteem
Sex relations.
Self-esteem
Security.
Self-esteem | |
| | 2. Mrs. Jones | She's a nut-she
snubbed me. She
She committed her hus-
band for drinking.
He's my friend.
She's a gossip.
| Self-esteem
Personal relation-
ship. Self-esteem
| |
| | 3. My employer | Unreasonable-Unjust
-Overbearing-
Threatens to fire
me for drinking
and padding my ex-
pense account.
| Self-esteem
| |
| | 4. My wife | Misunderstands and
nags. Likes Brown.
Wants house put in
her name.
| Pride-Personal
sex relations-
Security | |
|
AA 1st Ed p.78, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.66-67, 2nd paragraph, line 4
But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the light of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.
AA 1st Ed p.78, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.66, 3rd paragraph, line 1
If we were to live, we had to be free of anger.
AA 1st Ed p.78, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.66, 4th paragraph, line 1
We turned back to the list, for it held the key to the future. We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how?
AA 1st Ed p.78, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.66-67, 5th paragraph, line 1
This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick.
Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. (Prayer) We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God Save me from being angry. Thy will be done.
(Right now, pray for everyone on your resentment list.)
AA 1st Ed p.79, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.67, 2nd paragraph, line 1
We avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn't treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful to all people, but as least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one.
AA 1st Ed p.79, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.67, 3rd paragraph, line 1
Referring to our (Flaws) list again. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes (Flaws). Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man's. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight (Step 8).
(Put a name next to each one below. Who did you affect with this behavior?)
AA 1st Ed p.80, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.67-68, 3rd paragraph, line 1
Notice that the word FEAR is bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, the employer, and the wife. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It is an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it.
AA 1st Ed p.80, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.68, 1st paragraph, line 1
We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper even though we had no resentment in connection with them. We asked ourselves why we had them.
| Angry At | The Cause | Affects My | (fear?) | Why we have fear?
| | 1. Mr. Brown | His attention to my
wife.
Told my wife of my
mistress.
Brown may get my
job at the office.
| Sex relations.
Self-esteem
Sex relations.
Self-esteem
Security.
Self-esteem
|
(fear)
(fear)
(fear)
| His attention may
go too far.
She may take things
out on her
I may be out of work
soon.
| | 2. Mrs. Jones | She's a nut-she
snubbed me. She
She committed her hus-
band for drinking.
He's my friend.
She's a gossip.
| Self-esteem
Personal relation-
ship. Self-esteem
|
(fear)
(fear)
|
| | 3. My employer | Unreasonable-Unjust
-Overbearing-
Threatens to fire
me for drinking
and padding my ex-
pense account.
| Self-esteem
Security
|
(fear)
|
| | 4. My wife | Misunderstands and
nags. Likes Brown.
Wants house put in
her name.
| Pride-Personal
sex relations-
Security
|
(fear)
|
|
Are there any fears that are not connected to a resentment?
(examples)
1. Losing my job
2. Car breaking down
3. Being alone
4. Getting in an accident
5. Not being able to pay the mortgage
AA 1st Ed p.80-81, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.68, 2nd paragraph, line 1
Perhaps there is a better way, we think so. For we are now on a different basis, the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.
AA 1st Ed p.81, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.68, 3rd paragraph, line 7
(Prayer) We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be.
At once, we commence to outgrow fear.
AA 1st Ed p.81-82, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.6869, 1st paragraph, line 1
Now about sex. Many of us needed an overhauling there. But above all, we tried to be sensible on this question.
We all have sex problems. We'd hardly be human if we didn't. What can we do about them?
We reviewed our own conduct over the years past. Where had we been
selfish,
dishonest, or
inconsiderate? Whom had we hurt? Did we unjustifiably arouse
jealousy,
suspicion or
bitterness?
Where were we at fault, what should we have done instead? We got this all down on paper and we looked at it. In this way we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. We subjected each relation to this test - was it selfish or not?
(On a separate sheet of paper, we make another list and pose these questions.)
Defects
a. selfish
b. dishonest
c. inconsiderate
d. jealousy
e. suspicion
f. bitterness
| Whom had I hurt?
| What should I have done instead?
a. unselfish
b. honest
c. considerate
d. trust
e. trust
f. kindness
|
selfish
dishonest
inconsiderate
jealousy
suspicion
bitterness
|
name of person hurt
|
unselfish
honest
considerate
trust
trust
kindness
|
| selfish
| name of person hurt
| a.
|
selfish
inconsiderate
| name of person hurt
| a. c.
|
selfish
jealous
suspicion
| name of person hurt
| a. d. e.
|
selfish
kindness
| name of person hurt
| a. f.
|
AA 1st Ed p.82, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.69-70, 3rd paragraph, line 3
We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them.
Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it. We must be willing to make amends where we have done harm, provided that we do not bring about still more harm in so doing (Step 8).
In other words, we treat sex as we would any other problem. In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come, if we want it.
God alone can judge our sex situation (any other problem). Counsel with persons is often desireable, but we let God be the final judge. We avoid histerical thinking or advice.
AA 1st Ed p.82-83, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.70-71, 2nd paragraph, line 1
Suppose we fall short of the chosen ideal and stumble? Does this mean we are going to get drunk? Some people tell us so. But this is only a half-truth. It depends on us and on our motives. If we are sorry for what we have done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson. If we are not sorry, and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink. We are not theorizing. These are facts out of our experience.
AA 1st Ed p.83, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.70-71, 3rd paragraph, line 1
To sum up about sex: We earnestly pray for the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing. If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves.
If we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we have written down a lot. We have listed and analyzed our resentments. We have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality. We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness. We have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people. We have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct, and are willing to straighten out the past if we can (Step 8).
In this book you read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves. We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him. If you have already made a decision, and an inventory of your grosser handicaps, you have made a good beginning. That being so you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself.
Step 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
AA 1st Ed p.84, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.72, 1st paragraph, line 1
Having made our personal inventory, what shall we do about it? We have admitted certain defects; we have ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is, we have put our finger on the weak items in our personal inventory. Now these are about to be cast out.
AA 1st Ed p.87, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.75, 1st paragraph, line 1
When we decide who is to hear our story, we waste no time. We have a written inventory and we are prepared for a long talk. We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past.
STOP AND SHARE DEFECTS LIST
This is where everyone takes turns sharing one line at a time.
Start with "self-indulgence", then "person's name you hurt", then briefly how you hurt that person.
Next person shares on "Self-indulgence..." until everyone gets all the way down to "fear".
|
AA 1st Ed p.87, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.75, 2nd paragraph, line 2
Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe.
AA 1st Ed p.87-88, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.75, 3rd paragraph, line 1
Returning home we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done. We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know Him better. Taking this book down from our shelf we turn to the page which contains the twelve steps. Carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man (person) at last.
|
Step 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
AA 1st Ed p.88, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.75, 3rd paragraph, line 9
Is our work solid so far? (Yes or No?)
Are the stones properly in place? (Yes or No?)
Have we skimped on the cement put into the foundation? (Yes or No?)
Have we tried to make mortar without sand? (Yes or No?)
AA 1st Ed p.88, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.76, 1st paragraph, line 1
If we can answer to our satisfaction, we then look at Step Six. We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable.
Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable?(Yes or No?)
Can He now take them all - every one?(Yes or No?)
If we still cling to something we will not let go, (Say this Prayer) We ask God to help us be willing.
|
Step 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. (Step 7 itself is a prayer.)
AA 1st Ed p.88, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.76, 2nd paragraph, line 1
When ready, we say something like this: My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. 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. Amen. We have then completed Step Seven.
|
Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
AA 1st Ed p.88, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.76, 1st paragraph, line 1
Let's look at Steps Eight and Nine. We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took inventory. We subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal.
(See also: p. 67, 69, 70)
|
Step 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
AA 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.xix, 2nd paragraph, line 1
'As we discovered the principles by which the individual alcoholic could live...'
AA 1st Ed p. 143, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.130, 3rd paragraph, line 1
'Whether the family has spiritual convictions or not,
they may do well to examine the principles by which
the alcoholic member is trying to live.'
|
DEFECTS
OF CHARACTER
| Step 8
Whom did I hurt?
| Spiritual Principles
EXACT OPPOSITE of the DEFECT
PICK ONE that makes sense or is sensible to you. WRITE IT DOWN.
|
| over-indulge (self-indulgence)
| name of person hurt
| altrusim p.xxvi, abstinence p.xxviii, self-sacrifice p.61, enjoy life p.132, enjoy finer intimacy p.134
(Added by participants: discipline, restraint, asceticism, removal, giving, unshelfishness, selflessness)
|
| self-pity
| name of person hurt
| sympathy p.73, pity p.67, amends p.86
(Added by participants: resilience, compassion, support, helpfulness)
|
| excuses (self-justification)
| name of person hurt
| responsibility p.83, admit p.81
(Added by participants: no excuses, fairness, empathy, understanding, justice, repentance, humility)
|
| egotism (self-importance)
| name of person hurt
| considerate p.61, thoughtful p.131, modest p.61,
humility p.73
(Added by participants: unassuming)
|
| remorse (self-condemnation)
| name of person hurt
| release p.128, live and let live p.118
(Added by participants: mercy, conviction, positivity, look forward not backward, self-valuation)
|
| restless irritable discontent (impatience)
| name of person hurt
| patience p.67, calm p.78, peace p.75
|
| false pride
| name of person hurt
| humility p.73, modest p.61, humble p.63, tolerance p.63
(Added by participants: simplicity)
|
| neglect (laziness)
| name of person hurt
| action p.72, activity p.89, responsibility p.97
|
| delay (procrastination)
| name of person hurt
| prompt p.64, waste no time p.75, at proper time p.102
(Added by participants: action now, sense of urgency, proactive)
| criticism
| name of person hurt
| commend p.35, praise p.127
(Added by participants: compliment, positive quality focus, say something good)
| insincerity
| name of person hurt
| sincerity p.77, earnest p.70, genuine p.160, willingness p.67
(Added by participants: be real, straightforwardness)
|
| dishonesty (lying stealing cheating)
| My Employer
| honesty p.73, generosity p.61, truth p.73, frank p.78, thorough p.70
(Added by participants: giving back, fairness)
| justification (rationalization)
| name of person hurt
| reality p.xxiv, actual p.72, factual p.72
(Added by participants: owning up, truth, responsibilty)
| indecision/worry
| name of person hurt
| ask God for inspiration intuitive thoughts or a decision p.86, serenity p.68
(Added by participants: hope, firm or better decisions)
| conceit
| name of person hurt
| grounded p.63, humble p.73, humility p.73, equal p.51
(Added by participants: not about you)
| carelessness
| name of person hurt
| careful p.86, attention p.68, painstaking p.683
|
| intolerance
| name of person hurt
| tolerance p.67, kindness p.67 good will p.70 understanding p.162 love p.127
(Added by participants: allowance, compassion)
| sarcasm
| name of person hurt
| kindness p.67, friendly p.17
(Added by participants: respect, maturity)
| resentment (anger)
| Mr Brown
| tolerance p.67, pity p.67, patience p.67, helpful p.67, forgiveness p.70, (pray) God, save me from being angry, Thy will be done. p.67, good will p.70
(Added by participants: peace, let it go, claim your joy, calm, purity, forgiveness)
| envy
| name of person hurt
| admiration p.123, respect p.43, gratitude p.53, thankful p,75, approval p.151, humility p.73
(Added by participants: generosity, contentment, be satisfied, learn & grow)
| jealousy
| name of person hurt
| trust p.68, confidence p.89, respect p.89
(Added by participants: admiration, give grace, bless, practice being satisfied, secure, be happy for others)
| selfishness (greed)
| name of person hurt
| generosity p.61, giving p.98, unselfish p.93, considerate p.93
(Added by participants: volunteer)
| lust
| name of person hurt
| sane & sound ideal for future sex life p.69, in meditation we ask God what we should do about each specific matter p.70, help others p.70, love p.83
(Added by participants: shift desire to God, purity, marriage, commitment, chaste, decency, resist temptation, restraint, truthful)
| hate
| Mrs. Jones
| love p.83, care p.35, affection p.35, tolerance p.67, sympathy p.73
(Added by participants: empathy, concern, positive action)
| retaliate (revenge)
| name of person hurt
| forgiveness p.70, mercy p.70, reconcile p.70,
(Added by participants: forgive 70 x 7, let it go)
| suspicion
| My Wife
| build trust p.80, faith p.68, confidence p.75,fact finding fact facing p.64, behavior convinces more than words p.83
(Added by participants: mind my own business, quit looking, don't judge)
| fear
| name of person hurt
| courage p.68, faithp.68, We asked God to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us be. p.68,
(Added by participants: hope, perfect love, confidence)
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Page
| Spiritual Principles
| Synonyms
| Definitions - Alphabetized
|
| p.xxviii
| abstinence
| removal, restraint, asceticism, discipline, refraining
| Abstinence is the deliberate act of holding the self back from something entirely, not moderating it but removing it completely. Where temperance finds the right amount, abstinence chooses none. Restraint is the act of consciously pulling back, applying an internal force that holds desire in check. Unlike temperance which is about harmony, restraint suggests an active tension, the self pulling against its own impulses. Asceticism is the deliberate, disciplined training of the self through deprivation, reducing physical pleasures, comforts, and desires in order to strengthen the soul or spirit. It is practiced in many spiritual traditions, monks, mystics, philosophers. (Claude AI)
The act or practice of voluntarily refraining from or forbearing any action. The refraining from an indulgence of appetite or customary gratification, fasting. Total abstinance is the specific name for the act and practice of refraining from the use of intoxicating liquors as beverages. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.xxviii, removal AA p.59,68,71,76,84
|
| p.80
| action
| activity
| Action is moving forward now without hesitation or excuse, the process of doing something to achieve a goal, a specific deed, or the state of being active. (Claude AI)
Action literally is a driving, the state of acting or moving, exertion of power or force, the effect of power exerted on one body by another, motion produced, opposed to rest, when produced by the will of a living being, a spontaneous or voluntary, moral agency. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.xxvi,9,17,42,61,72,76,80,85,87,88,89,93,94,98,104,113,120,129,131,142,156,157 (negative action p61,83,87,140)
|
| p.123
| admiration
| approval, respect
| - a feeling of deep pleasure, approval, wonder, or high esteem for a person, object, or action, often blended with respect.
AA pp.xvii,xx,xxviii,7,19,21,22,26,37,38,43,48,49,74,80,81,98,99,116,117,122,123,125,130,151,153,155,158
|
| p.xxvi
| altruism
| self-sacrifice, unselfishness
| - the unselfish concern for other people's welfare, characterized by actions that benefit others at a cost to oneself.
AA pp.xxiv,xxvi,14,61,93,105,127
|
| p.35
| careful
| attention painstaking
| Carefullness is steady, devoted attention to what matters, protecting what has been entrusted to you, the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something, often involving serious attention, caution, or concern. Painstaking is doing each thing with full attention and thoroughness, leaving nothing undone.
Carefulness means full of care, anxious, solicitous, provident, attentive to support and protect, watchful, cautious, giving good heed, filling with care or solicitude, exposing to concern, anxiety, or troubles, full of cares, thoughtful, vigilance in guarding against evil and providing for safety. Painstaking means laborious, industrious, careful, attentive, diligent. Attention is the act of attending or heeding, the due application of the mind to any object presented for contemplation, mental concentration, an act of civility, courtesy, gallantry.
AA pp.xviii, xxv,1,13,21,23,26,35,38,41,59,65,68,75,83,85,86,87,90,91,92,93,100,103,107,112,115,116,117,
118,119,125,128,131,143,144,149,151,152,158,(negative care p.80,121)
|
| p.35
| commend
| praise
| - to praise formally, express approval, or recommend someone/something as worthy of notice.
AA pp.35,78,127
|
| p.74
| considerate
| thoughtful, modest
| Considerate means thoughtful concern for the needs and feelings of others, thoughtful, kind, and respectful of other people's rights, feelings, and needs, often taking care not to cause inconvenience or discomfort.
Considerate means given to consideration or to sober reflection, thoughtful, serious, discreet, not hasty or rash, not negligent, having respect for, regardful, characterized by consideration or regard for another's circumstances and feelings, not rigorous or exactin, accommodating, charitable, careful, cautious, prudent, kind, unselfish, charitable.
AA pp.2,61,74,83,99,123,131,140
|
| p.68
| courage
| faith, we ask God to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us be.
| Courage is simply what lives in the heart, the seat of all feeling and moral life. To have courage was to act from the deepest center of oneself. It is a heart-act, something done from the innermost place rather than performed for the outside world. In recovery, courage is not the absence of fear but the decision to move from the heart anyway, to let what is deepest and most honest in a person override what is merely defensive or comfortable. It is the mental, emotional, or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.
(Claude AI)
AA pp.xiv,6,10,14,15,16,28,45,47,49,51,52,53,54,55,68,70,76,88,93,115,117,132,154
|
| p.68
| faith
| courage serenity, confidence,
| Faith is the courage of the heart extended into the unknown. In the ancient world, fides was not merely a private feeling but a binding social force, the Romans considered it a goddess, Fides, the personification of good faith and loyalty between people, upon whose integrity all contracts, treaties, and human bonds depended. In recovery, the program does not demand belief but asks only for willingness, an openness to the possibility that something beyond the self might restore what the self alone could not. This is precisely where the Latin root speaks so directly: fides is not certainty, it is trust extended before the proof is in hand. Faith in the AA sense grows not from intellectual conviction but from experience accumulated through the steps, each honest action, each answered prayer, each moment of unexpected grace quietly building a foundation that the mind alone could never construct. It is a confident belief in God and in the goodness of others without need for proof. Just as Roman fides held society together, faith in recovery is sustained by the gathered witness of people who trusted first and found something real.
Serenity is a state of calm and peace that comes from trusting God's care.
Confidence is a firm belief in oneself and God that removes anxiety and worry.
AA pp.xiv,10,14,15,16,28,45,47,49,51,52,53,54,55,68,70,76,88,93,117
|
| p.70
| forgiveness
| mercy, reconcile
| Forgiveness is the voluntary, intentional decision to release feelings of resentment, vengeance, or anger toward someone who has caused harm, regardless of whether they deserve it, releasing the hold of past hurts and choosing to no longer carry the poison of bitterness.
Forgiveness is to pardon, to remit as an offense or debt, to overlook (an offense) and treat (the offender) as not guilty, to remit, as a debt, fine, or penalty, to grant free pardon, to cease to blame, absolve, release. The act of forgiving. Mercy is that benevolence or kindness of heart or disposition which induces a person to overlook injuries, or to treat an offender with greater forbearance and clemency than he deserves, a disposition to temper justice with mildness, and to inflict a lighter punishment for offenses than law or justice will warrant, clemency, tenderness of heart, mildness, compassion, an act or exercise of kindness, compassion, or clemency, a blessing, a kind of merciful act, pardon, forgiveness, pity. Reconcile is to conciliate agian or anew, to restore to friendship and accord after estrangement, to adjust, to settle, to accommodate, to compose, to bring to a state of acquiescence, content, or quiet submission, generally used reflexively, to make consistent, harmonious, or congruous, to reduce to a state of harmony or consistency, to remove apparent discrepancies from.
AA pp.4,70,72,77,79,86,106,124,140 (negative forgive p.134)
|
| p.61
| generosity
| giving, unselfish
| - the quality of being kind, unselfish, and willing to give money, time, resources, or kindness freely and often, usually exceeding expectations.
AA pp.xxv,4,5,20,61,80,93,98,105,106,121,127,128,129,134,157,159
|
| p.70
| good will
| friendly, kindness
| - a kindly, benevolent feeling or a cheerful, willing consent.
AA pp.xxiv,xxviii,7,17,37,41,53,61,67,70.82,83,86,95,97,99,111,112,114,131,134,140,141,145
|
| p.78
| gratitude
| thankful
| - the state of being thankful and appreciating the positive aspects of life, recognizing goodness that often comes from outside oneself.
AA pp.39,53,75,78,127,128,144,149,154
|
| p.48
| grounded
| humble, equal
| - a person who is mentally/emotionally stable, practical, and well-balanced.
AA pp.xxvi,48,51,55,102,107,122
|
| p.80
| helpful
| assistance
| - providing assistance, aid, or support to make a task easier or to improve a situation.
AA pp.xi,xiii,xiv,xvi,xviii,xxvii,7,14,15,18,20,25,27,34,43,52,55,59,62,63,67,69,70,75,76,
77,78,80,84,87,89,90,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,102,103,111,112,116,117,119,120,124,127,129,130,131,132,
133,135,137,138,139,140,141,142,145,146,147,148,158,159,161,162,163
|
| p.80
| hope
| trust, optimism
| - the confident expectation, desire, or trust that a positive outcome will occur in the future.
AA pp.xii,xiii,xv,xxi,xxix,5,7,18,27,29,42,43,44,45,48,66,68,71,80,94,98,103,108,
132,144,146,148,153,162,163 (negative hope xxii,xxvii)
|
| p.80
| honesty
| frank, truth, thorough
| Honesty means frank, sincere, according to truth, upright, just, fair in dealing, proceeding from pure or just principles, or directed to a good object, good, unimpeached, decent, honorable, suitable, chaste, faithful, striaghtforward, candid, reliable. (Webster's 1939)
Honesty is the quality of being truthful, sincere, and fair, encompassing uprightness of character and freedom from deceit, fraud, or cheating. It is seeing and owning the truth without defense or disguise, rigorous, thorough truth-telling to oneself and others without reservation. Frankness is speaking openly and directly without concealment or hidden motive. Thoroughness is leaving nothing hidden, going all the way through without cutting corners or concealing anything.
AA pp.xiv,xxvii,xxix,3,4,11,13,23,25,26,28,32,33,40,45,47,55,57,58,61,63,64,65,67,68,70,
71,73,78,82,83,93,98,102,106,108,117,131,135,140,142,143,145,141,144,146
|
| p.73
| humility
| simple
| Humility is the quality of being modest, respectful, and having an accurate, unassuming view of one's own importance, staying close to the ground of truth, needing nothing to prove, knowing ones true worth without inflation or pretense. It is knowing one's true place before God, needing no comparison with others to feel worthy.(Claude AI)
Freedom from pride or arrogance, humbleness of mind, modest estimate of one's own worth, also self-abasement, penitence for sin, and act of submission. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.2,7,8,12,13,25,57,61,63,65,68,72,73,75,83,87,104,105,116,125
| p.86
| God's inspiration
| intuitive thoughts, decision, serenity
| Inspiration is the process of being mentally stimulated to do or create something, often via a sudden, creative, or positive idea. Serenity is a quiet, settled peace that comes from trusting God's will rather than fighting life with an anxious mind.
Inspiration is the act of drawing air into the lungs, the inhilation of air, a part of respiration as opposed to expiration. The act of breating into anything, an awakening of the mind or senses. The communication of the divine will to the understanding by suggestions or impressions on the mind, which leave no room to doubt the reality of their supernatural origin. The infusion or communication of ideas or poetic spirit by a superior being or supposed presiding power. Intuition is the act by which the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, or the truth of things, immediatly or the moment they are presented, without the intervention of other ideas or without reasoning and deduction. Instinct. Decision is the act of separating or cutting off, detachment of a part, determination as of a question or doubt, final judgment, as in a case which has been under consideration, resolution, as of a contest or event, end as of a struggle, as the decision of a battle, the quality of being decided, prompt determination, conclusion, resolution, disposal, determination. Serenity is the quality or condition of being serene, clearness and calmness, quietness, peace, calmness of mind, evenness of temper, undisturbed state, coolness. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.xxv,xxviii,4,21,31,59,62,64,71,84,86,87,88,96,140
|
| p.67
| kindness
| friendly
| Kindness is the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate, characterized by helpful actions and a caring, warmhearted disposition.
Kindness is good will, benevolence, that temper or disposition which delights in contributing to the happiness of others. An act of good will, beneficence, any act of benevolence which promotes the happiness or welfare of others. Friendlyness is having the disposition to friendship, the condition or quality of being friendly, good will, exercise of benevolence or kindness.
AA pp.xxiv,xxviii,7,17,37,41,53,61,67,82,83,86,95,97,99,111,112,114,131,134,141,145
|
| p.83
| love
| affection, care
| Love is genuine caring and selfless affection for others, a deep, multifaceted human experience encompassing intense emotional affection, profound care, and commitment to the well-being of others. (Claude AI)
Love is regard with a strong feeling of affection, to have a devoted attachment to, to feel great tenderness for, to regard with the feelings of one sex toward the other, to be tenderly affected toward, to be in love with, to be passionately fond of, to delight in, to have great pleasure or interest in, to have an appetite or craving for, to caress as a token of affection, a meaning given the word by children, an emotion, sentiment or feeling of pleasurable attraction toward or delight in something, as a principle, a person, or a thing, which induces a desire for the presence, possession, well-being, or promotion of its object, the strong tender longing for whateve is considered most worthy of desire in any relation. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.1,10,12,13,21,28,35,38,41,54,56,59,63,75,82,83,84,85,86,87,100,103,
104,105,106,107,108,112,115,116,117,118,119,122,125,126,127,128,143,144,149,151,
152,153,158,160,161 (negative love p.107,124)
| p.67
| patience
| calm, peace, gratitude
| Patience is remaining steady and open toward others without reaction. Peace is a settled, quiet inner calm that needs no escape. Gratitude is finding sufficiency in what is, rather than aching for what is not. (Claude AI)
Patience is the suffering of afflictions, pain, toil, calamity, provocation or other evil, with a calm, unruffled temper, endurance without murmuring or fretfulness, a calm temper which bears evils, offenses or injuries without murmuring, or discontent or retaliation, waiting long for justice or expected good without discontent, forbearance, leniency, perserverance. Peace is a quiet or tranquility, freedom from disturbance, agitation, freedom from mental agitation or disturbance as from fear, terror, anger, anxiety, or the like, quietness of the mind, tranquility, calmness, quite of conscience. Gratitude is thankfulness, a warm and friendly feeling excited by a favor or benefit received, a sentiment of kindness or good-will to a benefactor. (Webster's 1939)
The ability to remain calm, composed, and self-controlled when facing delays, frustration, adversity, or suffering.
AA pp.8,14,16,50,61,63,67,70,75,78,82,83,90,105,107,108,111,112,118,163 (negative patience p.137)
|
| p.64
| prompt
| waste no time, at proper time | - being on time or doing something without delay.
AA pp.xvii,59,64,75,90,102
|
| p.xxiv
| reality
| actual, factual
| - the mental process of acknowledging the facts of the present moment as they are, not as you wish them to be without judgment or resistance.
AA pp.xviixx,xxiii,xxiv,8,18,24,29,39,48,49,50,55,66,70,72,94,115,130,140,149
|
| p.128
| release
| Live and Let Live
| - relief or deliverance from sorrow, suffering, or trouble.
AA pp.55,66,114,118,128,130,135,151,152,154,159
|
| p.43
| respect
| admiration, regard
| - deep feeling of admiration or high regard for someone's abilities, qualities, or achievements, often involving consideration for their feelings and rights.
AA pp.xx,xxviii,xxx,7,19,21,22,26,37,38,43,48,49,81,98,99,116,117,122,153,155,158
|
| p.81
| responsibility
| admit
| Responsibility is being accountable for one's conduct, especially regarding the welfare of others, faithfully attending to what and who has been entrusted to your care. (Claude AI)
Responsibility is the quality or state of being responsible, answerable, accountable, or liable as for a person , trust, office, or debt, ability to answer in payment, means of liabilities. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.xxvi,xxvii,xxviii,xxix,11,13,30,37,38,46,59,61,67,72,76,77,78,79,81,83,92,
93,97,99,109,110,119,127,130,135,137,143,154,155,163,164
|
| p.69
| sane and sound ideal for future sex life
| in meditation we ask God what we should do about each specific matter, help others
| - a healthy, respectful approach to intimacy based on self-reflection and spiritual principles rather than selfishness, dishonesty, or inconsideration.
AA pp.69,70
|
| p.85
| service
| altruistic
| - the altruistic act of helping, supporting, or lifting up others without expecting rewards, focusing on empathy and compassion.
AA pp.xix,xxiv,xxv,xxvi,2,34,77,85,92,98,125,133,146
|
| p.63
| sincerity
| earnestness, genuine, willingness
| Sincerity is speaking and acting from a place of genuine truth, with no hidden motive, the quality of being honest, genuine, and free from deceit, hypocrisy, or guile. Earnestness is a deep wholehearted seriousness of purpose with nothing hidden or held back. Willingness is an open, ready and wholehearted readiness to do what is needed without holding back.
The state or quality of being sincere, honest of mind or intention, freedom from simulation or hypocrisy, truthfulness, genuineness, earnestness, pure, unmixed, unhurt, uninjured, being in reality what it appears to be, not feigned, not simulated, not assumed or said for the sake of appearance, real, not hypocritcal or pretended, honest, undissembling, guileless, frank, truthful, true.
AA pp.xiii,xvi,xxvii,xxx,12,13,16,18,25,26,28,37,46,47,57,58,59,60,63,67,69,70,76,77,79,81,92,
93,95,97,112,117,118,124,141,146,149,152,153,155,158,159,160,162,163
|
| p.73
| sympathy
| compassion, support, pity, resilience, dignity, gratitude, amends
| Sympathy is a fellow-feeling, the quality of being affected by the condition of another, with feelings correspondent in kind, if not in degree, pity, compassion, commiseration. Amend means to make better by some change, to correct errors, to supply deficiencies to free from whatever is faulty or wrong.(Webster's 1939)
Sympathy is the feeling of compassion, sorrow, or pity for someone else's misfortune, often accompanied by a desire to offer comfort or support, understanding and sharing the feelings of another.
Resilience is the capacity of the self to absorb impact and return to its original form, like a branch that bends in the storm but does not break. It is not the absence of pain, it is the ability to move through pain without being permanently deformed by it. Dignity is the quiet, unshakeable sense of one's own worth that does not require circumstances to be favorable in order to stand upright. The person with dignity can suffer without collapsing into victimhood, they carry their pain without being defined by it. Gratitude is the widening of vision, the deliberate turning of attention toward what exists, what remains, what is given. It does not deny pain, it simply refuses to let pain be the only thing visible. Amends means taking direct action to repair the harm done, moving forward instead of dwelling in guilt.(Claude AI)
AA pp.xx,6,66,86,53,67,73,105,106,115,129,144 (negative sympathy p.104)
|
| p.67
| tolerance
| kindness, good will
| Tolerance is allowing others the same right to be imperfect that we claim for ourselves, the fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions, beliefs, or practices that differ from one's own, seeing others as equals, accepting their shortcomings with the same patience we wish for ourselves. Understanding is seeing others with clarity, compassion and openness, meeting them where they are. Love is the active, selfless concern for the wellbeing of others regardless of their differences, accepting others with patience and goodwill despite their faults. (Claude AI)
Tolerance is the power or capacity of enduring, the act of enduring, leniency toward the opinions, faults, or objectionable traits of others, enduring, indulgent, forbearing, to suffer or to be done without prohibition or hindrance, to allow or permit negatively, by not preventing, not to restrain, sustain. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.xxiv,1,7,10,16,17,18,19,21,54,61,63,67,70,74,77,82,83,84,86,94,97,102,105,106,107,108,
112,114,115,118,119,122,124,125,127,128,129,137.139,141,151,153,160,162 (negative tolerance p.137)
|
| p.68
| trust
| fact, confidence, our behaviour will convince them more than our words
| - the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something, often involving a willingness to take risks based on that confidence. Confidence is a feeling of certainty and trust in others based on honesty and good faith.
AA pp.5,14,18,26,40,54,68,74,75.78,80,83,89,98,112,114,123,143,146
| | |
| Pg.
| Watchwords p.118
|
| p.70 | good will |
|
| p.67 | helpfulness (service)
| p.67,70,83 | honesty |
|
| p.67,83 | kindliness |
|
| p.83,118,122 | love |
|
| p.67,70,83,118 | patience |
|
| p.67 | pity |
|
| p.67,83,118,122 | tolerance |
|
| p.118,122 | understanding |
| |
AA 1st Ed p.88, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.76, 3rd paragraph, line 1
Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves. If we haven't the will to do this, (Prayer) we ask until it comes.
AA 1st Ed p.95-96, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.77, 1st paragraph, line 11
But our man is sure to be impressed with a sincere desire to set right the wrong. He is going to be more interested in a demonstration of good will than in our talk of spiritual matters.
HOMEWORK for LATER - Read pages AA 1st Ed p.88-95, 3rd-4th Ed p.76-83
(Study this in depth. More guidance on making amends.)
AA 1st Ed p.95, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.83, 1st paragraph, line 2
A remorseful mumbling that we are sorry won't fill the bill at all.
AA 1st Ed p.95, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.83, 1st paragraph, line 8
(Prayer)...asking each morning in meditation that our Creator (God) show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love.
AA 1st Ed p.95-96, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.83-84, 2nd paragraph, line 1
The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. Unless one's family expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles we think we ought not to urge them. We should not talk incessantly to them about spiritual matters. They will change in time. Our behavior will convince them more than our words. We must remember that ten or twenty years of drunkenness would make a skeptic out of anyone.
There may be some wrongs we can never fully right. We don't worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that we would right them if we could. Some people cannot be seen - we send them an honest letter. And there may be a valid reason for postponement in some cases. But we don't delay if it can be avoided. We should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping. As God's people we stand on our feet; we don't crawl before anyone.
sensible - we just made sense on how to make amends with spiritual principles
tactful - delicate and sensitive in dealing with others
considerate - careful not to hurt them
humble - respectful and meek
without being servile - we don't become their servant
without being scraping - we don't argue or retaliate or point out their flaws
AA 1st Ed p.96, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.83-84, 1st paragraph, line 1
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the
word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
|
Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
AA 1st Ed p.96-98, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.84-85, 1st paragraph, line 1
This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Step 4 p.67When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. Step 7 p.76 We discuss them with someone immediately Step 5 p.75 and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Step 9 p.77Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code. Step 9 p.83
And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. Step 4 p.67 avoid retaliation or argument. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. How can I best serve Thee - Thy will (not mine) be done. These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.
Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration and direction from Him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us. To some extent we have become God-conscious.
|
Step 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying for only knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
AA 1st Ed p.98-100, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.85-88, 1st paragraph, line 1
Step Eleven suggests prayer and meditation. We shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer. Better men than we are using it constantly. It works, if we have the proper attitude and work at it. It would be easy to be vague about this matter. Yet, we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions.
When we retire at night, we constructively review our day.
Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Step 4 p.67 & Step 10 p.84
Do we owe an apology? Step 8 p.67,69,70 & Step 9 p.83 a remoresful mumbling that we are sorry won't fill the bill at all.
Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Step 5 p.75
Were we kind and loving toward all? Step 9 p.77
What could we have done better? Step 4 p.69 What should we have done instead?
Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Step 3 p.62 Selfishness Selfcenteredness
Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? Step 12 p.102 ...maximimum helpfulness to others...
But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. Step 1 p.30,152 jumping off place
After making our review we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken. Step 4 p.69 we ask God what we should do about each specific matter.
On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.
Step 6 and 7 p.76
Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. Step 4 fear prayer... ...at once we outgrow fear...
In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don't struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.
What used to be the hunch or occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.
We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, Step 3 p.63, Step 7 p.76 and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends.
If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one's priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.
As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day Thy will be done. We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity or foolish decisions. Step 4 p67, ...our faults... We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves
It works - it really does.
We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.
But this is not all. There is action and more action. Faith without works is dead. The next chapter is entirely devoted to Step Twelve.
|
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.
AA 1st Ed p.101, 2nd, 3rd & 4th Ed p.89, 1st paragraph, line 1
Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics! You can help when no one else can. You can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember they are very ill.
Life will take on new meaning. To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends - this is an experience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives.
HOMEWORK Read Chapter 7. (Guidance on passing it on.)
You gotta give it away to keep it!
There is one requirement at this point. Pass this on to one other person, the same way it was passed on to you.
Come back and be the host or presenter on this workshop at least one time. If you want to continue on from that point, that's up to you. We'll help you. But at least exeperience passing it on one time. Do your 12th Step.
This process ideally suggests that we take the first 9 steps one time
and then live in the Maintenance Steps 10, 11 & 12.
Any continued or deeper inventory is handled in Step 10.
Conclusion
This workshop or period of sponsorship is over.
God is your "sponsor" now. Remember in the inventory AA p.71 it says, We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him. AA p.70 ...we let God be the final judge.
The whole point is to get you to a clear communication with God.
He's the only one who has all the right answers to problems and concerns for your life.
Just like it says on pages 69-70, 'Counsel with persons is often desireable, but we let God be the final judge.'
The person who sponsored me said is not necessary to continue with a human "sponsor".
If you choose to get a sponsor, that's your business. I cannot tell you not to.
On the other hand, if you feel you don't have a good communication with God or a good grasp of working the steps after today, perhaps a 'spiritual advisor' (AA p.63) or 'human sponsor or mentor' may be of some benefit. But keep in mind, getting a sponsor or mentor is not in the instructions inside the first 164 pages of the text.
People that I sponsor (described on page 263), go through the steps here and then the period of sponsorship is over. I am simply a friend from then on.
I don't ever want someone to place their dependency on me or things human.
No matter what, NO human could have relieved our alcoholism.
We get our answers from God directly. We humbly rely on Him.
Do you have any questions?
Be aware that many people in regular AA meetings will not understand what you experienced here today.
No one can deny you of your experience. You can see we followed the instructions and timeframes given.
They won't believe you went through the 12 steps in one day, in one sitting.
Don't let anyone discourage you. They don't have what you now have.
You would do best to just add to any step discussion or topic.
Search out new people and pull them to the side. You can gain their interest.
Outline the program of action and how it helped you.
Remember - you have reading homework
- AA pages 76-83 (Step 9 - Amends)
- ALL of Chapter 7 Working With Others (Step 12 - Service Work)
- AA Big Book - Pages 1-164 (pp.105-164 more about 12th Step)
- Become a student of the entire text. You'll need it to help others.
Best thing to do:
- Highlight your Big Book with all steps we went through.
- You can print everything from the website www.aabeginners.com under 12 Step Workshop link.
Other Suggested Readings:
- Dr Bob and The Good Oldtimers (order from aa.org)
- AA Big Book - Dr Bob's Nightmare (page 171)
- Whatever books your local priest, minister, or rabbi recommend (ie. Bible)
|
Welcome to the
AA Beginners Group
'Maintenance of Our Spiritual Condition'
Period of Prayer & Meditation
'When we retire at night...'
9:15 PM EST Daily
6:00 AM EST Daily
Join us for "Upon awakening..."
In an effort to honor everyone's time here we are asking everyone to be conscious of the length of sharing on each of the many topics. By all means, if you have something to share, please do so. If it is a sensitive topic and you may need extra time, please consider saving it for afterwards and to even talk one-on-one with someone. We do have the option of breakout rooms so that is always a possibility.
I am pasting this
Assembly Agenda
http://www.aabeginners.com/grouper/retire.html
into the chat box right now.
My name is __________.
My last drink was on ____________.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father,
Help us to grow in understanding and effectiveness.
Help us watch for
selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.
When these crop up, we ask you at once to remove them.
Help us discuss them with someone immediately.
Guide us to make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.
How can we best serve You?
Your will (not ours) be done.
Amen.
|
This prayer was constructed from the instructions listed in Step Ten (AA p.85).
'When we retire at night we construtively review our day.' (AA p.86)
[ASK THE PARTICIPANTS]:
Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid?
For resentments (AA p.67):
God, save us from being angry. Help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend.
For selfishness (AA p.63):
God, relieve us from the bondage of self that we may better do Your will.
For dishonesty (AA p.86):
God, direct our thinking, especially that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.
For fear (AA p.68):
God, remove our fear and direct our attention to what You would have us be.
Do we owe an apology?
A remorseful mumbling that we are sorry won't fill the bill at all. (AA p.83)
For amends (AA p.76):
We go out to our fellows and repair the damage done.
If we haven't the will to do this,
God, give us the will to go out to our fellows and repair the damage done.
Have we kept something to ourselves which should be
discussed with another person at once?
For 5th Step AA p.75:
God, have I omitted anything?
Were we kind and loving toward all?
For spiritual principles (AA p.83):
God, show is the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love.
What could we have done better?
For all of our problems (AA p.69):
God, what should we do about each specific matter?
Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time?
For self-will (AA p.87):
God, we ask especially for freedom from self-will?
Or were we thinking of what we could do for others,
of what we could pack into the stream of life?
For helping others (AA p.70):
We throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them.
This takes us out of ourselves.
But we must be careful not to drift into
worry, remorse or morbid reflection,
for that would diminish our usefulness to others.
For usefullness to others (AA p.77):
Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and to the people about us.
After making our review...
God, we ask for forgiveness and inquire
what corrective measures should be taken.
TAKE SOME QUIET TIME
(12 minutes)
TO LISTEN TO GOD
[IN CLOSING, ASK]:
Any thoughts from your quiet time with Him?
[CLOSE WITH PRAYER]:
Heavenly Father...
(Anyone want to offer up a prayer?)
Amen
We resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help.
Love and tolerance of others is our code
Welcome to the
AA Beginners Group
'Maintenance of Our Spiritual Condition'
Period of Prayer & Meditation
'Upon awakening...'
I am pasting this
Assembly Agenda
http://www.aabeginners.com/grouper/awaken.html
into the chat box right now.
My name is __________.
If circumstances warrant,
we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation.
Prayer on Awakening
God,
Direct our thinking, especially that it be divorced from
self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.
Amen.
|
Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance,
for after all God gave us brains to use.
Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane
when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.
[TELL THE PARTICIPANTS]:
Let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead.
We consider our plans for the day.
In thinking about our day we may face indecision.
God,
We may not be able to determine which course to take.
We ask for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision.
Amen
You may want to write down any thoughts or right answers you received.
[WE RELAX AND TAKE IT EASY.]
[WE DON'T STRUGGLE]
TAKE SOME QUIET TIME
(12 minutes)
TO LISTEN TO GOD
Is there anything you want to share from your quiet time with God?
[IN CLOSING, WE SAY THIS PRAYER]:
Heavenly Father,
Show us all through the day what our next step is to be.
Show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love. (AA p.83)
We ask that we be given whatever we need to take care of our problems.
We ask especially for freedom from self-will. Let Your will be done.
If our requests help others, only then we ask for ourselves as well.
As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful,
help us to ask You for the right thought or action.
Thy will be done
Amen
We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity,
or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily,
for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were
trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.
We let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.
If we belong to a religious denomination
which requires a definite morning devotion,
we attend to that also.
If not members of religious bodies,
we sometimes select and memorize
a few set prayers which emphasize
the principles we have been discussing.
There are many helpful books also.
Suggestions about these may be obtained
from one's priest, minister, or rabbi.
Be quick to see where religious people are right.
Make use of what they offer.
******************************************************************
Defects of Character Dictionary
******************************************************************
| Page
| Character Defects
| Synonyms
| Definitions
|
| p.64
| anger
| resentment
| Anger in the Greek: (orge) meaning to teem, to swell, to be full to bursting, the word the ancient Greeks used for plants and fruit swelling with juice, pressing against their own skin from within until something gives. The root carries one meaning only: an internal pressure that builds until it must release. Aristotle drew the line between two kinds of anger: thymos, the flash fire, the sudden rage that flares and passes, and orge, which builds slowly, settles in, and stays. Orge is anger that has made a decision about the world. Anger with a memory. The beast that keeps swelling because it has nowhere to go. The alcoholic knows this in the body. Resentment, orge stored and re-felt, day after day, is the pressure that has no release. And it poisons everything from below. The Big Book names it without ceremony. On p. 64: Resentment is the number one offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease. On p. 66: If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. For the alcoholic, orge is not an emotion to be managed. It is a spiritual condition, pressure without release, that shuts us off from the Sunlight of the Spirit. And to be shut off from the Spirit is to drink. And to drink, for us, is to die. (Claude AI)
AA pp.64
|
| p.263
| carelessness
| neglect, inconsiderate
| Carelessness is moving through life without the attention that life and other people deserve. Care comes from the Greek word (karo) cart, literally means to carry. Care is to carry the weight of something as genuinely mattering to you. Carelessness is the failure to feel and carry the weight of others, it is the failure to let things matter. Moving through relationships, obligations, without the ability to feel and carry their weight. In ancient understanding, care was the mark of a soul fully present to what was in front of it, the shepherd who knows each sheep, the craftsman who feels the wood. Carelessness is the signal that what is before you is not worth your full attention. In the Big Book carelessness is the defect that leaves wreckage through absence, the harm done not by what was intended but by what was never noticed. (Claude AI)
AA pp.41,69,82,108,125,263
|
|
| cheating
| dishonesty
| Under Construction
AA pp.
|
| p.263
| conceit
| ego-centric, self-importance, self-centered
| Conceit is the mind that has conceived of itself as its own greatest creation, and now lives in permanent admiration of what it has made. It is pride made intimate and personal, not merely the claim to be larger than one is, but the active, ongoing pleasure taken in that claim. The conceited person does not just believe they are exceptional, they return to that belief the way others return to a warm fire, for comfort, for reassurance, for the feeling of being safe. In the Big Book it appears as the educated alcoholic who cannot be told anything, the self-made man who has no need of God, the person whose intelligence has become the prison they cannot see. (Claude AI)
AA pp.61,263
|
| p.13
| criticism
| fault-finding
| Criticism is the self raising itself by lowering another. From Greek (krinei), to separate, to judge, to decide, the same root that gives us crisis, the moment of decisive separation between one outcome and another. In its pure form, (krisi) is the capacity to distinguish truth from falsehood, good from bad, real from false. But criticism as a defect is this faculty turned into a weapon: judgment no longer in service of truth but in service of the self, used not to see clearly but to diminish what is outside and thereby feel larger on the inside. The need to find fault in others is in exact proportion to the inability to face fault in oneself. (Claude AI)
AA pp.13,77,83,89,117,118,125,126,127,129,145,146
|
| p.83
| delay
| procrastination, slow to pay, haven't kept up, delinquencies
| Delay / Procrastination is the self postponing what it knows must be done, using time as a hiding place. Pro (forward) and Crastinus (belonging to tomorrow), literally pushing everything into tomorrow, where it can never be reached because tomorrow always remains tomorrow. The ancient Greeks named this (akrisia), the failure of the will to act in accordance with what the mind already knows to be right, considered by Aristotle one of the deepest failures of the human character, because it is not ignorance but paralysis in the presence of knowledge. (Claude AI)
AA pp.78,79,83,126
|
| p.62
| delinquency
|
| under construction
AA pp.
| p.30
| delusion
|
| Delusion from Latin deludere, from de (away, off) ludere (to play). To be played away from reality. To be tricked out of seeing what is true. In Greek, paraplanisi to cause to wander, to lead off the path. The root image is of someone who has been led away from the straight road and is now wandering beside it, believing themselves still to be on it. The Big Book the first and most fundamental delusion of the alcoholic is named plainly: The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed (p.30). This is the central lie at the core of the illness, the belief that one day things will be different, that control is possible, that the alcoholic is essentially like everyone else.
The Big Book does not soften this: it must be smashed. Not gently corrected. Smashed! The second delusion is deeper: the belief that satisfaction and happiness can be wrested from the world by managing it well enough (p.61). This is the delusion of self-will, that if the alcoholic arranges people, circumstances, and outcomes correctly, they will finally feel complete. It never works. And yet the alcoholic returns to it again and again, each time more desperately, driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity (p.62). Delusion is not stupidity. It is the mind protecting itself from a truth it cannot yet bear. Recovery begins the moment the delusion is seen for what it is, not a reasonable belief, but a wandering off the road, a being played by the disease away from reality, away from God, away from what is true. (Claude AI)
AA pp.xviii,30,61,62
| p.37
| depression
| self-pity
| Depression is from Latin de (down) premere (to press). To be pressed down. To be pushed beneath the surface and held there. In Greek, katathlipsi, from (kata), down, upon, against (thlipsis), pressure, crushing, tribulation, from (thlivo), to press, to squeeze, to crush. The image is not of a sudden blow but of a weight that settles upon a person from above and holds them there, a sustained, suffocating pressure. In the New Testament, thlipsi is the word used for tribulation, for the crushing weight of suffering that comes upon a person. Depression is the state of one who is being pressed down and cannot rise. The Big Book depression is listed among the symptoms of the disease itself, misery, depression, uselessness, fear, the full catalogue of what active alcoholism produced in a person's interior life (p.52). And it is named as something that does not vanish with sobriety alone: depression do not disappear simply because the drinking has stopped (p.133).. But this is not the whole story. Depression is the fruit of self-centeredness, the self turned inward, pressed down under the weight of its own fear, self-pity, and isolation. The cure is the moment of genuine surrender, the Third Step prayer, thy will be done, the decision to place oneself entirely in God's care and to ask how to be of maximum service to others. In that moment, the person steps outside themselves completely, and the weight lifts. Not gradually. The Big Book is clear that the spiritual change, the one that removes depression at its root, can happen overnight. When a person truly steps out of self-will and into God's will, when they stop asking what life owes them and begin asking how they can be of help, depression disappears immediately. Recovery, when it is real, is not a slow cure. It is a transformation (p.127). (Claude AI)
AA p.xxix,37,39,52,56,91,106,127,133,144
|
| p.xxviii
| discontent
| impatience
| Discontent is the inability to be contained by your own life. Not a reaction to circumstances, but a condition of the interior, the chronic sense that what is, is never quite enough, and that the self is always owed something more than it has been given. To be content is literally to be held, gathered within yourself, within your circumstances, within the present moment. To be discontent is to be un-held, spilling out of where you are, always leaking toward somewhere else. A container is a vessel that keeps what is inside from escaping. Contentment is an interior structural quality: the capacity to hold one's life without it running through one's fingers. The Stoics called this autarkeia, self-sufficiency, inner completeness, the condition of a person who does not need circumstances to be different in order to be whole. The opposite was a soul perpetually dependent on externals. Such a soul can never rest because the world never cooperates fully. Discontent sits directly beneath restlessness and irritability, it is in fact their cause. The soul is restless because it is discontent. It is irritable because it is discontent. Discontent is the root condition: the chronic sense that "this is not enough," "I am not enough," "life has not given me what I am owed." It is the wound that keeps all the other symptoms alive. The alcoholic's discontent is not cured by getting what they want, because the moment they get it, the discontent simply relocates. This is the deeper problem: it is not that the alcoholic's life is actually deficient. It is that something inside them cannot receive what life offers, cannot settle into what is, cannot be held by the present moment. (Claude AI)
AA pp.xxviii,100,138
|
| p.67
| dishonesty
| insincerity, lying, stealing, cheating
| The intentional distortion of the truth, in order to create a false impression in another person's mind, whether through words, actions, omissions, or appearance.
A purpose is usually self-protection, gain, manipulation, or avoidance.
A fracture in the fabric of reality that a person shares with others, replacing genuine connection with a constructed illusion. It isolates even as it appears to connect. (Claude AI)
AA pp.21,61,67,69,84,86,116,145
|
| p.62
| distortion of values
|
| under construction
AA pp.
| p.53
| doubt
| indecision / worry, nervousness
| under construction (Claude AI)
AA pp.53
|
| p.61
| ego-centric
| pride, conceit | Egocentric is a being for whom the self is the only real point in the universe. From Greek (ego) self (kentro) center, the fixed point at the center of a circle, the spike around which everything revolves. In ancient geometry (kentro) center was the pin of the compass, the unmovable point from which all measurement radiates outward. To be egocentric is therefore it is a cosmological condition: the self installed as the fixed center of reality, around which all other people, events, and meanings are arranged as satellites. Other people are real only insofar as they relate to the center. Their inner lives, their pain, their needs, these are peripheral, or invisible. In the Big Book egocentric is the fundamental illness of the alcoholic soul, the self so completely at the center, that God has been displaced, and genuine love of another has become structurally impossible. (Claude AI)
AA p.61
|
| p.73
| egoism
| selfishness, pride | Egoism is the self that takes without accounting for the cost to others. Selfishness is about appetite. From the Greek word (ego) the self simply naming itself, standing up and pointing: "I". Egoism is not simply a momentary act of selfishness, but a complete system of organizing life around the self. The desire to have more than one's share, which Aristotle named as the root of injustice: not hatred of others, but the habitual failure to stop at the boundary where your portion ends and another's begins. The selfish person may appear quiet, even humble, while systematically arranging life in their favor without ever fully registering what other people need. In the Big Book it is named as the root of the alcoholic's trouble, because selfishness taken to its conclusion makes genuine love, genuine sobriety, and genuine contact with God all equally impossible. (Claude AI)
AA p.73
|
| p.61
| egotism
| self-importance, selfishness
| The disposition to talk about oneself, to make detailed analyses of one's personality, and the feeling of pleasure associated with these. the worship of the ego, the exclusive focus on one's own personal development and success. (Claude AI)
AA pp.61,73
|
| p.145
| envy
| jealousy, resentment, greed
| The painful, lingering feeling that arises when you fix your attention on what another person has, their success, beauty, wealth, relationships, or abilities, combined with a desire to have it yourself, and often an underlying wish that they did not have it either. (Claude AI)
Uneasiness, mortification, or discontent the sight of another's superiority or success, accompanied with some degree of hatred or malignity, an often or usually with a desire or an effort to depreciate the person envied. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.145
|
| p.37
| excuses
| justification, rationalization
| Excuse is a story placed between yourself and your responsibility.
To remove yourself from the charge, to step outside the place where you are accountable.
The excuse is an escape route, and mistaken for honesty by the very person it protects. (Claude AI)
A plea offered in extenuation of a fault or irregular conduct. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.23,37,40,75,77,107,111,120,127,146
| p.62
| fear
| terror, anxiety afraid
| The primal, instinctive response to perceived danger, threat, or harm, whether real or imagined. It is the organism's most fundamental alarm system, the feeling of being inside peril, of standing at the edge of something that could hurt, destroy, or annihilate you. It mobilizes the entire being, body, mind, and soul, in response to threat. To flee, to flee from fear, physical reaction to threat, the urge to avoid danger, pain, or harm, a feeling of dread. To run. (Claude AI)
A painful emotion or passion excited by and expectation of evil or the apprehension of impending danger. It expresses less apprehension than dread, and is accompanied with a desire to avoid or ward off the expected evil. Anxiety, solicitude, also the cause or object which excites apprehension. (Webster's 1939)\
AA pp.8,52,62,63,65,67,68,73,75,78,84,86,88,104,116,120,145,154
|
|
| greed
| selfishness
| Under Construction
AA pp.
|
| p.77
| hate
| grudge, resentment, loathing
| Hate is an intense, deeply rooted feeling of hostility, aversion, and ill will toward a person, group, thing, or idea. It is not simply strong dislike, it is an active, consuming negativity that wants distance, destruction, or harm toward its object. At its core, hate is hardened pain, sorrow and wounding that was never resolved and instead turned outward with force. Hate requires investment, attention, and emotional energy, just like love. Hate is love that was catastrophically wounded and lost its way. Hate is sorrow that stopped weeping and started fighting, pain so deep and unresolved that it hardened into a force that pushes the world away.
Hate at a deeper and darker level connects the hater and the hated in an almost unbreakable relationship.
The enemy occupies your mind, your energy, your attention constantly. There is a terrible intimacy in this kind of hate, you think about your enemy perhaps more than you think about those you love.
When hate is mixed with dread, horror, and the sense of something deeply wrong, something that should not exist, it is the hate that carries a shudder in the soul. It is not just dislike or even enmity, it is a recoiling of the entire being, as if in the presence of something profoundly dark or evil. (Claude AI)
Hate is to dislike greatly, to have a great or extreme aversion to, to detest, to have strong ill-will toward. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.13,15,18,62,64,65,66,69,77,79,80,81,84,86,100,103,104,114,116,
117,118,119,122,126,127,134,145,263
| p.100
| impatience
| restless irritable discontent
| Impatience from Latin impatiens, from in (not) patiens bearing, enduring, suffering. To be impatient is literally to be unable to bear, unable to carry the weight of waiting, of slowness, of another person's pace. In Greek, anypomonos, from (without) ypomoni (ypomone), endurance, steadfast waiting, from (hypo), under (meno) to remain, to stay). Impatience is the capacity to remain standing under a heavy load without collapsing or fleeing. The impatient person cannot remain. They cannot stay under the weight. They must move, must push, must force the moment to arrive before it is ready. Impatient is the inability to tolerate delay, frustration, or the slowness of other people. The alcoholic wanted the drink now, the relief now, the comfort now. Impatience was woven into the self-centeredness that drove the drinking: the world was not moving fast enough, people were not doing enough, circumstances were not arranging themselves correctly, and the gap between what was and what was wanted was intolerable. The Big Book speaks directly to the families of the newly recovering alcoholic: Ask them to remember, when they are impatient, the blessed fact of his sobriety (p.100). This is a profound instruction. When impatience rises, when the slowness of change, the imperfection of the person, the distance still to travel becomes intolerable, remember what has already happened. Remember the blessed fact. Impatience forgets what has been given. Gratitude is its cure. (Claude AI)
- Restless is agitated, negative, not being at peace.
- Irritable - sensitive, easily offended as a result becoming angry.
- Discontent, depressed, not satisfied.
- Impatience - A state of mind characterized by restlessness, irritation, or annoyance when forced to wait, delayed, or faced with obstacles. (ill-temper p.263)
AA pp.100
|
| p.xxviii
| inconsiderate
|
| under construction
AA pp.
|
| p.86
| indecision / worry
| doubt, nervousness
| Indecision is the self refusing to commit, using uncertainty as a shelter from responsibility.
While decision describes the decisive act of cutting away all other options and landing on one. Indecision is the refusal to make that cut, keeping all options open not out of genuine discernment but out of fear: fear of being wrong, fear of the consequences of having chosen.
Worry is the mind rehearsing disasters that have not happened, as though rehearsal could prevent them. To strangle, to choke, the image of something tightening around the throat. The mind that worries, seizes a fear and will not put it down, tightening its grip, going through every possible outcome except the present one. In the Big Book it is the opposite of faith, because worry is the act of placing the future in one's own hands and then suffering because those hands are not large enough to hold it. (Claude AI)
AA pp.37,86,87,88,116,151,152,155,159
|
|
| indignation
|
| Under Construction
AA pp.
|
| p.96
| insincerity
| dishonesty
| Insincerity is the habit of presenting a version of yourself that is shaped by what the moment requires rather than what is actually true. Showing people what they need to see rather than what is actually there. The careful management of appearance, a surface shaped by the need to be accepted, rather than by truth. Showing the world, a surface that has been smoothed over to hide what lies beneath. The ancient image is marble filled with wax to hide the imperfection: smooth to the touch, pleasing to the eye, but not what it presents itself to be. Insincerity is not only lying, it is the ongoing management of appearances, the careful presentation of a version of yourself shaped by what the moment requires rather than what is actually true. It is among the quietest and most dangerous defects, because it operates quietly, socially, even pleasantly, while the interior remains permanently unknown, to others and eventually to themselves. It is the defect that makes all honest relationships impossible, because no one ever actually meets you, they only meet the version of you that you decided was safe to show. (Claude AI)
AA p.58,96
|
| p.263
| intolerance
| close-minded
| The unwillingness or refusal to accept, respect, or coexist with people, beliefs, behaviors, or opinions that are different from one's own. An intolerant person reacts with hostility, rejection, or contempt toward anything that doesn't match their own values, worldview, or identity. (Claude AI)
Want of capacity to endure, want of toleration, unwillingness to tolerate contrary opinions or beliefs.(Webster's 1939)
AA pp.50,103,120,135,138,160,263
|
| p.xxviii
| irritable
| impatience
| Irritable is the state of a being that has lost its skin. A condition so internally inflamed, that the ordinary friction of life, which others absorb without damage, becomes unbearable. The word carries within it the image of a surface that has lost its natural protection and now reacts painfully to even the lightest touch. It is so sensitized that normal contact becomes unbearable. Irritability is anger without sufficient cause, or more precisely, a condition in which the threshold between the self and the world has collapsed. Everything gets in. The small noise, the slight delay, the wrong tone of voice, all of it lands as provocation because the interior is already so agitated that it has no capacity to absorb anything further. Irritability belongs to the same family as restlessness, both are symptoms of the same underlying condition: a soul that is not at peace with itself, with others, or with God. The irritable person is not primarily reacting to the world around them. They are reacting to the unresolved turbulence within them, and the world is merely triggering what was already there. (Claude AI)
AA pp.xxviii,100,138
|
| p.263
| jealousy
| envy, grudge
| Jealousy from Latin zelosus (full of zeal, ardently devoted), from Greek (zēlos), zeal, ardor, burning eagerness.
The root is the same word with zeal, the same fire, the same burning heat, but turned in a different direction. When burns toward God, toward service, toward a worthy goal, it is zeal. When it burns toward what another person has, their happiness, their ease, their success, their relationships, their freedom, it becomes jealousy: the fire that consumes from within, the heat that produces no light, only damage. Jealousy is zeal that has lost its proper object and fixed itself on what belongs to someone else. The Big Book jealousy is among the greatest enemies of the alcoholic, alongside resentment, envy, frustration, and fear (AA p.145). And in the context of marriage and sexual relations, it uses language that stops the reader completely: Keep it always in sight that we are dealing with that most terrible human emotion, jealousy (AA p.82). Not one of the difficult emotions. Not a common weakness. The most terrible human emotion. Because jealousy, unlike anger or fear, is almost entirely without redemption in its raw state. It does not protect. It does not warn. It only destroys, the person who carries it, the relationship it inhabits, the trust it touches. Jealousy used the drink as its instrument. The alcoholic went out deliberately to get drunk, feeling justified by jealousy or the like (AA p.37). The emotion became the excuse, and the excuse became the relapse. In recovery, the fire of zeal must be turned, away from what others have, away from comparison and resentment, toward what God has given, toward gratitude, toward service. The same heat that burned in jealousy, redirected, becomes the engine of recovery. (Claude AI)
Jealousy uspicious, apprehensive of rivalry, uneasy through fear that another has withdrawn or may withdraw from one the affections of a person he loves, or enjoys some good which e desires to obtain, followed by of and applied both to the object of love and to the rival. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.37,69,82,100,119,128,131,145,161,263
|
| p.37
| justification
| rationalization, delusion, self deception, distortion of values
| Self-justification is the act of appointing yourself your own judge, building an endless supply of reasons why your behavior was acceptable, and using those reasons to avoid the one thing that could actually help you: seeing yourself as you really are.
Self-justification is not a reaction. It is a factory. It produces excuses on demand, for any behavior, at any time, before the behavior, during it, and long after it. It is a machine running constantly in the background of the alcoholic mind.
Self-justification is the self arrogating to itself the authority that belongs to God alone. Instead of standing before a Higher Power and being honestly seen, the alcoholic stands before the mirror of their own mind, and the mirror always flatters.
The related word rationalization appears in the concordance as our ancient enemy, described as something that has stepped in and justified conduct which was really wrong. This is the deeper mechanism: rationalization is the tool, and self-justification is the goal. The mind reaches for reasons, any reasons, not to discover truth, but to arrive at a predetermined conclusion: "I was right." "I had no choice." "Anyone would have done the same." The process of constructing logical justification for choices or behaviors driven by other motivations. Justification is deciding you were right, then building the case afterward. Where honest thinking moves toward a conclusion, justification moves away from the truth of what was done.
It is the mind working backward, assembling reasons not to discover what is true but to confirm what the self has already decided. Producing cover for behavior the self already knows was wrong. (Claude AI)
AA pp.30,31,37,61,62,129
|
|
| laziness
|
| Under Construction
AA pp.
|
| p.68
| lust
| desire, craving
| Lust is an intense, consuming desire that is physical and instinctual in nature, most commonly referring to powerful sexual desire, but at its root it is any overwhelming appetite that wants immediate gratification, that does not want to wait, reflect, or consider consequences. (Claude AI)
Longing desire, eagerness to possess or enjoy, concupiscence, carnal apetite unlawful desire of carnal pleasure, evil propensity, depraved affections and desires, vigor, active power, desire, wish, inclination, pleasure. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.68,81,105,124
|
|
| lying
| dishonesty
| Under Construction
AA pp.
|
| p.126
| neglect
| rest on laurels, laziness
| Neglect is the choice to leave undone what you already know needs doing. From Latin neglegere, nec (not) and legere (to pick up, to gather), Literally refusing to pick up what is lying there in front of you. Something is present, visible, within reach, and the self walks past it. In ancient understanding, legere carried the sense of conscious selection, the same root that gives us intelligence, the capacity to choose what to gather and what to leave. Neglect is therefore not absence of mind but a deliberate direction of it, away from what demands attention, toward what is more comfortable. In the Big Book it operates as a slow spiritual decay: not the dramatic collapse of one terrible act, but the quiet accumulation of things left untended, prayers not said, amends not made, people not shown up for. (Claude AI)
AA pp.85,97,119,126,129
|
| p.37
| nervousness
| doubt, indecision / worry
| under construction (Claude AI)
AA pp.37
|
| p.135
| over-indulgence
| self-indulgence, undisciplined
|
The tendency to freely allow oneself to enjoy pleasures and satisfy desires without restraint.
To yield to the gratification or practice of a habit without restraint or control, to be indulgent, with in, as, to indulge in sin. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.49,132,134,135
|
| p.25
| pride
| self-esteem, egoism, vanity p.116
| Pride is the "self" claiming importance, and a centrality that does not belong to it. A creature that has stepped outside its proper measure and into the place that belongs to God. Pride is the condition that makes every other defect necessary, resentment defends it, dishonesty protects it, self-justification maintains it. Remove pride and the whole structure of self-will collapses. It is not the loudest defect, and not always the most visible, but it is always the first. Pride leads to arrogance and boasting. (Claude AI)
AA pp.12,25,65,75,104,105,116,125
|
| p.83
| procrastination
| delay, slow to pay, haven't kept up, delinquencies
| Delay / Procrastination is the self postponing what it knows must be done, using time as a hiding place. Pro (forward) and Crastinus (belonging to tomorrow), literally pushing everything into tomorrow, where it can never be reached because tomorrow always remains tomorrow. The ancient Greeks named this (akrisia), the failure of the will to act in accordance with what the mind already knows to be right, considered by Aristotle one of the deepest failures of the human character, because it is not ignorance but paralysis in the presence of knowledge. (Claude AI)
AA pp.78,79,83,126
|
|
| rationalization
| justification
| Rationalization from Latin ratio (reason, reckoning, calculation), from reri (to think, to reckon). To rationalize is literally to to dress a decision, a desire, or a behavior in the clothing of reason so that it looks justified, logical, and acceptable. In Greek, (prophasis) (pro) before, in front of (pheno) to show, to appear. Rationalization is a pretext, something placed in front of the real reason to hide it, a false appearance put before the truth. Rationalization is the excuse placed in front of the real motive, the plausible explanation constructed to cover what one already knows to be true but refuses to admit. It is the act of cheating oneself, not from broken reasoning, but from reasoning deliberately aimed in the wrong direction. Rationalization is not our weakness, not our mistake, not our bad habit, it is our enemy. Ancient, because it has always been there, older than the drinking, woven into the self will that preceded everything. And an enemy because it is active, cunning, and works precisely when the person most needs clarity. Rationalization steps in and justifies conduct that is really wrong, not with obvious lies, but with persuasive, internally consistent arguments that feel exactly like honest reasoning from the inside. This is what makes rationalization so dangerous. Dishonesty can sometimes be seen from the outside. Rationalization cannot, because the person who rationalizes has already convinced themselves that what they are thinking is true. The mind produces the false reason first, and then believes it. What comes to a person alone may be entirely garbled by rationalization and wishful thinking, meaning that even genuine spiritual seeking, even prayer and reflection, can be corrupted if the person is still rationalizing. The ancient enemy does not rest even in the most sincere moments. This is why rigorous honesty with another person and with God, is not optional. The self cannot always see what it is doing to itself. (Claude AI)
AA pp.
|
| p.86
| remorse
| self-condemnation
| Putting oneself on trial, to condemn oneself, to become the cause of one's own destruction
A deep, painful feeling of guilt and regret for past actions, often involving a desire to undo a misdeed. (Claude AI)
AA pp.50,86
|
| p.263
| resentment
| anger, temper, indignation
| A deep, persistent feeling of bitterness, anger, or indignation toward someone or something, usually triggered by a sense of having been treated unfairly, wronged, or disrespected. Unlike sudden anger, resentment builds and lingers over time, it is anger that was never fully expressed or resolved. A complex, long-lasting emotion combining indignation, bitterness, and anger, caused by feeling treated unfairly, wronged, or insulted. (Claude AI)
The act of resenting, displeasure caused by a wrong done to oneself or friends, a deep sense of wrong, anger, the state of feeling or perceiving, strong or clear sensation, feeling, or perception, conviction, impression, Syn. Anger wrath, ire, indignation. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.18,37,61,64,65,66,67,84,86,88,106,108,111,113,135,145,263
|
| p.xxviii
| restless
| impatience
| Restless is the state of a being that cannot settle, it is the soul in motion, because it has not yet found the place where it belongs, and it refuses to accept where it is. Where rest means the point where a thing belongs, where it fits, where it no longer needs to move. To rest means to have arrived. Therefore, a restless creature is one that has lost, or never found, that place. In ancient understanding, rest was wholeness: everything in its right place, nothing missing, nothing straining. Restlessness was therefore a sign that something was out of place at the level of the soul. Restlessness is the condition of a soul that has not yet found its proper home, that is moving, seeking, grasping, because something fundamental is missing. (Claude AI)
AA pp.xxviii,100,138
|
|
| rest on laurels
|
| Under Construction
AA pp.
|
| p.61
| retaliate
| revenge
| Retaliation is the act of returning harm, injury, or offense in kind, responding to what was done to you by doing the same or equivalent thing back. It is not random aggression, it carries within it an ancient sense of balance and equivalence. The pain given must match the pain received.
The desire or act of hurting someone in return for a perceived wrong or injury. (Claude AI)
To repay or requite by an act of the same kind, now seldom used, except in a bad sense, that is, to return evil for evil. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.61,62,67,77,105
|
|
| revenge
| retaliate
| Under Construction
AA pp.
|
| p.263
| sarcasm
| cynical p.49
| Sarcasm is contempt delivered close enough to seem like friendship, through words that bite the flesh while the hand that holds them stays clean. From Greek (sarka) flesh, (sarkazo) to bite the flesh. The image is intimate and precise: not a blow from a distance but a bite, something that gets close enough to seem friendly and then breaks the skin. What makes it particularly destructive is the deniability built into its structure, the sarcastic person can always retreat behind I was only joking, which means the wound goes in and the hand that delivered it is never accountable. In the Big Book framework it is the weapon of a person who has too much pride to express anger directly and too much fear to speak truth plainly, so they do both at once, hidden inside humor, where neither can be confronted and neither can be healed. (Claude AI)
A keen, reproachful expression, a satirical remark or expression, uttered with some degree of scorn or contempt, a taunt, a gibe, a cutting criticism made in the form of a jest. Syn. Irony, banter, jeer, derision, satire. (Webster's 1939)
AA pp.49,125,263
|
|
| self-centered
| conceit
| under construction
AA pp.
|
| self-condemnation
|
| under construction
AA pp.
|
| self-deception
|
| under construction
AA pp.
|
| self-esteem
|
| under construction
AA pp.
|
| self-importance
| conceit
| under construction
AA pp.
| p.62
| selfishness
| egoism, greed
| Selfishness is the self that takes without accounting for the cost to others. Selfishness is about appetite.
From the Greek word (ego) the self simply naming itself, standing up and pointing: "I". Egoism is not simply a momentary act of selfishness, but a complete system of organizing life around the self. The desire to have more than one's share, which Aristotle named as the root of injustice: not hatred of others, but the habitual failure to stop at the boundary where your portion ends and another's begins. The selfish person may appear quiet, even humble, while systematically arranging life in their favor without ever fully registering what other people need. In the Big Book it is named as the root of the alcoholic's trouble, because selfishness taken to its conclusion makes genuine love, genuine sobriety, and genuine contact with God all equally impossible. (Claude AI)
AA pp.7,21,61,62,67,68,69,70,82,84,86,87,116
|
| p.62
| self-pity
| depression
| The state of being consumed by sorrow over one's own misfortunes, dwelling in the feeling of being a victim, of life being unfair, of one's suffering being uniquely terrible. It is not the same as healthy grief or self-compassion, it is a closed loop that circles endlessly around the self without moving forward or outward. (Claude AI)
The feeling of suffering excited by distresses, sympathy with the grief or self misery, ofter feeling powerless. (Webster's 1939)
Excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness over one's own troubles, feeling sorry for oneself.
AA pp.37,61,62,84,86,116,127
|
|
| stealing
| dishonesty
| Under Construction
AA pp.
|
| p.69
| suspicion
| mistrust, skeptic
| Suspicion is the feeling or belief that something is wrong, false, or dangerous, based not on clear evidence but on hidden, partial, or indirect observation. It is the mind watching from underneath the surface of things, looking for what is concealed, sensing that what is visible does not tell the whole story, the tendency to have a bad or negative prediction/interpretation, indicating distrust and lack of trust. (Claude AI)
AA pp.9,23,24,69,128,146
|
|
| temper
|
| Under Construction
AA pp.
|
|
| vanity
| pride
| Under Construction
AA pp.
|
|
| zeal
|
| From Greek (zelos), zeal, ardor, burning eagerness, but also jealousy, envy.
The root image is of something boiling over, a heat so intense it cannot be contained.
The same Greek word carries both meanings deliberately: zeal and jealousy are not opposites but two expressions of the same fire. When that burning is directed toward a goal, toward God, toward another person's wellbeing, it is zeal. When it is directed toward what another person has, their success, their happiness, their ease, it curdles into jealousy, the heat that consumes from within rather than illuminating outward. To have zeal is to burn for something, to pursue it with a heat that overrides fatigue, obstacle, and reason. It is not calm dedication. It is fire. The Big Book uses zeal only once, and the sentence is devastating in its precision: It never fails, if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when you were getting another drink (AA p.181). This is Doctor Bob speaking, and what he is saying is this: the alcoholic was never lacking in zeal. The alcoholic burned. The alcoholic pursued the drink with extraordinary, unstoppable, ingenious energy, through lies, through obstacles, through consequences that would have stopped any rational person. The disease did not make the alcoholic weak. It made them fierce in the wrong direction. And the alcoholic knew jealousy too, the other face of the same fire. The same zeal that drove the pursuit of the drink also burned with resentment toward those who seemed to have what the alcoholic could not: peace, ease, normalcy, happiness. Zeal misdirected becomes jealousy. Jealousy is zeal that has turned inward and begun to devour. What recovery asks is not that the alcoholic become someone different, someone more driven, someone with more fire. It asks only that the fire be turned. The same zeal that hunted the next drink, that burned with envy toward others, half of it, Doctor Bob says, only half, is sufficient to build an entirely new life, to carry the message, to help another alcoholic find their way out. The burning was never the problem. Only the direction. (Claude AI)
AA pp.181
| | | | | | | | | | |
******************************************************************
General Dictionary
******************************************************************
| Page
| Word
| Synonyms
| Definitions
|
| p.96
| alcoholic
| stained
| An alcoholic is a person who suffers from alcoholism, a chronic, progressive illness characterized by an inability to control or stop drinking despite negative consequences to their health, relationships, work, and life. Someone with a genuine physical allergy and a mental obsession that together make drinking impossible to control without a profound change of some kind. An alcoholic is not simply someone who drinks heavily on occasion, but someone whose mind and body have become dependent on alcohol in a way that they cannot reliably choose to stop on their own. An alcoholic is a person whose very nature has been permanently stained and taken over by alcohol, not by choice, but by a transformation so deep that alcohol has become the organizing force of their mind, body, and identity. Just as kohl stains and penetrates, alcohol has penetrated to the core of who they are. They are not just a person who drinks or used to drink, but they are a person who has been fundamentally changed by drink. (Claude AI)
AA p.Title Page,xi-164 (every page)
|
| p.96
| alcoholism
|
| It is a chronic, progressive condition that operates as a complete system inside the human body and mind. It is the ongoing state in which the pure essence of alcohol, the stain, has established itself as a ruling force within a person's biology and psychology, self-perpetuating, self-reinforcing, and resistant to will alone. (Claude AI)
A morbid or diseased condition induced in the human system by the excessive or continuous use of alcoholic stimulants. It is acute when arising from an inordinate consumption in a short period, as plain drunkenness, or chronic when the stimulus is maintained for a length of time by small and oft-repeated doses. (Webster's 1939)
AA Title Page,p.xiii,xvi,xvii,xxiii,xxvii,xxviii,xxix,17,18,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,38,39,40,42,44,56,60,78,85,92,
94,101,107,108,111,112,114,116,118,127,131,132,137,138,141,142,144,147,148,149,153,155,157
|
| p.96
| amends
| correct
| FIRST, WHAT DOES AMENDS ACTUALLY MEAN AT ITS ROOT?
The word amends means to correct, set right, make better, improve, free from fault.
So amends at its deepest root means: to take the fault OUT.
Not to talk about the fault. Not to apologize for the fault. Not to feel sorry about the fault.
To physically remove it. To take it out of the situation. To restore what was broken. Notice, the word amends is not about words at all. It is about action.
THE THREE THINGS AMENDS IS NOT
Amends is NOT an apology, because apology at its Greek root is a speech that defends and justifies. It pushes the accusation away using words. It can be perfectly delivered and completely empty.
Amends is NOT just saying I'm sorry, because sorry means you are carrying the pain inside you. Sorrow alone without action changes nothing for the person you harmed. A person can be deeply sorry and still leave the damage in place.
Amends is NOT about you, it is not about releasing your guilt, feeling better, or being forgiven. Those may come. But they are not the purpose. An apology is saying I'm sorry but making amends is taking action to right the wrong, directly addressing harm caused, asking what can be done to make it right, changing behaviors, and restoring trust where possible, rather than just expressing regret. (Recovered On Purpose)
THE BEST WAY TO MAKE AMENDS
THE DIRECT AMENDS
This is the root layer. You go to the person. You do not make a speech. You do not defend yourself. You do not explain why you did what you did. You simply acknowledge the harm, ask what you can do to make it right, and then do it. If you owe money, you pay it. If you broke something, you fix it. If you lied, you tell the truth. The action must match the harm. Words without action are just more apology.
THE INDIRECT AMENDS
Some damage cannot be undone directly. The person may be gone. They may not want contact. The harm may be irreversible. Indirect amends means finding ways to repair damage that cannot be reversed or undone, by doing things like volunteering and helping others. You take the energy of what you did wrong and you redirect it into something good, not to make yourself feel better, but to put something back into the world that your actions took out.
THE LIVING AMENDS
This is the deepest and most lasting layer. A living amends is when you show others as well as yourself that you have made a genuine lifestyle change, making a commitment to yourself and those you have hurt that you have discarded your previous destructive behaviors.
This is the layer the Big Book is really pointing to. Because a living amends says: I will not do to you or anyone else what I did before. My changed life is the amends. Every day I live differently is the amends. You do not have to trust my words, watch my life.
THE SINGLE BEST WAY
You arrive without a defense. You carry the sorrow inside you, real sorrow, not performed. You name the harm clearly, without minimizing it or explaining it away. You ask what is needed to make it right. And then, without waiting for forgiveness, without demanding a response, without making it about your relief, you do the work. And then you live differently. Every single day. That changed life is the amends. The words are only the beginning. The life is the proof. (Claude AI)
AA pp.76-83
|
| p.96
| apology
|
| An act of the mind and mouth. It is a constructed, reasoned speech. It can be delivered without feeling anything. A lawyer makes an apology for his client. A politician makes an apology to manage a scandal. An apology can be perfectly worded and completely empty. At its root it is a defense, it moves the charge away using words. It can actually be a subtle way of justifying yourself while appearing to acknowledge the other person. (Claude AI)
AA Title Page
|
| p.96
| as
| during
| In this sense is a word that locks two actions together in the same moment of time it says that one thing is not finished before the other begins, but that both are happening in the same breath, the same motion, the same unfolding. It does not mean first this, then that. It means this AND that, together, at once, in parallel. When you say, as you are cleaning up the past, you must do Step 10, the word AS carries a profound and precise meaning: The cleaning up of the past and the doing of Step 10 are not two separate events that happen one after the other. They are one continuous, simultaneous movement. You cannot fully do one without the other happening at the same time. They are woven together in the same action, the same moment, the same life. This is not accidental in recovery language. AS is used deliberately to say: there is no gap between the two. You do not finish cleaning up the past and then start Step 10. You do Step 10 in the very act of cleaning up the past. They move together. They breathe together. They happen as one. (Claude AI)
AA p.84
|
| p.70
| desire
| impulse
| Desire is a strong feeling, conscious impulse, or earnest wish to obtain or experience something. It represents a longing or craving for a person, object, or outcome that promises satisfaction. An impulse is a sudden, strong urge to act. (Claude AI)
Desire means to wish for the possession and enjoyment of with earnestness, to long for, to covet, as to desire wealth, to express a wish to obtain, to ask, to request, to want. An emotion directed to the attainment or possession of an object from which pleasure, sensual, intellectual, or spiritual, is expected, a passion excited by the love of an object or uneasiness at the want of it, and directed to its attainment or possession. Impulse is force communicated instantaneously, the effect of a sudden or momentary force, the act of communicating such a force. Influence acting on the mind, motive, force of mind impelling to action, instigation, incitement, push, incentive.
AA p.xiv,xxvii,xxix,7,18,24,28,32,34,53,63,69,70,83,95,105,115,116,123,139,146,155,142
|
| p.96
| direction(s)
| program, instruction(s)
| under construction
AA p.
|
| p.96
| disease
| uneasy
| Disease is the objective, identifiable condition that takes hold of the body and disrupts its normal functioning. It comes from the Old French desaise, meaning the absence of ease, dis-ease, to be without peace, without comfort, without rest in the body and mind. Disease is something that can be observed, named, classified and tracked from the outside. It progresses on its own terms, follows its own pattern, and does not ask permission. A disease exists whether the person knows it or not, whether they feel it or not. It is not a character flaw or a moral failure. It is a condition that has entered the system and taken up residence. (Claude AI)
To interrupt or impair any or all the natural and regular function of (the several organs of a living body), to afflict with pain or sickness, to make morbid, to pain, to make uneasy. Pain, uneasiness, distress, any morbid state of the body generally, or of any particular organ or part of the the body, the cause of pain or uneasiness, distemper. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.64
|
| p.63
| housecleaning
|
| Housecleaning in the Greek: (katharsis) meaning to cleanse, to purge, to make pure. The removal of what does not belong, poison from the body, impurity from a wound, darkness from a vessel. What remains after katharsis is not something new. It is what was always there, before the contamination covered it. The Greeks understood with precision what accumulated orge, anger, resentment, the beast that swells inside a human being, does to a person who has no way to release it. It turns toxic. It destroys the vessel it lives in. So they built a container for it deliberately. The container was the (orgia), the secret rites of Dionysus, where the half-animal Satyrs, goat-legged and without reason or restraint, were the ministers of the rite. They embodied the creature beneath the human, the beast of pure appetite and drive that lives under every civilized self, and the orgia gave that beast a sacred space to erupt and return. The goat was the animal of orge. The Satyr was its embodiment. And the release, the emptying, was katharsis. Out of these same rites grew the greatest art form the Greeks ever created. They called it tragoidia, tragedy. The word means, literally, goat song, (tragos) goat (ode) song. The goat of the Satyr. The song of the orgia. Tragedy was born directly from the Dionysian rites, the chorus dressed in goatskins, the sacrifice of the animal, the chanting in honor of Dionysus, and it became the most powerful container for katharsis the world has ever known. Friedrich Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy (1872), identified what made it so: tragedy was the marriage of two opposing forces, the Dionysian and the Apollonian. The Dionysian is chaos, dissolution, the flood of raw emotion, the force that breaks through all boundaries, the orgia, the Satyr, the beast. The Apollonian is order, form, structure, clarity, beauty, the principle that holds and shapes. Apollo was the god of light and reason. Dionysus was the god of wine and ecstasy. Alone, the Dionysian is simply destruction, the beast without a container. Alone, the Apollonian is dead, form without fire. But together, in the structure of Greek tragedy, the Dionysian force erupted safely inside the Apollonian container of dramatic form, language, and poetry, and left the audience emptied, renewed, purified. This was katharsis. The goat song that cleaned the house. Nietzsche's great grief was that this marriage had been destroyed, that reason, following Socrates, had killed the Dionysian, dismantled the container, and left Western civilization with the force still present and nowhere sacred to go. A culture without katharsis, he said, does not become peaceful. It becomes repressed, resentful, and life-denying. The poison with no exit. In recovery, the Big Book gives this ancient understanding a plain and honest name: housecleaning. On p. 72 it says directly: He may rebel at the thought of a drastic housecleaning which requires discussion with other people. And on p. 75: We think the reason is that they never completed their housecleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. The Fourth Step, the searching and fearless moral inventory, is the act of bringing into the light everything that has been accumulating in the dark. Every resentment, every fear, every secret carried for years. The Apollonian container structure, honesty, pencil and paper, holding the Dionysian force that has been swelling inside. And the Fifth Step, admitting to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs, is the release. The goat song sung at last. What the Greeks did by torchlight on a mountain with Satyrs and sacrifice, the alcoholic does sitting across from a sponsor in a quiet room. (ClaudeAI)
AA p.63,72,75
|
| p.96
| illness
| sickness
| Illness is the deeply personal, inner experience of suffering, the felt sense from within that something is wrong. It is not something a doctor can fully see or measure from the outside. It lives in the person's own body, mind and spirit. It is what only the sufferer truly knows. You can have a disease without feeling ill, and you can feel ill without having a diagnosable disease. Illness belongs to the person. It is their truth about what they are going through. (Claude AI)
Bad or evil, contrary to good, in a physical or moral sense, unfavorable, disagreeable, wicked, wrong, diseased, disordered, sick or indisposed. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.xxvii,14,18,30,44,56,92,96,104,107,115,118,138,142
|
| p.96
| I'm sorry.
| sorrow
| I'm sorry is and act of the body and soul. It is not a speech, it is a state of being. To be sorry means you have taken the pain of what happened inside yourself. You have become the sorrow. It is simply, I feel the weight of what I did. It lives in me as pain. Expressing the fact that one is sorry, does not address the other person at all. (Claude AI)
AA p.18,30,44,56,92,107,115,118,138,142
|
| p.96
| instruction(s)
| direction(s), program
| under construction
AA p.
|
| p.96
| member
| part of the whole
| A member is not simply a person who has joined an organization and carries a card. At its root, a member is a living part of a living body, one who both gives life to and receives life from the whole they belong to. To become a member is to be reattached after being severed. To stop being a piece cut off and dying alone, and to become once again a functioning, breathing, connected part of something larger than yourself. In AA, a member is not a subscriber. A member is a limb, flesh of the same flesh, carrying the same blood, belonging to the same body of people who know exactly what it is to be cut off and what it is to be made whole again. (Claude AI)
A part of a body capable of performing a distinct office, a vital organ, a limb, part of an aggregate or a whole, sepcifically a part of a discourse, one of the persons composing a society, community or the like, an individual forming part of an association. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.xiii,xvi,xvii,xviii,xix,xxii,xxiii,27,28,42,43,87,122,124,125,127,130,135,136,158,162,163
|
| p.96
| never
| immediately following
| Nighest or nearest in place, time, rank or degree, at the time or turn nearest or immediately succeeding, in immediate proximity to. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.63
|
| p.63
| next
| immediately following
| Nighest or nearest in place, time, rank or degree, at the time or turn nearest or immediately succeeding, in immediate proximity to. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.63
|
| p.xvii
| permanent
| lasting
| Permanent meansthat which has stayed all the way through. Not that which will never end, because nothing lasts forever. But that which has the quality of remaining, of not being shaken loose by difficulty, by time, by change, by fear. Something permanent has been tested by everything that would move it, and has stayed anyway. In recovery, a permanent change is not a promise about the future. It is a quality built in the present, one day at a time, staying through, remaining, not going away, until the staying becomes the very nature of the person.
Lasting, continuing in the same state or in the same place, not undergoing change of any kind, stable, durable, abiding, not subject to obliteration or removal. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.xvii,xxvii,xxix,2464
|
| p.96
| principle
|
| Principle is a beginning, that which anything proceeds, a source or origin, an element, a constituent part, a primordial substance, an original cause, an operative cause, an original endowment of the mind, a faculty, a general truth, a fundamental truth or tenet, a law from which others are derived or shich others are founded, and elementary proposition, a tenet, a settled rule of action, that which is believed or held, whether true or not and which serves as a rule of action or the basis of a system, a right rule of conduct, uprightness, as a man of principle, groun of conduct, motive.
AA p.xvii,64
|
| p.96
| program
| direction(s), instruction(s)
| A program is set of instructions when followed achieves a desired result. Program is not a pamphlet you pick up. It is not a meeting you attend. It is not a philosophy you agree with. At its deepest root, a program is something carved out permanently before you begin, a clear, ordered, public set of actions laid out in advance that directs you step by step toward a specific destination. In AA, when people say "the program", they mean exactly this in the fullest sense of the word. Not the fellowship. Not the meetings. Not the slogans. The twelve steps, carved out, fixed, laid before you, in order, to be followed in action. The program of AA is carved out in the Big Book, fixed, public, available to anyone, asking only one thing: That you follow it. Not think about it. Not admire it. Not talk about it. Follow it. Step by step. As written. In action.
AA p.xi,xii,xx,xxii,9,19,42,58,59,72,73,85,94,96,99,113,117,121,126,130,147
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| p.96
| recovered
| restored to health
| A person who was once in a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body has been completely freed, not by their own will or human effort, but by a profound alteration of their inner life through a relationship with God, to the point where the obsession has been entirely lifted and they now live in a fundamentally different state of being than before. (Claud AI)
(past tense) Regained health after sickness, grown well again, regained a former state or condition after misfortune or disturbance of mind, regained, retrieved, restored as from sickness or the like revived, rescued as from danger. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.xiii,xv,xvii,xxiii,xxix,17,20,29,44,90,96,113,132,133,146
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| p.96
| recovery
| ongoing process
| Recovery is a complete transformation of the whole person, mind, body, and spirit, from a state of bondage to self, to a state of freedom in God.
It is not simply stopping drinking. It is the reversal of the fundamental condition that drove the drinking, self-centeredness (p. 62) replaced by a conscious contact with a Power greater than oneself, expressed outwardly through service to others.
It begins with the first honest admission (p. 30), passes through a psychic change (p. xxix), and proves itself in the quality of a person's daily life and their ability to help others (p. 153, p. 97).
Recovery is the state of being fully alive again, in God, in truth, and in service to others. (Claude AI)
AA p.xxv,xxix,30,31,59,72,73,90,94,96,97,99,113,120,125,127,139,143,145,147,153
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| p.96
| sobriety
| free
| Sobriety is primarily about abstinence, the absence of the substance or behavior. It is a behavioral and physical state.
You are not drinking, not using, not engaging in the addictive behavior.
It is measurable and observable from the outside.
It can begin the moment you stop.
It says nothing about your inner state, you can be sober and still miserable, angry, restless, irritable and discontent.
You can be dry drunk, sober in body but still thinking, feeling, and behaving like an addict.
Sobriety is necessary but not sufficient. (Claude AI)
Sobriety is the habitual soberness or temperance in the use of spiritous liquors, freedom from intoxication. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.5,32,33,82,100,101,118,119,128,129,146,152
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| p.96
| spirit
| breath
| Spirit is breath, the breath of life, hence, life itself, vital power, immaterial intelligence, an intelligence conceived of apart from any physical organization or material embodiment, the intelligent, immaterial, and immortal part of man, the soul, as distinguished from the body which occupies, as the body without the spirit is dead, a disembodied soul, the human soul after departing from the body, as the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.xxv,9,10,12,46,51,52,66,75,77,84,85,99,103,117,125,164
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| p.96
| spiritual
|
| Spiritual is of or relating to the soul and connection with a Higher Power, beyond physical desires.
Spiritual means consisting of spirit, not material, incorporeal, mental, intellectual, not gross, refined from external things, not sensual, relating to mind only, not lay or temporal, relating to sacred things, ecclesiastical, pertaining to the spirit or to the affections, pure, holy, controlled by and inspired by the divine spirit, that wich belongs to the church, a spiritual function, office, or affair. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.xv,xvi,xxiv,14,25,27,28,35,39,42,42,43,44,44,45,47,48,49,50,55,56,60,63,64,66,75,76,77,79,83,85,93,95,97,
98,100,101,102,112,114,116,118120,124,126
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| p.96
| strenuous
| vigorous
| Zealous, ardent, eagerly pressing or urgent, earnest, enthusiastic, active, vigorous, energetic, strong, bold, accompanied by labor or exertion, resolute, determined, vehement. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.xvii,64
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| p.96
| vital
| necessary
| Pertaining to life, either animal or vegetable, contributing to life, necessary to life, containing life, being the seat of life, being that on which life depends, very necessary, highly important, essential. (Webster's 1939)
AA p.xvii,64
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