From
The Original Manuscript
Chapter
Five HOW IT WORKS
Rarely have we seen a person fail who
has thoroughly followed our directions.
Those who do not recover are people
who cannot or will not completely give
themselves to this simple program,
usually men and women who are
constitutionally incapable of being
honest with themselves. There are such
unfortunates. They are not at fault;
they seem to have been born that way.
They are naturally incapable of
grasping and developing a way of
life which demands rigorous
honesty. Their chances are less than
average. There are those, too, who
suffer from grave emotional and mental
disorders, but many of them do recover
if they have the capacity to be
honest.
Our stories disclose in a
general way what we used to be like,
what happened, and what we are like
now. If you have decided you want what
we have and are willing to go to any
length to get it - then you are ready
to follow directions.
At some
of these you may balk. You may
think you can find an easier,
softer way. We doubt if you can.
With all the earnestness at our
command, we beg of you to be fearless
and thorough from the very start. Some
of us have tried to hold on to our old
ideas and the result was nil until we
let go absolutely.
Remember that you
are dealing with alcohol - cunning,
baffling, powerful! Without help it is
too much for you. But there is One who
has all power - That One is God.
You must find Him now!
Half
measures will avail you
nothing. You stand at the
turning point. Throw yourself under
His protection and care with complete
abandon.
Now we think you can
take it! Here are the steps we
took, which are suggested as your
Program of Recovery:
1.Admitted we were
powerless over alcohol - that our
lives had become unmanageable.
2.Came to believe that a
Power greater than ourselves could
restore us to sanity.
3.Made
a decision to turn our will and our
lives over to the care and
direction of God as we understood
Him.
4.Made a searching
and fearless moral inventory of
ourselves.
5.Admitted
to God, to ourselves, and to another
human being the exact nature of our
wrongs.
6.Were entirely
willing that God remove all
these defects of character.
7.Humbly, on our
knees, asked Him to remove our
shortcomings - holding nothing
back.
8.Made a list
of all persons we had harmed, and
became willing to make complete
amends to them all.
9.Made
direct amends to such people wherever
possible, except when to do so would
injure them or others.
10.Continued
to take personal inventory and when we
were wrong promptly admitted it.
11.Sought through prayer
and meditation to improve our contact
with God, praying only for knowledge
of His will for us and the power to
carry that out.
12.Having
had a spiritual experience as
the result of this course of
action, we tried to carry this
message to others, especially
alcoholics, and to practice these
principles in all our affairs.
You
may exclaim, "What an order!
I can't go through with it." Do
not be discouraged. No one among us
has been able to maintain anything
like perfect adherence to these
principles. We are not saints. The
point is, that we are willing to grow
along spiritual lines. The principles
we have set down are guides to
progress. We claim spiritual progress
rather than spiritual perfection.
Our
description of the alcoholic, the
chapter to the agnostic, and our
personal adventures before and after, have
been designed to sell you three
pertinent ideas:
(a) That you
are alcoholic and cannot manage
your own life.
(b) That probably
no human power can relieve your
alcoholism.
(c) That God can
and will.
If you are not
convinced on these vital issues, you
ought to re-read the book to this
point or else throw it away!
Copyright © Alcoholics
Anonymous World Services, Inc.
This is the wording of the
prepublication manuscript of our Big
Book.It circulated
among the first members and friends in
Akron, Cleveland, and New York in late
1938.
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