A Member's Eye View of Alcoholics Anonymous

Prelude
This pamphlet is designed to explain to people in the
helping professions how A.A. works. Though the A.A. program
relies upon the sharing of experience, strength and hope among
alcoholics, the recovery process itself is highly individual,
adapted by each member to meet his or her needs. Therefore, the
program is described here as it appears to one member; but the
pamphlet does reflect Fellowship thinking, since it has been
approved by the A.A. General Service Conference.

The author of this paper delivered it first before a class on
alcoholism counseling at one of our large universities. A.A.
World Services, Inc. wishes to thank him for his generous
permission to reprint and distribute this talk.

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I should like to speak to you tonight from a prepared text - for
this reason: Heretofore in my association with A.A., I have
spoken in A.A. or to one ofits derivative organizations, Al-Anon
or Alateen. I have been participating in a therapy, and I have
been the subject. Therefore, the more subjective the talk, the
better. Tonight I have been asked to talk about that therapy,
and the difference becomes immediately apparent. It seems to me
that I should try to be as objective as possible, and this
seemed to me to call for advance thought and preparation. How
objective a member can be about an organization which he feels
has helped save his life and is sanity is a moot question, but I
can try.

My task tonight is more difficult than it would first appear,
because - as those of you who are members of A.A. already know -
there is no official interpretation which I can blithely pass
along to you. There is no "party line," no official body of
dogma or doctrine to which the members subscribe, no creed that
we recite. Even if the surviving co- founder of A.A. himself
were standing before you tonight, he could tell you only how it
all appears to him. I personally consider this absence of
orthodoxy one of A.A.'s strongest and most therapeutic
principles - and I hope to cover this in more detail later - but
it can be a bit of a burden at a time like this. The fact
remains that whatever I say tonight is and must remain a totally
personal statement. In fact, what I am about to say might very
well be titled "A Member's-Eye View of Alcoholics Anonymous."
And since I am saying it within the halls of a university all I
ask is that you listen in a spirit of honest and open- minded
inquiry.

Why I have been asked to say it, I think you already know.
Since one of A.A.'s strongest Traditions is that "Our public
relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion,"
I am not here to try to sell it to you - whether you are a
future counselor or a present alcoholic. A.A.'s track record as
compared with other methods of recovery from alcoholism speaks
for itself, and I am sure you have long since been apprised of
that record in this classroom.

Now, it is quite logical to assume that if one method of
approaching a problem yields noticeably better and more
spectacular results than others, then that method must contain
some unique factor or factors that set it apart and form the
basis of its superiority. Is this true of Alcoholics Anonymous?
If so, what constitutes this uniqueness?

Perhaps our search can be ended quickly with a definition of
Alcoholics Anonymous. What might be termed its "official"
definition and the one read at many A.A. meetings goes as
follows:

"Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share
their experience, strength and hope with each other that they
may solve their common problem and help others to recover from
alcoholism.
"The only requirement for membership is a desire to
stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for A.A. membership;
we are self-supporting through our own contributions. A.A. is
not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization
or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy,
neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is
to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety."

Yes it is lengthy, and like most definitions abroad in the world
today, it rather successfully evades telling you what it is by
emphasizing what it is not.

Let's see if we can do better in A.A.'s basic textbook, the
volume Alcoholics Anonymous, first published in 1939 and written
by Bill W., with the help and advice of the first hundred
alcoholics who were able to achieve a year of sobriety. In
Chapter V, entitled "How It Works," we find these words:

"Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic,
and our personal adventures before and after make clear three
pertinent ideas:
"(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.
"(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
"(c) That God could and would if He were sought."

These so-called ideas, while more specific, are certainly not
unique to Alcoholics Anonymous. Man has been beaten to his
knees in an admission of personal helplessness since time began.
Likewise, since time began he has turned to the idea of a
supernatural Being who would deliver him from his fate if he
performed certain rituals and observed certain rules. There is
obviously no new or different factor here, yet the three "ideas"
we have just heard are the very cornerstone of A.A.'s
philosophy. So where can we turn now in our effort to isolate
A.A.'s uniqueness?

The first sentence of the first definition I read to you
contains the only "is" statement I have ever been able to find
in all of A.A.'s literature. Let's listen to it again:

"Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share
their experience, strength and hope with each other that they
may solve their common problem and help others to recover from
alcoholism."

Once again, is there anything totally new here? The experiences
of alcoholics are essentially the same. While they may differ
in circumstances, the theme is always the same: a progressive
deterioration of the human personality. And the levels of
strength and hope these men and women possess vary from day to
day, in both degree and substance. What then is the constant
factor? What is A.A.'s unique difference?

Could our answer lie in the manner in which this experience,
strength and hope are shared, and - much more important - who is
sharing them? Is the secret contained, as most secrets are, in
how it all began?

Long before there was a definition of A.A., before there was a
book or Steps or Traditions or a program of recovery, there was
a night in Akron, Ohio, only a short 33 years ago. (1935). A
night when a man named Bill W., alone in a strange city, shaken
and frightened, concluded that his only hope of maintaining his
present hard-won sobriety was to talk to and try to help another
alcoholic. So far as I know, that is the first recorded instance
where one alcoholic consciously and deliberately turned to
another alcoholic, not to drink with, but to stay sober with.

In the fateful meeting of Bill W. and Doctor Bob the next
evening, was an answer finally given to that rhetorical question
which Christ asked two thousand years ago? "If the blind lead
the blind, shall they not both fall into the pit?" And in 1935
was the answer, strangely enough, "No"? But perhaps what
occurred that evening was not a contradiction of Christ's maxim.
Perhaps one who was a little less blind, one who was at last
able to discern vague shapes and forms, described what he saw to
one who still lived in total darkness.

Much more important than what was said that evening was who was
saying it. Long before the average alcoholic walks through the
doors of his first A.A. meeting, he has sought help from others
or help has been offered to him, in some instances even forced
upon him. But these helpers are always superior beings:
spouses, parents, physicians, employers, priests, ministers,
rabbis, swamis, judges, policemen, even bartenders. The moral
culpability of the alcoholic and the moral superiority of the
helper, even though unstated, are always clearly understood.
The overtone of parental disapproval and discipline in these
authority figures is always present. For the first time, 33
years ago an alcoholic suddenly heard a different drummer.
Instead of the constant and menacing rat-a-tat-tat of "This is
what you should do," he heard an instantly recognizable voice
saying, "This is what I did."

I am personally convinced that the basic search of every human
being, from the cradle to the grave, is to find at least one
other human being before whom he can stand completely naked,
stripped of all pretense or defense, and trust that person not
to hurt him, because that other person has stripped himself
naked, too. This lifelong search can begin to end with the
first A.A. encounter.

One of A.A.'s early differences - the idea that alcoholism is a
disease - is now no longer unique. While discussion of the
exact nature of this disease and its possible cure may well go
on forever, no reasonably intelligent person seems any longer to
quarrel with this conclusion. However, the impact of the
alcoholic's discovery of this fact from the lips of another
alcoholic remains undiminished. To alcoholics swamped with guilt
and shame, the words "I found I had a disease, and I found a way
to arrest it" constitute immediate absolution for many, and for
others at least a ray of hope that they might one day earn
absolution.

It seems to me that what happens to an alcoholic on his first
encounter with A.A. is that he realizes he has been invited to
share in the experience of recovery. And the key word in that
sentence is the word "share." Whether he responds to it
immediately or ever is not at that moment important. What is
important is that the invitation has been extended and remains,
and that he has been invited to share as an equal and not as a
mendicant. No matter what his initial reaction, even the
sickest alcoholic is hard put to deny to himself that he has
been offered understanding, equality, and an already-proved way
out. And he is made to feel that he is, in fact, entitled to
all this; indeed, he has already earned it, simply because he is
an alcoholic.

If the alcoholic responds to this invitation, he then encounters
what I believe is A.A.'s second unique factor: A.A. treats the
symptom first. It may come as a surprise to some that, from a
short 30 years ago, when the idea was fairly revolutionary,
Alcoholics Anonymous has consistently emphasized its conviction
that alcoholism is, to use its own phrase, "the symptom of
deeper troubles." However, A.A. also believes that the cleverest
diagnosis of these troubles is of little benefit if the patient
dies. Autopsies do not benefit the person upon whom they are
performed. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, A.A. seems to be
able to get over to its neophytes that total abstinence is the
name of the game. In A.A., the cart does come before the horse.
The first step is still the First Step. No newcomer to A.A. is
ever left in any real doubt that recovery can begin only with a
decision to "stay away from the first drink." And he soon
learns that no one can or will make that decision for him. In
fact, he soon further learns that if he makes the decision, no
one can or will force him to implement it. In A.A., the choice
begins and always remains with the alcoholic himself.

The desire, as well as the ability, to make this decision often
results, I believe, from what appears to be A.A.'s third unique
quality: The intuitive understanding the alcoholic receives,
while compassionate, is not indulgent. The "therapists" in A.A.
already have their doctorates in the four fields where the
alcoholic reigns supreme: phoniness, self- deception, evasion,
and self-pity. He is not asked what he is thinking. He is told
what he is thinking. No one waits to trap him in a lie. He is
told what lies he is getting ready to tell. In the end, he
begins to achieve honesty by default. There's not much point in
trying to fool people who may have invented the game you're
playing.

There is yet a fourth factor in A.A. which I feel can be found
nowhere else, and that is the recovered alcoholics' omnipresent,
bottomless, enthusiastic willingness to talk about alcoholism -
its ins and its outs, its whys and its wherefores, its becauses
and begats. Without the newcomer's ever becoming fully aware of
it, his fascination with alcohol, his thirst, his desire, yea,
even his need for a drink is literally talked to death. It has
always seemed exquisitely fitting to me that people who once
used their mouths to get sick now use them to get well.

Finally, there is the reversal of form which A.A.'s educational
process takes. The newcomer to A.A. is asked, not so much to
learn new values, as to unlearn those he comes in with; not so
much to adopt new goals, as to abandon old ones. To my mind, one
of the most significant sentences in the entire book Alcoholics
Anonymous is this: "Some of us have tried to hold on to our old
ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." The
rigidity with which even some nondrinking alcoholics will cling
to the opinions, beliefs, and convictions they had upon entering
A.A. is well-nigh incredible. One of the major objectives of
A.A. therapy is to help the alcoholic finally recognize these
ideas and become willing to relinquish his death grip on them.

Now then, you ask, where can these unique factors be found?
Where are they at work? Where do they occur? Is the answer
always such and such a meeting at such and such an address at
such and such a time? No. The real answer is that this unique
therapy occurs wherever two alcoholics meet: at home, at lunch,
in a street, in a car, on the sidewalk, on a porch, and oh God,
on the telephone. There is only one requirement: One of them
should be sober. But even this is not absolutely necessary. I
am living proof that two drunken alcoholics, once having been
exposed to A.A., can talk each other into returning.

At this point you may very well ask: Out of all this uniqueness,
what finally happens? Well, I'll admit that's the heart of the
matter, al right, and I only wish the answer was as easy as the
question. On second thought, there is an easy answer. I could
echo a saying that has long winged its way down the corridors of
A.A.: "The miracle of A.A. occurs." There's no doubt that those
words would get me out from under - poetically and beautifully.
But I don't think either of us would know very much more than we
did before the question was posed.

There is a widely held belief in A.A. that if a newcomer will
simply continue to attend meetings, "Something will finally rub
off on you." And the implication, of course, is that the
something which rubs off will be this so-called miracle of A.A.
Now, there is no doubt in my mind that many people in A.A.
accept this statement quite literally. I have observed them over
the years. They faithfully attend meetings, faithfully waiting
for "something to rub off." The funny part about it is that
"something" is rubbing off on them. Death. They sit there -
week after month after year - while mental, spiritual, and
physical rigor mortis slowly sets in.

I believe the real "miracle of A.A.," the "something" that will
rub off, we hope, is simply the alcoholic's willingness to act.
Why he finally becomes willing, I hope to touch on later. Right
now, let's turn our attention to what it is he becomes willing
to do.

A.A. has been happily called "a program of action." In fact,
one of our most- quoted aphorisms is "Action is the magic word."
When the newcomer hears this, he invariably gets a mental
picture of his attending meetings, making what are known as
"Twelfth Step calls" on other alcoholics, speaking at meetings,
joining committees - in general, a kind of constant rushing to
and fro. Let's see whether this is what it really is.

Quoting from Chapter V of the book Alcoholics Anonymous:

"Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of
recovery:
"1. We 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 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 ready to have God remove all these defects of
character.
"7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
"8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became
willing to make 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
conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying
only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
"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."

What you have just heard are A.A.'s famed Twelve Steps. They
have been described by various members at various times in
various phrases, ranging from "The Golden Stairs to Happiness"
to "all that God stuff."

Now I shall try to pose some questions which may help us
understand the impact the Twelve Steps have had upon the lives
of thousands of alcoholics, and their already-demonstrated
efficacy in dealing with the problem of alcoholism.

First, does it come as a surprise to you, as it did to me, that
there is nothing physical in this program - no leafy, green
vegetables, no vitamins, no daily calisthenics? I think this is
because, from the very beginning, the alcoholic in A.A. has
believed that the physical aspects of our disease would have
little import if they were not accompanied by an equally
progressive spiritual deterioration. If the major thing we had
to worry about was the physical allergy to alcohol, then I
believe A.A. would never have happened, because it would never
have been needed. At various times I have been strongly allergic
to various foods: to strawberries, but I have never had to join
Strawberries Anonymous; to pork but I didn't have to change my
religion to abstain from it.

If, then, alcoholism is largely a spiritual disease requiring a
spiritual healing, does it come as a surprise to you, as it did
to me, that there is nothing new in a spiritual sense, nothing
startlingly different or unique in this program? Most of these
ideas have been around since man crawled out of the cave. Many
of them existed in even primitive societies, and every alcoholic
- no matter how irreligious or unethical he may have succeeded
in keeping himself - at some time must have used some or all of
them as a set of values by which to measure himself. To believe
that the alcoholic who approaches A.A. is an unprincipled,
untaught barbarian, suddenly transformed by the previously
unavailable spiritual illumination of the Twelve Steps, is, to
me, utter foolishness.

Once again, we are confronted with an aspect of A.A.'s therapy
which has had a totally new impact without, apparently, any
accompanying newness of substance. Where, then, could the
difference lie?

I believe it lies in the way the Steps are presented, rather
than what they contain: They are reports of action taken, rather
than rules not to be broken under pain of drunkenness.

I have often wondered what the course of mankind might have been
if the Ten Commandments had been presented in this same manner,
rather than as blunt commandments negatively expressed: "We
honored our father and our mother." "We remembered to keep holy
the Sabbath." "We honored the name of the Lord our God and took
it not in vain." "We bore no false witness against our
neighbor."

In A.A., the reporting is clear and unmistakable. "Here are the
steps we took," say those who have gone before. The newcomer
finally sees that he, too, must take these Steps before he is
entitled to report on them. And in an atmosphere where the
constant subject is "What I did" and "What I think," no neurotic
can long resist the temptation to get in on the action. In an
organization whose members are always secretly convinced that
they are unique, no neurotic is long going to be contented with
a report of what others are doing. Whether by accident or
design or supernatural guidance, the Twelve Steps are so framed
and presented that the alcoholic can either ignore them
completely, take them cafeteria-style, or embrace them
wholeheartedly. In any case, he can report only on what he has
done. Till he does, he knows that he is more a guest of A.A.
than a member, and this is a situation that is finally
intolerable to the alcoholic. He must take at least some of the
Steps, or go away. In my opinion, this is the answer to what
finally rubs off on the waiting, inactive, often hostile A.A.
member, and also the answer as to why it happens.

The presentation of the Twelve Steps as reports of actions
taken, rather than as commandments to be followed, also forms
the basis of A.A.'s conspicuous absence of any formalized body
of dogma or doctrine. No member is ever told that he must
perform these Steps or return to a life of drunkenness. A
person who says he is a member of A.A. is a member of A.A., no
matter how sparingly or wholeheartedly he takes the Steps.
Members range from those who loudly and untiringly proclaim,
"I've stayed sober for x-number of years on the First and
Twelfth Steps," to those who just as untiringly exhort,
"Utilize, don't analyze." The first group seems to be able to
blithely ignore the qualifying cause of the Twelfth Step,
"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps,"
and is apparently content with what to others may be a sadly
circumscribed and impoverished sobriety. The latter group seems
equally able to ignore the fact that the very exhortation not to
analyze is the result of these members' own analysis.

Since I am speaking to you as present and future counselors,
rather than as alcoholics, I do not wish to dwell on the Steps
at length. But there are some aspects of these Steps which I
feel must not be overlooked, since I am sure they will come up
again and again in your future work.

The first is what is sometimes called, crudely if aptly, "the
God bit." As A.A. becomes more and more international, as it
moves abroad from the Judeo-Christian ethic of the American
society in which it was founded, while it is even now being
tested more and more here at home, this basic principle of
A.A.'s recovery program is bound to come under more and more
scrutiny and be held more and more in question.

The founders of A.A., it is obvious, felt that alcoholics need
the help of a Power greater than themselves. But again, whether
by accident, design, or divine guidance, they have wisely
refrained from strictly defining this Power. While A.A.
literature has used and continues to use the personal pronoun
which describes the concept of a personal deity, a belief in
this concept is by no means required. In fact, I am convinced
that the greater a member's years in A.A., the less important
the nature of this Power becomes. I and most of the members I
know seem to progress over the years from a search for a God we
can understand to a belief in a God who understands us.

The founders of A.A. also hastened to clarify their original use
of the terms "spiritual experience" and "spiritual awakening" to
describe the personality change they believed to be
indispensable to permanent recovery. In the Appendix to the
book Alcoholics Anonymous, we find these words:

"Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of
alcoholics, such transformations [i.e., sudden, spectacular
upheavals of a religious nature], though frequent, are by no
means the rule. Most of our experiences are what the
psychologist William James calls the 'educational variety'
because they develop slowly over a period of time....He [the
newcomer] finally realizes that he has undergone a profound
alteration in his reaction to life; that such a change could
hardly have been brought about by himself alone."

In the Twelve Traditions, A.A. claims "but one ultimate
authority...a loving God as He may express Himself in our group
conscience." However, I would remind you that these groups are
made up of alcoholics, and by the time it can be determined what
the collective conscience has decided, even the most militant
atheist or persistent agnostic can have stayed sober for years.

It may also appear to some of you that in the Fourth and Fifth
of its Twelve Steps, A.A. might very well be accused of talking
out of both sides of its mouth at once. If you will recall,
these Steps are:

"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."

Here, it would appear, is an organization that on the one hand
claims there is no moral culpability involved in the disease of
alcoholism, and on the other suggests to its members that
recovery entails a searching and fearless accounting of this
culpability to God and to another human being. I personally
feel that this apparent paradox results from the empirical
knowledge gained by the founders of A.A. I believe they found,
as we all have since, that no matter what you tell the newcomer
about the disease of alcoholism, he still feels guilty. He
cannot blind himself to the moral consequences of his drinking:
the blight he has visited upon those around him and the shame
and degradation he has inflicted on himself. This load of
conventional guilt - and I use the word "conventional" advisedly
- as well as the alcoholic's stubborn and perverse wish to cling
to it, is the oldest of his "old ideas." It is the oldest
because it started first, and in most cases it will be the last
to go. But go it must if the alcoholic's attitude toward
himself and hence the world around him is to undergo any basic
change. That's why I believe the founders of A.A. learned in
their own experimentation that the alcoholic must be given a
conventional means of unloading this burden of conventional
guilt. Hence the Fourth and Fifth Steps.

It is also apparent by now, I hope, that A.A.'s program of
action is not the rushing to and fro so often envisioned by the
newcomer, nor even the unflagging carrying of the message to
other alcoholics. Instead, its action is concentrated for the
most part on the inner man, involving his deepest sensibilities
and values. Only three Steps - the Fifth, Ninth, and Twelfth -
involve other people. The other nine concern themselves with
the interior life of the alcoholic. Yet in their observance the
ultimate result is to turn the alcoholic inside out - from
himself to others.

An oft-quoted sentence from the book Alcoholics Anonymous is:
"Self- centeredness...is the root of our troubles." And one of
the earliest evidences of the basic change in the personality of
the recovering alcoholic is the slow, hesitant, frightened, but
persistent offering of himself to others. Alcoholics are
numbered among the great "gimmes" of the world. "Gimme a
break...Gimme a chance...Gimme time...Gimme
understanding...Gimme love." In A.A., these self- same "gimmes"
come to be numbered among the great givers, and lo, some of them
even learn to want nothing in return.

The house that A.A. helps a man build for himself is different
for each occupant, because each occupant is his own architect.
For many, A.A. is a kind of going home - a return, like the
Prodigal Son's, to the house and the faith of this fathers. To
others, it is a never- ending journey into lands they did not
dream existed. It does not matter into which group one falls.
What is really important is that A.A. has more than demonstrated
that the house it builds can accommodate the rebel as well as
the conformist, the radical as well as the conservative, the
agnostic as well as the believer. The absence of formalized
dogma, the lack of rules and commandments, the nonspecific
nature of its definitions, and the flexibility of its framework
- all the things we have thus far considered contribute to this
incredible and happy end.

But what clinches the result and keeps the recovered alcoholic
in A.A. forever self-determining is, I believe, one of the most
important if seldom-noticed principles at work within it. The
very factors which I have just enumerated mean that any
alcoholic on any given day at any given time can find someone in
A.A. who in all good faith will agree with what he has already
decided to do. Conversely, on any given day at any given time,
the same alcoholic can find someone in A.A. who in all good
faith will disagree with what he has already decided to do.
Thus, sooner or later, the recovering alcoholic in A.A. is
literally forced to think for himself. Sooner or later, he
finds himself akin to the turtle, that lowly creature who makes
progress only when his neck is stuck out. The formless
flexibility of A.A.'s principles as interpreted by their
different adherents finally pushes our alcoholic into a stance
where he must use only himself as a frame of reference for his
actions, and this in turn means he must be willing to accept the
consequences of those actions. In my book, that is the
definition of emotional maturity.

It would be wonderful if I could now close my book and depart in
a glow of sweetness and light, leaving my beautifully
established premises to fend for themselves. But if I did, I
would be doing you, as future counselors, a grave disservice.
To every member of A.A., there comes a day - admitted by some,
kept secret by others - when he begins to ask himself a gnawing,
troubled question. Sometimes, the words are: "Is A.A. enough?"
Other times, the question takes a more fatalistic overtone: "Is
A.A. all there is going to be?" And in still other instances,
it comes out simply as "What now, little man, what now?"

There may come a day when one of these troubled souls reaches
your desk or your office, and the reasons he gives you will be
found among these:

"A.A. is an organization of sick people, and I feel it is a
handicap for me to be around them any longer."

"A.A. is always oriented to the newcomer. There is no way for
the oldtimer to continue growing in it."

"A.A. is really a kind of subculture, and it can serve to shut
you off from the mainstream of life."

Why do these statements come so readily to my lips? Because I
first said them to myself, and over the years both those who
preceded me and those who have come after have also echoed them
in my ears.

If, as, and when you hear any or all of them, do not - I beg of
you - brush them lightly aside. The very reason they are so
persistent is that there is more than a grain of truth in them.

The guilt, fear, and worry that these thoughts arouse in the
A.A. member are due in the main, I believe, to this simple fact:
Long before we dare admit these thoughts to our consciousness,
we have been exhorted by many defenders of the A.A. faith that
"A.A. is all you need." It never seems to occur to them - nor
to their listeners, for that matter - that just a simple change
of the pronoun in that exhortation would make it completely
accurate. "A.A. is all I need" is an individual statement that
can strengthen many and trouble no one.

In all of A.A.'s literature, I can find no substantiation for
the sometimes assumed and sometimes advocated precept that A.A.
therapy is all the recovering or recovered alcoholic should ever
be interested in. In fact, the stories of thousands of A.A.
members reveal quite the opposite. I myself have been a
lifelong Catholic, of varying degrees of intensity and varying
levels of virtue. I also had several years of psychoanalysis
after being sober in A.A. for 11 years. I have yet to find any
of these interests or endeavors to be mutually exclusive of the
others. It seems to me that it always comes back to the
Biblical injunction "There is a time and a place for all
things." If tonight any of you would ask my help with your
drinking problem, I most certainly would not ask you, "Would you
like to go to Mass with me next Sunday?" Nor would I ask whether
you wanted an appointment with my former analyst. But I would
unhesitatingly ask you, "Would you like to attend an A.A.
meeting with me?"..."There is a time and a place for all
things." The real danger lies, in my opinion, in the recovered
alcoholic's assumption that if he wishes to move to another time
and another place he must perforce leave A.A. behind. Nothing
could be more untrue; nothing could be more unnecessary.

The oft-heard cry "A.A. is all you need" has the hollow ring of
fear - fear that if any member dissents from the belief that
A.A. is the one and only, the total and complete answer to all
the alcoholic's ills, then all the other members will perish
with him. I once clung to this self-same attitude about my
religion. Indeed, I came into A.A. stubbornly clutching it to my
breast. How sad it would have been if I had learned to let go
of one "old idea," only to substitute another for it.

This search for perfection, for the one Perfect Answer, is the
hallmark of the neurotic. Ever since Eden, man has cried out:
"Give me a ritual; give me some word; give me a prayer; give me
a chant; give me a cross, a relic or a string of beads; give me
a mantra; give me a conundrum; give me something; give me
anything, just so long as it's a magical, mechanical formula I
can touch or hold or say or do - and all will be well."

To apply this same unrealistic yardstick to A.A. is as unfair to
the Fellowship as it would be, or has been, to any other human
institution. True freedom lies in the realization and calm
acceptance of the fact that there may very well be no perfect
answer. It remains then for each man to discover and to share
whatever works for him.

In the final analysis, I am convinced that I, as well as so many
others, have elected to remain in A.A. because only there can we
actually relive the original experience of recovery. Only there
can we be an active part of the daily striving on the part of
all the members - a striving that is sometimes better, sometimes
worse, sometimes strong, sometimes weak - but always the
striving to be human beings a little better than we were the day
before. If you are a nonalcoholic or not a member of A.A., I
can almost hear you saying, "Surely, that man must realize that
this daily striving goes on in other groups and in other
organizations." Of course, I realize this. I have been, and
still am, a member of some of those groups and organizations.
But only in A.A. can I share in this striving to the extent and
the intensity that have given my life new meaning. More and
more with each passing year in A.A., everywhere I turn and
everywhere I look, the key word, the activating agent, the
supreme catalyst seems to be that simple word "share."

However, like all great blessings, this intensity of sharing,
this feeling of one alcoholic for another carries with it a
corresponding danger. In some subtle way, it also serves the
alcoholic's omnipresent, ever-lurking need to withdraw from the
mainstream and turn in upon himself. Learning to substitute a
group, no matter how large, for one's own self-centeredness is
only partial recovery.

A.A. will probably always number among its ranks those who, in
their fear and their anger, would make A.A. a kind of spiritual
ghetto, a sort of co-ed monastery; where alcoholics hide and
lick their wounds, coining childish and defensive words like
"normsie" and "alky," and pointing accusing fingers at the
tigers "out there."

There must come a day, it seems to me, when every alcoholic, in
or out of A.A., finally sits down in the presence of his
enemies. When he does, he will be amazed to discover that he is
attending a meeting of one - himself. The day the alcoholic in
A.A. realizes that his enemy is within, that the tigers are
largely creatures of his own design and lurk in his own
unconscious, that is the day when for him A.A. becomes what I
believe its founders meant it to be: a flight into reality.

I happened to be in San Francisco not long after I had attended
my meeting with my enemies, and I took a ride on one of those
wonderful little cable cars, down Powell Street, to Fisherman's
Wharf. It was then I saw something strange and wonderful
happen. All the passengers who had ridden the car down the hill
with me piled out, and, not waiting for the crew, proceeded to
turn it around themselves and head it back up the long, steep
hill it had just come down. And I rode it all the way back up
with them, all the way back up to that breathtaking view of the
Golden Gate.

It occurred to me then that this is what A.A. had been for me,
and I hoped, would always be for others: a ridiculously simple,
jerry-built, noisy, clanking but sturdy, fiercely loved, and
joyous kind of vehicle that had asked me and all its other
passengers to turn it and ourselves around so that all of us
could head back up the hill we had come down, back up to where
we could once again see the bridge - the bridge to normal
living.

Tonight, if I could find one fault with A.A., it would be that
we have not yet begun to tap the potential hidden in the last
seven words of the Twelfth Step: "practice these principles in
all our affairs."

It occurred to me not long ago that whenever I am sitting in an
A.A. meeting, I am never aware that I am sitting next to another
white man, another Catholic, another American, or a Frenchman,
Mexican, Jew, Moslem, or Hindu, black man or brown. I am aware
only that I am sitting next to another alcoholic. And it seemed
deeply significant to me that this feeling of common humanity
had been purchased by me at the cost of considerable pain and
suffering.

Should this hard-won understanding of, and feeling for, others
be confined to the meeting halls and members of A.A.? Or does
it remain for me to take what I have learned and what I have
experienced, not only in A.A., but in every other area and
endeavor of my life, to lift up my head, and to assume my
rightful place in the family of man? Can I there, in the
household of God, know that I am not sitting next to another
white man, another Catholic, another American, nor yet a
Frenchman, Mexican, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, black man or brown, not
even another alcoholic, and can I finally - at long last, please
God - come home from all the wars and say in the very depths of
my soul, "I am sitting next to another human being"?

Ladies and gentlemen, who would dare attempt to analyze a
phenomenon, diagram a wonder, or parse a miracle? The answer
is: only a fool. And I trust that tonight I have not been such a
fool. All I have tried to do is tell you where I have been
these past 16 years and some things I have come to believe
because of my journeyings.

This coming Sunday, in the churches of many of us, there will be
read that portion of the Gospel of Matthew which recounts the
time when John the Baptist was languishing in the prison of
Herod, and, hearing of the works of his cousin Jesus, he sent
two of his disciples to say to Him, "Art thou He who is to come,
or shall we look for another?" And Christ did as He so often
did. He did not answer them directly, but wanted John to decide
for himself. And so He said to the disciples: "Go and report
to John what you have heard and what you have seen: the blind
see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the
dead rise, the poor have the gospel preached to them." Back in
my childhood catechism days, I was taught that the "poor" in
this instance did not mean only the poor in a material sense,
but also meant the "poor in spirit," those who burned with an
inner hunger and an inner thirst; and that the word "gospel"
meant quite literally "the good news."

More than 16 years ago, four men - my boss, my physician, my
pastor, and the one friend I had left - working singly and
together, maneuvered me into A.A. Tonight, if they were to ask
me, "Tell us, what did you find?" I would say to them what I now
say to you:

"I can tell you only what I have heard and seen: It seems the
blind do see, the lame do walk, the lepers are cleansed, the
deaf hear, the dead rise, and over and over again, in the middle
of the longest day or the darkest night, the poor in spirit have
the good news told to them."

God grant that it may always be so.

typos by Anon