Grapevine

January 1966 “I AM the same person I was when I came into AA.” This statement, made recently at a meeting by a member with over three years’ sobriety, yielded a vigorous and quite unexpected reaction. “Whadya mean, you’re the same person?” most of the comments went. “You couldn’t possibly be the same person if … Read more

July 1977 – A.H. from Naples, FL THE BIG BOOK says, “At some of these we balked,” and I did. Not at the first few Steps. Powerless over alcohol? Life unmanageable? Jolly correct. When you’ve lost an $800-per job with promise of unlimited advancement, plus one wife and one son, plus the last red cent … Read more

I think that many oldsters who have put our AA “booze cure” to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA–the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, … Read more

Fragments of AA History – Origin of the Twelve Steps I well remember the evening on which the Twelve Steps were written. I was lying in bed quite dejected and suffering from one of my imaginary ulcer attacks. Four chapters of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, had been roughed out and read in meetings in Akron … Read more

On New Year’s Eve, an e-mail arrived from my older sister, addressed to the whole family, announcing that she would no longer communicate with me about our mother’s recent diagnosis of cancer.