New Year’s Resolution
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.
My Greatest Usefulness
BY: GEORGE B. | ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA Tradition Twelve When I first found Alcoholics Anonymous, part of its appeal lay in the second word of its name. Anonymity about my own alcoholism was something that I certainly wanted. Even though my friends and co-workers had seen me drunk often enough, I didn’t want them to know …
Tradition Twelve
One may say that anonymity is the spiritual base, the sure key to all the rest of our Traditions. It has come to stand for prudence and, most importantly, for self-effacement.
Step Twelve
When I finished my Step work, I knew something was different, but I wasn’t sure if it was a spiritual awakening.
Sidebar
BY: TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS – August 1998 Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God’s help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God’s sight all human beings are important, the proof that …
Gratitude
BY: ART V. | JOHNS ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA – August 2002 Time for one more. . . Every morning as I pour water into my coffee maker, I’m filled with gratitude because I’m reminded of what it was like fourteen years ago. Every morning, I filled a glass with brandy just to get my day …
We Seek Through Meditation
As I slowly made my own way through the Steps, I was aware that I had to understand them fully if I was to take them.
Steps to Awareness
BY: T. J. | HOUSTON, TEXAS – July 1981 BEFORE I CAME into AA, I answered to about ten different nicknames. I had as many names as I had roles and masks. But I had no identity. I was whoever you wanted me to be, a sailboat out on a lake with no destination, blown …
Steps to Serenity
I drank for fifteen years, and for the last of those years, there was no question about whether or not I would drink. Today, the AA program and the grace of God have restored my choice. There’s no possibility of my staying sober on my own will or strength. I can’t do it alone. I …
Tradition X
BY: A. D. | GRANDE PRAIRIE, ALBERTA From the November 1957 Grapevine In my opinion, the minute we come down the stairs on meeting night we shed the cloak of the worries for the week to gather here for one purpose–to help one another. For a whole week, as individuals, we have had to make …
Fellowship
OCTOBER 1947 Do You Yearn for Fellowship? Fellowship Alcoholics long for fellowship. As humiliations and misbehavior add up, they withdraw from society–from life itself. The cold fog of loneliness closes down. Even then they are pursued by the Four Horsemen: Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration and Despair. Perhaps you–even though you are not an alcoholic and never …
Whose Marriage Is It Anyway?
A rocky relationship in recovery I know what it is like to be a total failure as a father. On a cool November evening, I sat on a bench in a park near my house, trying to decide whether I wanted to live or die. My sixteen-year-old daughter rode up on her bicycle. “Dad, please …
In My Darkest Hour
FEBRUARY 2020 | TOUGH TIMES BY: CHUCK H. | LAGUNA WOODS, CALIF. The December 2006 issue of Grapevine included an article I wrote about my recovery and my marriage. In my story, I told of how I learned to apply the Steps of AA to my marriage and to my everyday life. Upon the suggestion …
The Twelve Steps Revisited / Step 8
BY: J. E. | GUILFORD, CONNECTICUT – June 1962 (abridged) Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. THERE’S a spicy bit of folklore around called “The Hell-Bound Train,” in which the devil taunts a trainload of alcoholic wraiths as follows: “You’ve mocked at God …
7th Step
BY: M. U. | BRIGHTON, COLORADO Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings FOR ME, at first glance Step Seven seemed a cinch, especially in comparison to some of the preceding Steps. As is often the case, on closer examination the seemingly simple proved to be anything but! I thought this Step was only a kind …
Learning to Listen
The change has been a day-by-day change, one step at a time; but it all began with Step One and Step Two.
Step Two: I Didn’t Drink And I Didn’t Run
Because this program did not dictate the name, size, shape, or color of the power that works here, I was forced to find my own.
Two Ounces a Day
The doctor said two ounces of alcohol, and this gin was only eighty proof--just forty percent alcohol--so I was shortchanging myself. I did the math. To get two ounces of real alcohol, I'd have to drink five ounces of gin!
Big Book
Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main objective is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem.
High Fever
At 27 years, he was getting close to a drink. Would he tell someone or keep it to himself? About a month before my 27th AA anniversary, I found myself thinking about a drink. Since I had that much time in the program, I rationalized that I should be able to have a drink at …
Five Card Draw
As a recovering alcoholic I see my recovery in similar terms. I stay sober because I enjoy my life sober much more than I enjoyed getting drunk, but that alone cannot satisfy me. I want to win--to grow in joy, serenity, and personal freedom.
Step 4 story from Grapevine
Take a look at this if you like, we will be reading this for our Thursday Step Study this week, April, 23. Of all the Twelve Steps, it seems the one most commonly rationalized and postponed is the Fourth. I had a bookful of “reasons” for not involving myself with it. After all, it was …
How Step Four Came to Me
“When thus out of joint, man’s natural desires cause him great trouble, practically all the trouble there is. . . . We want to find exactly how, when, and where our natural desires have warped us.” Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions DURING ELEVEN years in AA, I have become more and more aware of the difficulty …