“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 the word peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience will 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 on life will change. Fear of people and 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 fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will materialize if we work for them.”
AA, Pp 83-84
“Some day he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping off place. He will wish for the end.
‘…I must get along without liquor, but how can I? Have you a sufficient substitute?’
Yes, there is a substitute and it is vastly more than that. It is a fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous. There you will find release from care, boredom, and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus we find the fellowship and so will you.
Among them you will make lifelong friends. You will be bound to them with new wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey.”
AA, Pp 152-153
I have found these to be true in all areas of my life. If it weren’t for this book and the 12 steps I would not be able to see myself and my life as clearly as I do today. Through this process I actually have a relationship with God. I have always had faith and believed in Him, but today I hangout with Him and know that when I see something in myself no one else sees, it is God directing me.
Today I have so many people that I can call, lean on, count on, whom I love so deeply, they have become a part of me. Life still gets tough, but God has laid the path before me to succeed, if I am willing to do the work. Work I must, so work I do!!
Brenda the Brave 