A Time to Put Up. . .
AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online January 1960 Vol. 16 No. 8
IT is no wonder that so many of us have said that in coming to AA we have found exactly what we have been looking for all of our lives. I think I might alter this to say that I have found just exactly what I had heatedly professed was needed by the rest of mankind and, in some weird sort of way, what I believed that I, myself, already possessed.
Almost everyone, at least in the western hemisphere, comes into contact with some of the principles of AA during the early years of his life. At around seventeen years of age I remember quite clearly thinking about ethical principles and coming to the conclusion that, although they were undoubtedly fine and true, they were simply unworkable in this hard competitive world. Furthermore, I remember making a decision that I would always believe in these principles, but that it would be foolishness to try to follow them. It took just a shade more than twenty years of lumps to force me to toss that decision out the window.
I can at this point thank God I am an alcoholic. I know people, non-alcoholics, who are just as misguided and blind as I have been, only they haven't the least chance of realizing it or doing something about it. Their troubles don't smell like old booze and therefore they can go more or less undetected. They have no AA or the equivalent to help them.
It was Lincoln Steffens who said that this is a country of petty privilege. Everyone complains about the corruptness of government but if Joe Doakes hasn't a friend in the City Hall who can fix a parking ticket he will darn well vote the administration out next election.
Joe Doakes believes, as I did, that he is a basically honest and upright citizen. By God, if he parked in a no parking zone, he was a busy man, he had things on his mind, and besides, look at all the other cars; what the hell, after all, it's no crime. If he's caught, well, if he has to he darn well will pay the fine.
After some years of this kind of thinking, coupled with the drinking and the fact that as time went on I almost always was caught and had to pay the fine, what with losing jobs, family, driver's license, clothes, self respect, money, freedom (and on and on, ad infinitum) I finally was up against a kind of put-up-or-shut-up proposition. The put-up this time was my life and my will. Well, I didn't want to lose my life and my will, but so far in this gamble with booze I had never picked up the bets. I think this was where I stood when I came to AA this time. My choices had about run out and I was. . ."Willing to go to any lengths." This meant turning my will and my life (which I had almost lost) over to the care of God, as I understood Him. What safer hands could I have chosen?
I remember a quotation from Albert Einstein: "God does not play at dice." I think he might have known better than most people.
A. L. P.
San Francisco, California
IT is no wonder that so many of us have said that in coming to AA we have found exactly what we have been looking for all of our lives. I think I might alter this to say that I have found just exactly what I had heatedly professed was needed by the rest of mankind and, in some weird sort of way, what I believed that I, myself, already possessed.
Almost everyone, at least in the western hemisphere, comes into contact with some of the principles of AA during the early years of his life. At around seventeen years of age I remember quite clearly thinking about ethical principles and coming to the conclusion that, although they were undoubtedly fine and true, they were simply unworkable in this hard competitive world. Furthermore, I remember making a decision that I would always believe in these principles, but that it would be foolishness to try to follow them. It took just a shade more than twenty years of lumps to force me to toss that decision out the window.
I can at this point thank God I am an alcoholic. I know people, non-alcoholics, who are just as misguided and blind as I have been, only they haven't the least chance of realizing it or doing something about it. Their troubles don't smell like old booze and therefore they can go more or less undetected. They have no AA or the equivalent to help them.
It was Lincoln Steffens who said that this is a country of petty privilege. Everyone complains about the corruptness of government but if Joe Doakes hasn't a friend in the City Hall who can fix a parking ticket he will darn well vote the administration out next election.
Joe Doakes believes, as I did, that he is a basically honest and upright citizen. By God, if he parked in a no parking zone, he was a busy man, he had things on his mind, and besides, look at all the other cars; what the hell, after all, it's no crime. If he's caught, well, if he has to he darn well will pay the fine.
After some years of this kind of thinking, coupled with the drinking and the fact that as time went on I almost always was caught and had to pay the fine, what with losing jobs, family, driver's license, clothes, self respect, money, freedom (and on and on, ad infinitum) I finally was up against a kind of put-up-or-shut-up proposition. The put-up this time was my life and my will. Well, I didn't want to lose my life and my will, but so far in this gamble with booze I had never picked up the bets. I think this was where I stood when I came to AA this time. My choices had about run out and I was. . ."Willing to go to any lengths." This meant turning my will and my life (which I had almost lost) over to the care of God, as I understood Him. What safer hands could I have chosen?
I remember a quotation from Albert Einstein: "God does not play at dice." I think he might have known better than most people.
A. L. P.
San Francisco, California
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