Page 181 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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160 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
tended by anyone or everyone interested in a spiritual
way of life. Aside from fellowship and sociability,
the prime object was to provide a time and place
where new people might bring their problems.
Outsiders became interested. One man and his wife
placed their large home at the disposal of this
strangely assorted crowd. This couple has since be­
come so fascinated that they have dedicated their
home to the work. Many a distracted wife has visited
this house to find loving and understanding compan­
ionship among women who knew her problem, to
hear from the lips of their husbands what had hap­
pened to them, to be advised how her own wayward
mate might be hospitalized and approached when
next he stumbled.
Many a man, yet dazed from his hospital experi­
ence, has stepped over the threshold of that home into
freedom. Many an alcoholic who entered there came
away with an answer. He succumbed to that gay
crowd inside, who laughed at their own misfortunes
and understood his. Impressed by those who visited
him at the hospital, he capitulated entirely when, later,
in an upper room of this house, he heard the story of
some man whose experience closely tallied with his
own. The expression on the faces of the women, that
indefinable something in the eyes of the men, the
stimulating and electric atmosphere of the place,
conspired to let him know that here was haven at last.
The very practical approach to his problems, the
absence of intolerance of any kind, the informality,
the genuine democracy, the uncanny understanding
which these people had were irresistible. He and his