Page 182 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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A VISION FOR YOU 161
wife would leave elated by the thought of what they
could now do for some stricken acquaintance and his
family. They knew they had a host of new friends; it
seemed they had known these strangers always. They
had seen miracles, and one was to come to them. They
had visioned the Great Reality—their loving and All
Powerful Creator.
Now, this house will hardly accommodate its weekly
visitors, for they number sixty or eighty as a rule. Al­
coholics are being attracted from far and near. From
surrounding towns, families drive long distances to be
present. A community thirty miles away has fifteen
fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous. Being a large place,
we think that some day its Fellowship will number
many hundreds.*
But life among Alcoholics Anonymous is more than
attending gatherings and visiting hospitals. Cleaning
up old scrapes, helping to settle family differences,
explaining the disinherited son to his irate parents,
lending money and securing jobs for each other, when
justified—these are everyday occurrences. No one is
too discredited or has sunk too low to be welcomed
cordially—if he means business. Social distinctions,
petty rivalries and jealousies—these are laughed out of
countenance. Being wrecked in the same vessel, being
restored and united under one God, with hearts and
minds attuned to the welfare of others, the things
which matter so much to some people no longer
signify much to them. How could they?
Under only slightly different conditions, the same
thing is taking place in many eastern cities. In one of

* Written in 1939.