Page 221 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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206 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
of the offending book and felt more and more hope­
less about myself.
Then the miracle happened—to me! It isn’t always
so sudden with everyone, but I ran into a personal cri­
sis that filled me with a raging and righteous anger.
And as I fumed helplessly and planned to get good
and drunk and show them, my eye caught a sentence
in the book lying open on my bed: “We cannot live
with anger.” The walls crumpled—and the light
streamed in. I wasn’t trapped. I wasn’t helpless. I
was free, and I didn’t have to drink to “show them.”
This wasn’t “religion”—this was freedom! Freedom
from anger and fear, freedom to know happiness, and
freedom to know love.
I went to a meeting to see for myself this group of
freaks or bums who had done this thing. To go into
a gathering of people was the sort of thing that all my
life, from the time I left my private world of books
and dreams to meet the real world of people and
parties and jobs, had left me feeling an uncomfortable
outsider, needing the warming stimulus of drinks to
join in. I went trembling into a house in Brooklyn
filled with strangers... and I found I had come home
at last, to my own kind. There is another meaning for
the Hebrew word that in the King James version of
the Bible is translated “salvation.” It is: “to come
home.” I had found my salvation. I wasn’t alone any
more.
That was the beginning of a new life, a fuller life,
a happier life than I had ever known or believed pos­
sible. I had found friends—understanding friends who
often knew what I was thinking and feeling better
than I knew myself—and who didn’t allow me to re­