Page 266 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Alco_1893007162_6p_01_r5.qxd 4/4/03 11:17 AM Page 251

THE MAN WHO MASTERED FEAR 251
habitual solution to this problem, because I no longer
had a home. Finally, and I shall never know how
much later it was, one clear thought came to me: Try
prayer. You can’t lose, and maybe God will help you
—just maybe, mind you. Having no one else to turn
to, I was willing to give Him a chance, although with
considerable doubt. I got down on my knees for the
first time in thirty years. The prayer I said was simple.
It went something like this: “God, for eighteen years
I have been unable to handle this problem. Please let
me turn it over to you.”
Immediately a great feeling of peace descended
upon me, intermingled with a feeling of being suffused
with a quiet strength. I lay down on the bed and slept
like a child. An hour later I awoke to a new world.
Nothing had changed and yet everything had changed.
The scales had dropped from my eyes, and I could see
life in its proper perspective. I had tried to be the
center of my own little world, whereas God was the
center of a vast universe of which I was perhaps an
essential, but a very tiny, part.
It is well over sixteen years since I came back to life.
I have never had a drink since. This alone is a miracle.
It is, however, only the first of a series of miracles that
have followed one another as a result of my trying to
apply to my daily life the principles embodied in our
Twelve Steps. I would like to sketch for you the high­
lights of these sixteen years of a slow but steady and
satisfying upward climb.
Poor health and a complete lack of money necessi­
tated my remaining with Dr. Bob and Anne for very
close to a year. It would be impossible for me to pass
over this year without mentioning my love for, and my