Page 71 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

50 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

Instead, we looked at the human defects of these
people, and sometimes used their shortcomings as a
basis of wholesale condemnation. We talked of in-
tolerance, while we were intolerant ourselves. We
missed the reality and the beauty of the forest because
we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees.
We never gave the spiritual side of life a fair hearing.
In our personal stories you will find a wide variation
in the way each teller approaches and conceives of
the Power which is greater than himself. Whether we
agree with a particular approach or conception seems
to make little difference. Experience has taught us
that these are matters about which, for our purpose,
we need not be worried. They are questions for each
individual to settle for himself.
On one proposition, however, these men and
women are strikingly agreed. Every one of them has
gained access to, and believes in, a Power greater
than himself. This Power has in each case accom-
plished the miraculous, the humanly impossible. As
a celebrated American statesman put it, “Let’s look
at the record.’’
Here are thousands of men and women, worldly in-
deed. They flatly declare that since they have come
to believe in a Power greater than themselves, to take
a certain attitude toward that Power, and to do certain
simple things, there has been a revolutionary change
in their way of living and thinking. In the face of
collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure
of their human resources, they found that a new
power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed
into them. This happened soon after they whole-
heartedly met a few simple requirements. Once con-