Page 73 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

52 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

birds? Only thirty years later the conquest of the air
was almost an old story and airplane travel was in
full swing.
But in most fields our generation has witnessed com-
plete liberation of our thinking. Show any longshore-
man a Sunday supplement describing a proposal to
explore the moon by means of a rocket and he will
say, “I bet they do it—maybe not so long either.’’ Is
not our age characterized by the ease with which we
discard old ideas for new, by the complete readiness
with which we throw away the theory or gadget which
does not work for something new which does?
We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn’t apply to
our human problems this same readiness to change
our point of view. We were having trouble with
personal relationships, we couldn’t control our emo-
tional natures, we were a prey to misery and depres-
sion, we couldn’t make a living, we had a feeling of
uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy,
we couldn’t seem to be of real help to other people—
was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more
important than whether we should see newsreels of
lunar flight? Of course it was.
When we saw others solve their problems by a
simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we
had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas
did not work. But the God idea did.
The Wright brothers’ almost childish faith that they
could build a machine which would fly was the main-
spring of their accomplishment. Without that, nothing
could have happened. We agnostics and atheists were
sticking to the idea that self-sufficiency would solve
our problems. When others showed us that “God-suf-