Page 83 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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62 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw
safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and
the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up. What­
ever our protestations, are not most of us concerned
with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?
Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the
root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of
fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step
on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Some­
times they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but
we invariably find that at some time in the past we
have made decisions based on self which later placed
us in a position to be hurt.
So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own
making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic
is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he
usually doesn’t think so. Above everything, we alco­
holics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it
kills us! God makes that possible. And there often
seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without
His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical con­
victions galore, but we could not live up to them even
though we would have liked to. Neither could we
reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or try­
ing on our own power. We had to have God’s help.
This is the how and why of it. First of all, we had to
quit playing God. It didn’t work. Next, we decided
that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to
be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His
agents. He is the Father, and we are His children.
Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the
keystone of the new and triumphant arch through
which we passed to freedom.