My Favorite Big Book Quotes

[Chy]

I thought I would share some of my favorite Big Book passages and quotes. Please feel free to add your favorites to.

Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book, 4<SUP>th</SUP> edition, pg. 316, “My Chance to Live”

… If asked what the two most important things in recovery are, I would have to say willingness and action. I was willing to believe that A.A. was telling me the truth. I wanted to believe it was true in a way I cannot relate in words. I wanted this thing to work. Then I began to take the course of action prescribed.

Following the principles laid out in the BB has not always been comfortable, not will I claim perfection. I have yet to find a place in the BB that says, “Now you have completed the Steps; have a nice life.” The program is a plan for a lifetime of daily living. There have been occasions when the temptation to slack off has won. I view each of these as learning opportunities.

Whe I am willing to do the right thing, I am rewarded with an inner peace no amount of liquor could ever provide. When I am unwilling to do the right thing, I become restless, irritable, and discontent. It is always my choice. Through the Twelve Steps, I have been granted the gift of choice. I am no longer at the mercy of a disease that tells me the only answer is to drink. If willingness is the key to unlock the gates of hell, it is action that opens those doors so that we may walk freely among the living.

Over the course of my sobriety I have experience many opportunities to grow. I have had struggles and achievements. Through it all I have not had to take a drink, nor have I ever been alone. Willingness and action have seen me through it all, with the guidance of a loving Higher Power and the fellowship of the program. I have faith that things will turn out as they should. When I’m afraid, I reach for the hand of another alcoholic to steady me.

Life has not heaped monetary riches upon my head, nor have I achieved fame in the eyes of the world. My blessings cannot be measured in those terms. No amount of money or fame could equal what has been given me. Today I can walk down any street, anywhere, without the fear of meeting someone I’ve harmed. Today my thoughts are not consumed with craving for the next drink or regret for the damage I did on the last drunk.

Today I reside among the living, no better, no worse than any of God’s other children. Today I look in the mirror when putting on my makeup and smile, rather than shy away from looking myself in the eye. Today I fit in my skin. I am at peace with myself and the world around me. ……..

[JaySee]

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. "How can I best serve Thee - Thy will (not mine) be done." These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.

This keeps me grounded and in recovery - tells me that sobriety is daily action and regardless of how long I have been sober, I need to work on staying sober today.

[justme59]

"Acceptance is the key to ALL my problems "

For me this has been a definite truth, and the turning point in my early sobriety


HUGX
Leigh

[CarolD]

The last paragraph on page 43...
"God as our defence"

Thanks Chy...

[Little Missy]

So many great things in the Big Book. The Third Step "prayer" is something I say everyday.

Alcoholics Anonymous-4th edition, page 63.
"God, I offer myself to Thee - to build with me and do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!"

This helps keep me grounded... out of myself, and MY wants.

[Kymberly]

"The 12 Promises"
(AA Big Book, page 83)

1. ~ If we are painstaking about this phase of our development we will be amazed before we are halfway through.

2. ~ We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

3. ~ We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

4. ~ We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.

5. ~ No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

6. ~ That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

7. ~ We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

8. ~ Self-seeking will slip away.

9. ~ Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

10. ~ Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.

11. ~ We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

12. ~ We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not.
They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
They will always materialize if we work for them.

[Chy]

..ahhh yes... the Promises! Thanks Kym.

[BrandiK]

The promises ... I still tear up when I hear/read them. My fav. thing to do in a meeting is listen to the shares, it's proof that the promises come true.

Chy - your avatar messed with my mind lol Glad it was in the screen and not on it!!

[TamTam]

Originally Posted by justme59

"Acceptance is the key to ALL my problems "

For me this has been a definite truth, and the turning point in my early sobriety


HUGX
Leigh

Oh yeah...

[leaf]

"Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely on it." p.87

My personal fave....

[c'est la vie]

Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks - drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of recovery.

On the other hand - and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand - once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only effort necessaray being that required to follow a few simple rules.

---The Doctors Opinion, p. xxviii-xxix

[TamTam]

Pg. 553 4th Edition- Excerpts from "AA Taught Him to Handle Sobriety"

"God willing, we... may never again have to deal with drinking, but we have to deal with sobriety every day."

When I had been in AA only a short while, an oldtimer told me something that has affected my life ever since. "AA does not teach us how to handle our drinking," he said. "It teaches us how to handle sobriety."

TT commentary... HOLY SHIT! How true is that statement?!?

Farther down...
It's no great trick to stop drinking; the trick is to stay stopped. To do that, I had to come to AA to learn how to handle sobriety- which is what I could not handle in the first place. That's why I drank.

Thanks for letting me share. Have a good Hump Day everyone!

[BrandiK]

"If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that some day we will be immune to alcohol."

BB p. 33

[igfan]

The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistant. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

"There is a solution" BB pg. 24

[nogard]

4th edition - pp 448 - 451 starting with the last paragraph on pp 448:

"I wound up in an insane asylum, which probably saved my life..."

[Sugerspun]

I always thought that I really believed in God, until a little investigation....


"Instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents, spearheads of God's ever advancing Creation, we agnostics and atheists chose to believe that our human intelligence was the last word, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and end of all. Rather vain of us, wasn't it?"

Alcoholics Anonymous - pg 49

and (today I really like two)

"When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else he is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?"

Alcoholics Anonymous- pg 53

[c'est la vie]

"Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever. If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol."
--More About Alcoholism, p 33--


"There (in AA) you will find release from care, boredom and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead."
--A Vision for You, p 153--

[c'est la vie]

I guess I'm just pointing out some passages that seem to have current value for me. Maybe they won't become my "favorite BB quotes of all time", but they're saving my ass right now.


“By going back in our own drinking histories, we could show that years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression.”


This was crucial to my being able to work Step 1.

[BrandiK]

It is crucial, thank you for sharing. Sitting down and writing out my own story was an astounding experiance, and showed me just how far into my past that moment of fatal progression of fatal progression began

[laurie6781]

NOTE:

This is such a GREAT thread, I want to keep it at the top and have made it a "Sticky"

Thanks for starting this thread Chy, it is something we can all go back to time and time again, when that Recovery Road starts getting those twists and turns and potholes.

Love and hugs,