Big Book Study

  Men and women drink because they essentially 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. View Publication

  It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make a beginning. View Publication

  The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we  have discovered a common solution. We have a way  out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which  we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This  is the great news this book carries to those who suffer  from alcoholism. View Publication

Once more, the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power. View Publication

  Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this  Power? View Publication

We want to find exactly how, when, and where our natural desires have warped us. We wish to look squarely at the  unhappiness this has caused others and ourselves. By discovering what our emotional deformities are, we can move  toward their correction. View Publication

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone—  even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. View Publication

In the earliest days of AA, the term "sponsor" was not in the AA jargon. Sponsorship turned out to be such a good way to help people get established in AA that it has become a custom followed throughout the AA world. View Publication

Almost any experienced A.A. will tell how his affairs have taken  remarkable and unexpected turns for the better as he tried  to improve his conscious contact with God. View Publication

  It is when we try to make our will conform with God’s  that we begin to use it rightly. To all of us, this was a most  wonderful revelation. Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower. View Publication

"Among many employers nowadays, we think one member who has spent much of his time in big business. He has hired and fired hundreds of men. He knows the alcoholic as the employer sees him. His presentviews ought to prove exceptionally useful to business men everywhere". Alcoholics Anonymous, p136 The manager referred to in Chapter 10 ("To Employers") is  Henry G. "Hank" Parkhurst  (1895–1954), known in Alcoholics Anonymous history as New York's "AA #2" (the second person to get sober in New York after Bill Wilson). Hank was an executive and assistant wholesale manager at  Standard Oil of New Jersey , where he managed a department of 6,600 salesmen. While Bill Wilson authored the vast majority of the Big Book,  Chapter 10 was drafted by Hank Parkhurst . Bill wrote the brief introductory lines introducing his friend's perspective, but the main text of the chapter—including the account of the three lost employees—comes directly from Hank...

  We discover that we do receive guidance for our lives to  just about the extent that we stop making demands upon  God to give it to us on order and on our terms. View Publication V