AA Book Club

Spiritual thoughts for the week: October 30  Tail Wags Dog The secret of life is to control your mental states. To accept sickness, trouble and failure as unavoidable, and perhaps inevitable, is folly, because it is this very acceptance by you that keeps these evils in existence. Man is not limited by his environment. He creates his environment by his beliefs and feelings. To suppose otherwise is like thinking that the tail can wag the dog. If you have been thinking that outer conditions are stronger than you are, say to yourself: "Tail wags dog" and immediately reverse the belief. Around the Year with Emmet Fox  (Excerpt) November 1  Foresight And Hindsight When you have to make a decision or take a certain action, all that you can do is to do the best you know AT THAT TIME, and if you do that you will have done your duty. In the light of after events it may turn out that you made a mistake, but that will not be your fault because you could not possibly do better than yo...

  Saturday speaker link - Tommi D, long term sobriety, speaking in 2008:    

Throwback Thursday AA history link - Dewey S, one of the first 100 AA members, speaks (1964):     

  Tuesday AA literature post - Bill W.'s original 1948 Grapevine article on Tradition Ten:   Tradition Ten   To most of us, Alcoholics Anonymous has become as solid as the   Rock of Gibraltar. We like to believer that it will soon be as    well known and just as enduring as that historic landmark. We   enjoy this pleasant conviction because nothing has yet   occurred to disturb it; we reason that we must hang together   or die. Hence we take for granted our continued unity as a   movement.   But should we? Though God has bestowed upon us great favors,   and though we are bound by stronger ties of love and necessity   than most societies, is it prudent to suppose that   automatically these great gifts and attributes shall be ours   forever? If we are worthy, we shall probably continue to enjoy   them. So the real question is, how shall we always be worthy   of our present blessings?   Seen from thi...

 Bill W's original 1948 Grapevine article on Tradition Six:                       Tradition Six                       The sixth of our Twelve Points of AA Tradition is deemed so                   important that it states at length the relation of the AA                   movement to money and property.                   This Tradition declares in substance that the accumulation of                   money, property, and the unwanted personal authority so often          ...

Spiritual thoughts for the week:  October 23  The Sunshine Of God's Love Behind every problem or difficulty lies the Truth of Being. This means that in spite of the appearance, you must believe that divine Mind is already healing the situation...  Often we are so close to a problem that, spiritually speaking, we accept the cloudy day as a permanent state of climate, forgetting that the sunshine of divine Love and Power has never ceased to shine, although obscured for the moment. Around the Year with Emmet Fox  (Excerpt) October 25 We should work at overcoming ourselves, our selfish desires and our self-centeredness. This can never be fully accomplished. We can never become entirely unselfish. But we can come to realize that we are not at the center of the universe and that everything does not revolve around us at the center. I am only one cell in a vast network of human cells. I can at least make the effort to conquer the self-life and seek daily to obtain more and m...

 Saturday speaker link - Chuck C on Surrender (1982):    

  Throwback Thursday AA history link - AA historian Glenn Chestnut on the Oxford Group and AA:    

  From Writing The Big Book by William Schaberg - on Step Eleven:   Prayer and Meditation    Here, Bill faced a serious challenge. It would be easy enough to make suggestions about prayer using generic language that would please most everyone within the Fellowship. But the Oxford Group had a very specific way of doing meditation which they called "quiet time," the purpose of which was to receive "guidance" directly from God. This method was still being faithfully practiced by Dr. Bob Smith and by most of the Ohio members of the Fellowship. If Wilson were to talk about meditation by explicitly explaining the particulars of "quiet time" (and the desired result), the knowledgeable reader might well have identified this as an Oxford Group teaching, and this was an association Bill Wilson was determined to avoid. But if he were to leave out any direct references to quiet time, he was just as likely to offend many of the Akron and Cleveland people who were so de...

  Spiritual thoughts for the week: October 16 If your heart is right, your world will be right. The beginning of all reform must be in yourself. It's not what happens to you, it's how you take it. However restricted your circumstances, however little you may be able to remedy financial affairs, you can always turn to your inward self and, seeing something not in order there, seek to right it. And as all reform is from within outward, you will always find that the outward is improved as the inward is improved. As you improve yourself, your outward circumstances will change for the better. The power released from within yourself will change your outward life. 24 Hours a Day October 18 Not until you have failed can you learn true humility. Humility arises from a deep sense of gratitude to God for giving you the strength to rise above past failures. Humility is not inconsistent with self-respect. The true person has self-respect and the respect of others and yet is humble. The hum...

 Saturday speaker link - Russell S on Step 10 "House on Sand, House on Rock":   Russell S. on Step 10 "House on Sand, House on Rock"  

  Throwback Thursday AA history link - Nurse Teddy R, worked with Dr. Silkworth and at the Knickerbocker Clinic: Nurse Teddy R., worked with Dr. Silkworth and at the Knickerbocker Clinic  

  From our online AA literature study guide at AABookClub.org, an analysis of Chapter 10 from the Big Book:   AABookClub.org Big Book Chapter 10 Analysis  

  Spiritual thoughts for the week: October 13  Tackling That Bugbear When what seems an especially difficult problem presents itself, many students of Truth start by thinking. "This is very serious," and then proceed to brace themselves mentally for a supreme effort; and plan to pray exceedingly "hard" in order to meet the difficulty. All this is quite wrong. It simply builds up the difficulty into something bigger than it ever was originally. The right attitude, the one that brings Victory, is to think "God can and will solve this problem." Around the Year with Emmet Fox (Excerpt) October 12 Try to be thankful for whatever vision you have. Try to perform, in the little things, faithful service to God and others... Every day brings a new opportunity to be of some use. Even when you are tempted to rest or let things go or to evade the issue, make it a habit to meet the issue squarely as a challenge and not to hold back. 24 Hours a Day October 15 There is on...

 Saturday speaker link - Father Martin, Alcoholism and the Family (video):

  Throwback Thursday AA history link - the legendary Sandy B's final talk:    

  Debbie D on A.A.'s oft-forgotten Third Legacy - The Twelve Concepts for World Service:

  Spiritual thoughts for the week:  October 2 "Thy will be done" must be your oft-repeated prayer. And in the willing of God's will there should be gladness. You should delight to do that will because when you do, all your life goes right and everything tends to work well for you in the long run. When you are honestly trying to do God's will and humbly accepting the results, nothing can seriously hurt you. Those who accept the will of God in their lives may not inherit the earth, but they will inherit real peace of mind. 24 Hours a Day   October 5 All your movements, your going and comings can be guided by the Unseen Spirit. Every visit to help another, every unselfish effort to assist, can be blessed by that Unseen spirit. There can be a blessing on all you do, on every interview with one who is suffering. Every meeting of a need may not be a chance meeting, but it may have been planned by the Unseen Spirit.  [excerpt] 24 Hours a Day   October 6 No Buts When th...

  Saturday speaker link - Adam T - Hilarious AA talk: