ABRIDGED APPENDIX 2
In AA’s Big Book, the terms “spiritual experience” and “spiritual awakening” are used many times. In the first few chapters of the book, alcoholics who recovered through sudden revolutionary changes are described.
But careful reading of the whole book shows that a
personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism can take
place in many different forms.
Sudden changes leading to sobriety can occur, but are by no
means the rule.
Most of our experiences are much less dramatic, and our
experience with sobriety usually develops over a period of time.
Often friends of the newcomer are aware of a difference,
long before the newcomer is. The new member of AA starts to realize that a
profound alteration takes place in their day to day reactions to life; that
such a change could hardly have been brought about by the newcomer alone.
Some members find that they have tapped an unsuspected
inner resource which they identify with their own concept of a Power greater
than themselves. But other members of AA recover without any kind
of belief in a higher power or other spiritual concepts.
Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable
of honestly facing their problems in the light of our experience can
recover, provided their mind is not closed to all spiritual concepts. One can only be defeated by an attitude
of intolerance or belligerent denial.
We find that no one need
have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. The essentials of recovery
are willingness, honesty and open mindedness and these have proven to be
significantly helpful.
“There is a principal
which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments,
and which cannot fail to keep a person in everlasting ignorance – that principle
is contempt prior to investigation.”
From AAGNOSTICA, abridged
https://aaagnostica.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Appendix-II.pdf
For full protocol see here:
https://lasideposts.blogspot.com/2023/04/april-2023-newest-meeting-format-plus.html
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