Alcoholics Anonymous

"My schoolmate visited me, and I fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies.  We made a list of people I had hurt or toward whom I felt resentment.  I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals, admitting my wrong.  Never was I to be critical of them.  I was to right all such matters to the utmost of my ability."  __Bill Wilson

"There (in the hospital) I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the foist time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch. I have not had a drink since." __Bill Wilson

"Thus was I convinced that God is concerned with us humans when we want Him enough. At long last I saw, I felt, I believed. Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes. A new world came into view." __ Bill Wilson

"it was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power Greater than myself.  Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. I saw that growth could start from that point.  Upon a foundation of complete willingness I might build what I saw in my friend.  Would I have it?  Of course I would." __Bill Wilson

"I saw that my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized.  He was on a different footing.  His roots grasped new soil."  __Bill Wilson

"Had this power originated in him?  Obviously it had not .   There had been no more power in him than there was in me at that minute; and this was none at all.  That floored me.  It began to look as though religious people were right after all.  Here was something at work in a human heart which had done the impossible. My ideas about miracles were drastically revised right then.  Never mind the musty past; here sat a miracle directly across the kitchen table.  He shouted great tidings."__Bill Wilson

"But my friend sat before me, and he made the point-blank declaration that God had done for him what he could not do for himself. His human will had failed. Doctors had pronounced him incurable. Society was about to lock him up. Like myself, he had admitted complete defeat. Then he had, in effect, been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he had ever known!" __ Bill Wilson.

The wars which had been fought, the burnings and chicanery that religious dispute had facilitated, made me sick.  I honestly doubter whether, on balance, the religions of mankind had done any good.  Judging from what I had seen in Europe and since, the power of God in human affairs was negligible, the Brotherhood of Man a grim jest.  If there was a Devil, he seemed the Boss Universal, and he certainly had me.

 "To Christ I conceded the certainty of a great man, not too closely followed by those who claim Him.  His moral teaching--most excellent.  For myself, I had adopted those parts which seemed convenient and not too difficult; the rest I disregarded." __Bill Wilson

"My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the evolutionists, suggested vast laws and forces at work.  Despite contrary indications, I had little doubt that a might purpose and rhythm underlay all.  How could there be so much of precise and immutable law, and no intelligence?  I simply had to believe in a Spirit of the Universe, who knew nether time nor limitation.  But that was as far as I had gone." __Bill Wilson