Faith in the Big Book

passed, and confidence began to be replaced by cocksureness.

I had always believed in a Power greater than myself.

Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere.

I simply had to believe in a Spirit of the Universe, who knew neither time nor limitation.

It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself.

At long last I saw, I felt, I believed.

Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility

There was utter confidence.

Faith without works was dead, he said.

Then faith would be dead indeed.

Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish.

An illness of this sort—and we have come to believe it an illness—involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can.

But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it.

If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution.

Above all, he believed he had acquired such a profound knowledge of the inner workings of his mind and its hidden springs that relapse was unthinkable.

We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired.

Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women, desperately in need, will see these pages, and we believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that they will be persuaded to say, “Yes, I am one of them too; I must have this thing.”

Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class.

Though there is no way of proving it, we believe that early in our drinking careers most of us could have stopped drinking.

Then he fell victim to a belief which practically every alcoholic has —that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink as other men.

Most of us have believed that if we remained sober for a long stretch, we could thereafter drink normally.

Fred would not believe himself an alcoholic, much less accept a spiritual remedy for his problem.

Let him tell you about it: “I was much impressed with what you fellows said about alcoholism, and I frankly did not believe it would be possible for me to drink again.

I rather appreciated your ideas about the subtle insanity which precedes the first drink, but I was confident it could not happen to me after what I had learned.

That means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral.

with the thought that faith and dependence upon a Power beyond ourselves was somewhat weak, even cowardly.

We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.

It is open, we believe, to all men.

“Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?’’ As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way.

It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built.* That was great news to us, for we had assumed we could not make use of spiritual principles unless we accepted many things on faith which seemed difficult to believe.

I’m sure it would work if I could only believe as he believes.

But I cannot accept as surely true the many articles of faith which are so plain to him.’’ So it was comforting to learn that we could commence at a simpler level.

Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, * Please be sure to read Appendix II on “Spiritual Experience.”

The reader may still ask why he should believe in a Power greater than himself.

Everybody believes them without a murmur of doubt.

Everybody nowadays, believes in scores of assumptions for which there is good evidence, but no perfect visual proof.

We read wordy books and indulge in windy arguments, thinking we believe this universe needs no God to explain it.

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.

People of faith have a logical idea of what life is all about.

Every one of them has gained access to, and believes in, a Power greater than himself.

They flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a Power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that Power, and to do certain simple things, there has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking.

When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith.

The Wright brothers’ almost childish faith that they could build a machine which would fly was the mainspring of their accomplishment.

Hence we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable, why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to believe, why we say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands in doubt and said, “We don’t know.’’ When we became alcoholics, crushed by a selfimposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing.

Arrived at this point, we were squarely confronted with the question of faith.

Some of us had already walked far over the Bridge of Reason toward the desired shore of faith.

Without knowing it, had we not been brought to where we stood by a certain kind of faith?

we not believe in our own reasoning?

Did we not have confidence in our ability to think?

What was that but a sort of faith?

Yes, we had been faithful, abjectly faithful to the God of Reason.

So, in one way or another, we discovered that faith had been involved all the time!

It was impossible to say we had no capacity for faith, or love, or worship.

In one form or another we had been living by faith and little else.

Imagine life without faith!

But we believed in life—of course we did.

For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.

We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend.

The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you.

Circumstances made him willing to believe.

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3.

For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God.

We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves.

The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage.

All men of faith have courage.

They trust their God.

If we are sorry for what we have done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson.

In this book you read again and again that faith did

Now we need more action, without which we find that “Faith without works is dead.’’ Let’s look at Steps Eight and Nine.

His action met widespread approval, and today he is one of the most trusted citizens of his town.

Yet, we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions.

“Faith without works is dead.’’ The next chapter is entirely devoted to Step Twelve.

The main thing is that he be willing to believe in a Power greater than himself and that he live by spiritual principles.

He may be an example of the truth that faith alone is insufficient.

To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action.

Admit that he probably knows more about it than you do, but call to his attention the fact that however deep his faith and knowledge, he could not have applied it or he would not drink.

particular faith or denomination.

The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house.

In our belief any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure.

We have believed them when no one else could or would.

At first, some of us did not believe we needed this help.

The faith and sincerity of both you and your husband will be put to the test.

God, they believe, almost owes this recompense on a long overdue account.

We have come to believe He would like us to keep our heads in the clouds with Him, but that our feet ought to be firmly planted on earth.

We cannot subscribe to the belief that this life is a vale of tears, though it once was just that for many of us.

Seeing is believing to most families who have lived with a drinker.

He simply could not believe that his

Say that you believe he is a gravely ill person, with this qualification—being perhaps fatally ill, does he want to get well?

We believe a man should be thoroughly probed on these points.

If you propose such a procedure to him, it may be necessary to advance the cost of treatment, but we believe it should be made plain that any expense will later be deducted from his pay.

Your man may be trusted.

But alcoholism —well, they just don’t believe they have it.

We believe that managers of large enterprises often have little idea how prevalent this problem is.

We are greatly indebted to the doctor in attendance there, for he, although it might prejudice his own work, has told us of his belief in ours.

We believe and hope it contains all you will need to begin.