"believe" in the Big Book

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

we not believe in our own reasoning?

Circumstances made him willing to believe.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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