"experience" in the Big Book

He had come to pass his experience along to me—if

The real significance of my experience in the Cathedral burst upon me.

We shall bring to the task our combined experience and knowledge.

The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this.

Though experience had made him skeptical, he finished his treatment with unusual confidence.

This hope, however, was destroyed by the doctor’s telling him that while his religious convictions were very good, in his case they did not spell the necessary vital spiritual experience. *For amplification—see Appendix II.

Here was the terrible dilemma in which our friend found himself when he had the extraordinary experience, which as we have already told you, made him a free man.

The distinguished American psychologist, William James, in his book “Varieties of Religious Experience,’’ indicates a multitude of ways in which men have discovered God.

enough, we find such convictions no great obstacle to a spiritual experience.

Young people may be encouraged by this man’s experience to think that they can stop, as he did, on their own will power.

This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience.

It was his first experience of this kind, and he was much ashamed of it.

He was positive that this humiliating experience, plus the knowledge he had acquired, would keep him sober the rest of his life.

They cited cases out of their own experience by the dozen.

If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.

To one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic such an experience seems impossible, but to continue as he is means disaster, especially if he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety.

Our experience shows that you need not be disconcerted.

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

Experience has taught us that these are matters about which, for our purpose, we need not be worried.

In this book you will read the experience of a man who thought he was an atheist.

One night, when confined in a hospital, he was approached by an alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience.

But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is in­ finitely grave.

These are facts out of our experience.

Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have turned to easier methods.

We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience.

Reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any lengths to find a spiritual experience, we ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be.

No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

That is our experience.

P ractical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.

To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends—this is an experience you must not miss.

Ministers and doctors are competent and you can learn much from them if you wish, but it happens that because of your own drinking experience you can be uniquely useful to other alcoholics.

Show him, from your own experience, how the queer mental condition surrounding that first drink prevents normal functioning of the will power.

Keep his attention focussed mainly on your personal experience.

Having had the experience yourself, you can give him much practical advice.

Our experience shows that this is not necessarily so.

To a person who has had experience with an alcoholic, this may seem like tempting Providence, but it isn’t.

Experience shows that such an attitude is not helpful to anyone.

This experience may come to you.

be the first to say it was your devotion and care which brought him to the point where he could have a spiritual experience.

But what we have related is based upon experience, some of it painful.

Henry Ford once made a wise remark to the effect that experience is the thing of supreme value in life.

In the first flush of spiritual experience they forgave each other and drew closer together.

With these we have had experience galore.

Assume on the other hand that father has, at the outset, a stirring spiritual experience.

We have found nothing incompatible between a powerful spiritual experience and a life of sane and happy usefulness.

Being possessed of a spiritual experience, the alcoholic will find he has much in common with these people, though he may

Outsiders are sometimes shocked when we burst into merriment over a seemingly tragic experience out of the past.

Some of us had this experience, only to enjoy, in a few months, a finer intimacy than ever.

Still another experience: A woman’s voice came faintly over long distance from Virginia.

Long experience with alcoholic excuses naturally arouses suspicion.

Should you wish them above all else, and be willing to make use of our experience, we are sure they will come.

Painfully aware of being somehow abnormal, the man did not fully realize what it meant to be alcoholic.* When our friend related his experience, the man agreed that no amount of will power he might muster could stop his drinking for long.

A spiritual experience, he conceded, was absolutely necessary, but the price seemed high upon the basis suggested.

The two friends spoke of their spiritual experience and told him about the course of action they carried out.

He had begun to have a spiritual experience.

Many a man, yet dazed from his hospital experience, has stepped over the threshold of that home into freedom.

Impressed by those who visited him at the hospital, he capitulated entirely when, later, in an upper room of this house, he heard the story of some man whose experience closely tallied with his own.

Some of them may sink and perhaps never get up, but if our experience is a criterion, more than half of those approached will become fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous.