"hope" in the Big Book

Nevertheless, I still thought I could control the situation, and there were periods of sobriety which renewed my wife’s hope.

Understanding myself now, I fared forth in high hope.

We hope this volume will inform and comfort those who are, or who may be affected.

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.

We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste.

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.”

been brought into a way of living infinitely more satisfying and, I hope, more useful than the life I lived before.

We hope it strikes home to thousands like him.

We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic.

At first some of us tried to avoid the issue, hoping against hope we were not true alcoholics.

Many times we talk to a new man and watch his hope rise as we discuss his alcoholic problems and explain our fellowship.

Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will be prejudiced for as long as some of us were.

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

We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him.

Make it plain he is under no obligation to you, that you hope only that he will try to help other alcoholics when he escapes his own difficulties.

Some day we hope that Alcoholics Anonymous will help the public to a better realization of the gravity of the alcoholic problem, but we shall be of little use if our attitude is one of bitterness or hostility.

We hope this book has answered some of them.

He may bring new hope and new courage to many a priest, minister, or rabbi, who gives his all to minister to our troubled world.

We hope the doctor will tell the patient the truth about his condition, whatever that happens to be.

As our work spreads and our numbers increase, we hope your employees may be put in personal contact with some of us.

We hope our suggestions will help you plug up this sometimes serious leak.

Our hope is that when this chip of a book is launched on the world tide of alcoholism, defeated drinkers will seize upon it, to follow its suggestions.

Some day we hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find a Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination.

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