"personal" in the Big Book

When they talked of a God personal to me, who was love, superhuman strength and direction, I became irritated and my mind snapped shut against such a theory.

When the thought was expressed that there might be a God personal to me this feeling was intensified.

This should be an entirely personal affair which each one decides for himself in the light of past associations, or his present choice.

These are followed by forty-two personal experiences.

Each individual, in the personal stories, describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God.

I reasoned I was not so far advanced as most of you fellows, that I had been usually successful in licking my other personal problems, and that I would therefore be successful where you men failed.

In our personal stories you will find a wide variation in the way each teller approaches and conceives of the Power which is greater than himself.

We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn’t control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn’t make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn’t seem to be of real help to other people— was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight?

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11.

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas: (a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.

Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning,

Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory.

In most cases it was found that our self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships

Was it our self-esteem, our security, our ambitions, our personal, or sex relations, which had been interfered with?

Self-esteem (fear) She’s a nut—she Personal relationsnubbed me.

Misunderstands and Pride—Personal nags.

If we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we have written down a lot.

H aving made our personal inventory, what shall we do about it?

We have admitted certain defects; we have ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is; we have put our finger on the weak items in our personal inventory.

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.

This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.

Keep his attention focussed mainly on your personal experience.

Therefore, ask yourself on each occasion, “Have I any good social, business, or personal reason for going to this place?

Because of the employee’s special ability, or of his own strong personal attachment to him, the employer has sometimes kept such a man at work long beyond a reasonable period.

While on the subject of confidence, can you adopt the attitude that so far as you are concerned this will be a strictly personal matter, that his alcoholic derelictions, the treatment about to be undertaken, will never be discussed without his consent?

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