"thinking" in the Big Book

I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within.

How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way, and after the third or fourth, pounded on the bar and said to ourselves, “For God’s sake, how did I ever get started again?’’ Only to have that thought supplanted by “Well, I’ll stop with the sixth drink.’’ Or “What’s the use anyhow?’’ When this sort of thinking is fully established in an individual with alcoholic tendencies, he has probably placed himself beyond human aid, and unless locked up, may die or go permanently insane.

What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of the first drink?

Of what is he thinking?

To us it is not far-fetched, for this kind of thinking has been characteristic of every single one of us.

Some of you are thinking: “Yes, what you tell us is true, but it doesn’t fully apply.

Yet, in other moments, we found ourselves thinking, when enchanted by a starlit night, “Who, then, made all this?’’ There was a feeling of awe and wonder, but it was fleeting and soon lost.

This sort of thinking had to be abandoned.

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

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.

But in most fields our generation has witnessed complete liberation of our 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 avoid hysterical thinking or advice.

Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time?

Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life?

Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.

Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

In thinking about our day we may face indecision.

Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration.

If your husband is a drinker, you probably worry over what other people are thinking and you hate to meet your friends.

You may be afraid your husband will lose his position; you are thinking of the disgrace and hard times which will befall you and the children.

His ways of thinking and doing are the habits of years.

Now about health: A body badly burned by alcohol does not often recover overnight nor do twisted thinking and depression vanish in a twinkling.

This may hang on for months, long after their mother has accepted dad’s new way of living and thinking.

Can it be appreciated that he has been a victim of crooked thinking, directly caused by the action of alcohol on his brain?

He had been thinking it over.

Seeing much of each other, scarce an evening passed that someone’s home did not shelter a little gathering of men and women, happy in their release, and constantly thinking how they might present their discovery to some newcomer.

We know what you are thinking.