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245 single-handed combat. Few indeed are those who have sailed by the tyrant alcohol have ever went through in single-handed combat. It is a statistical fact that alcoholics almost never recover on their personal resources alone. Way up towards Point Borough in Alaska, a couple of prospectors got themselves a cabin and a case of scotch. The weather turned bitter, 50 below, and they got so drunk they let the fire go out. Barely escaping death by freezing, one of them woke up in time to rekindle the fire. He was prowling around outside for fuel, and he looked into an empty oil can filled with frozen water. Down in the ice cake, he saw a reddish-yellow object. When thawed out, it was seen to be an AA book. One of the pair read the book and sobered up. Legend has it that he became the founder of one of our farthest northern groups. 1, 12, and 12, page 22. 2 AA comes of age, page 82 through 83. 246 instinct to love. When men and women pour so much alcohol into themselves that they destroy their lives, they commit a most unnatural act. Defying their instinct desire for self-preservation, they seem bent upon self-destruction. They work against their own deepest instincts. As they are progressively humbled by the terrific beating administered by alcohol, the grace of God can enter them and expel their obsession. Here, their powerful instinct to live can cooperate fully with their creator's desire to give them new life. The central characteristics of the spiritual experience is that it gives the recipient a new and better motivation out of all proportion to any process of discipline, belief, or faith. These experiences cannot make us whole at once. They are a rebirth to a fresh and certain opportunity. 1, 12, and 12, page 64, two-letter 1965. 247, have you experimented? Since open mindness and experimentation are supposed to be the indispensable attributes of our scientific civilization, it seems strange that so many scientists are reluctant to try out personally the hypnosis that God came first and man afterward. They prefer to believe that man is the chance product of evolution, that God, the creator, does not exist. I only report that I have experience with both concepts, and that in my case, the God concept has proved to be a better basis for living than the man-centered one. Nevertheless, I would be the first to defend your right to think as you will. I simply ask the question, in your own life, have you ever really tried to think and act as though there might be a God? Have you experimented? Letter 1950, 248, we need outside help. It is evident that a sobriety, self-appraisal, and the admission of our defects, based upon that alone, wouldn't be nearly enough. We'd have to have outside help if we were surely to know and admit the truth about ourselves, the help of God and of another human being. Only by discussing ourselves, holding back nothing, only by being willing to take advice and accept direction, could we set foot on the road to straight thinking, solid honesty, and genuine humility. If we are fooling ourselves, a competent advisor can see this quickly, and as he skillfully guides us away from our fantasy, we are surprised to find that we have few of the usual urges to defend ourselves against unpleasant truth. In no other way can fear, pride, and ignorance be so readily melted. After a time, we realize that we are standing firm on a brand new foundation for integrity, and we gratefully credit our sponsors whose advice pointed the way. 112 and 12, page 59, to Grapevine, August 1961. 249, God's Gifts. We see that the sun never sets upon AA's fellowship, that more than 350,000 of us have now recovered from our melee, that we have everywhere gone to ascend the formidable barriers of race, creed, and nationality. This assurance that so many of us have been able to meet our responsibilities for sobriety and for growth and effectiveness in the troubled world where we live, we surely fill us with the deepest joy and satisfaction. But as a people who have nearly always learned the hard way, we should certainly not congratulate ourselves. We shall perceive these assets to be God's gifts, which have been in part matched by an increasingly willingness on our part to find and do his will for us. Grapevine, July 1965. 250, Prayer Under Pressure. Whenever I find myself under acute tensions, I listen in my daily walks and slowly repeat our serenity prayer in rhythm to my steps and breathing. If I feel that my pain has in part been occasioned by others, I try to repeat, God grant me the serenity to love their best and never fear their worst. This being healing process of repetition, sometimes necessary to persist with for days, has seldom failed to restore me to at least a workable emotional balance and perspective. Grapevine, March 1962.