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Back to Basics Beginner's Big Book ”We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free.” p133 Big Book AA Co-Founder AA Co-Founder Dr Robert Smith Back to Basics Bill Wilson Beginner’s Big Book Dr. Silkworth Ebby Thacher had authored the carried the message “Doctor’s Opinion” of the Oxford Group which appears in to Bill Wilson. the Big Book of Nite & Day Club Alcoholics Anonymous. 22771 Shore Center Dr. Euclid, OH 44123 216 261-9682 www.niteandayclub.org Every Sunday @ 6:30 PM For more information, contact: Mike M. (216) 619-6587 Listen / Download mp3 CD’S --> www.spiritualsteps.com June 11, 2006 [email protected] Newcomers & Sharing Partners Sharing Partner The Newcomer Your time Your primary commitment to the obligation is to be here Newcomer is 4-5 every week. If you do not weeks. have transportation, your After that both sharing partner will help you and the Newcomer you get arrangements. will be expected to help We realize some other Newcomers of you are in no condition through the sessions to read the Big Book at as Sharing Partners. this time; therefore, we During the next will read the appropriate month, call or visit the Welcome to Back to Basics parts of the Big book to Newcomer frequently to Beginners Big Book meeting. you. see how he or she is For those of you doing and to offer We meet at the Nite and Day who have brought your encouragement and Club every Sunday at 6:30 pm. Big Book and are able to moral support. Recreating the Beginners meetings follow along, please do used in ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS in the so. Make sure you 1940’s and 1950’s when the success rate We will announce and the Newcomer for recovering from alcoholism was over each passage by page attend all the sessions 75%. number and paragraph together. We will actually work the 12 steps in before we read it. If you Offer to help the the next four weeks using a cd each week to are unable to read the Newcomer with his or book, please participate lead us. her fourth step. If by listening. We begin with Step 1 the first necessary, write the Keep in mind if you Sunday of every month. Every newcomer inventory based on do what we ask you to do what the Newcomer who wants to TAKE THE 12 STEPS OF AA which is to take the steps tells you. is assigned a temporary sharing partner for as described in the Big Remember, the the next 4 weeks. Book, you will recover Newcomer is still very This is a WE program. If you’d like to from alcoholism. sick and may not be make Back to Basics Beginners Big Book Although a written able to complete the you’re home group, please see our inventory is part of the inventory without your Secretary Mike M. or Treasurer Lisa B. and fourth step, that doesn’t assistance. they will sign you up. The CD is mean you have to do the Make yourself approximately 75 minutes long. writing. available to answer any The person who is questions the Mike M (216) 619-6587 your Sharing Partner in Newcomer may have [email protected] these sessions can either about the A.A. program. www.spiritualsteps.com help you write your inven- www.niteandayclub.org tory or he or she can write it for you. Back to Basic’s Beginner’s Big Book www.spiritualsteps.com 6-11-2006 www.niteandayclub.org Step 1 Set Aside Prayer We admitted we were ”God, please set aside everything powerless over alcohol that we think we know about ourselves, the book, sobriety, the 12 Steps, and you — that our lives had God. become unmanageable. God please help each and everyone of us to have an open mind so we may We learned that we had have a new experience, and discover the to fully concede to our truth.” innermost selves that we were alcoholics. Serenity Prayer p30 Big Book God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. How to determine if your alcoholic... Founder of A.A. We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic As we looked back over those early alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the scenes in New York, we saw often in the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and midst of them the benign little doctor who NEVER occurs in the average temperate drinker. loved drunks, William Duncan Silkworth, pxxvi The Doctor's Opinion, Big Book then Physician-in-Chief of the Charles B. Towns Hospital in New York, a man Dr. William Duncan Silkworth has probably very much a founder of A.A. treated more alcoholics From him we learned the nature then any other physician of our illness. He supplied us with the in history, (40,000). tools with which to puncture the Dr. Silkworth authored the “Doctor’s Opinion” which toughest alcoholic ego, those appears in the Big Book of shattering phrases by which he Alcoholics Anonymous. described our illness: the obsession Dr. William Silkworth of the mind that compels us to drink and the allergy of the body that that condemns us to go mad or die. These Awesome website dedicated to were indispensable passwords. Dr. Silkworth ---> www.silkworth.net (Bill Wilson, from the book - Alcoholics Dr. Silkworth’s Rx for Sobriety Anonymous Comes of Age pg. 13) www.silkworth.net/silkworth/rxsobriety.html Back to Basic’s Beginner’s Big Book www.spiritualsteps.com 6-11-2006 www.niteandayclub.org AA 4 Standards - Four Absolutes The 4 absolutes are in the Big Book! Dishonesty - Honesty The opposite of .... Resentment - Purity Selfishness - Unselfishness Fear - Love AA 4 Standards 4 Absolutes Self Will God’s Will Dishonesty ------------------------- Honesty Self-seeking -----------------------4th Step Purity Selfishness ------------------------(p67 Big Book) Unselfishness Frightened ------------------------- Love Dishonesty ------------------------ Honesty Resentment -----------------------10th Step Purity Selfishness -----------------------(p84 Big Book) Unselfishness Fear ---------------------------------- Love Dishonesty ------------------------ Honesty Resentful ---------------------------11th Step Purity Selfishness -----------------------(p86 Big Book) Unselfishness Afraid -------------------------------- Love Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. p86 Please take 5 minutes for quiet time. Ask God to direct your thinking, listen and write down the thoughts. Much of the Group practiced listen. Write down the UNSELFISH? is it spirtual principles that morning quiet time. thoughts that come. LOVE? Alcoholics Anonymous The 4 spiritual Test each thought We share what we have today came principles of using the 4 absolutes. we have written that from the Oxford surrender, sharing, Use the 4 has come from God, Group. restitution and absolutes to separate NOT from you (self Meditation or guidance came from God thoughts from self will) to demonstrate being in the presence the Oxford group. thoughts. that God does of God was practiced The AA pioneers God thoughts “disclose Himself to to establish that practice daily written in guidance is that us” and because relationship with God. meditation or quiet passes the “test” of sometimes the The 4 absolutes time. When you the 4 absolutes. Is it guidance we receive was considered God’s practice quiet time, be PURE? is it isn’t for us but for will when the Oxford quiet, still, relax and HONEST? is it someone else. Back to Basic’s Beginner’s Big Book www.spiritualsteps.com 6-11-2006 www.niteandayclub.org Step 2 Step 4 Came to believe that a Power Made a searching and greater than ourselves could fearless moral inventory restore us to sanity. of ourselves. We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. -”Do I now believe, or am I even willing to Resentment believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?” For resentment, do the following for p47 Bigbook each resentment: When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self- 1. What is the resentment? imposed crises we could not postpone or evade, 2. What is the reason I have it? we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either 3. What’s my part in the resentment? God is everything or else He is nothing. God either 4. Look for underlying fear. is or He isn’t. What was our choice to be? 5. What is it that I am expecting from p53 Bigbook that person? Step 3 Fear Made a decision to turn our For fear, make a list of your fears. will and our lives over to the For each liability below (except resentment and fear), ask the care of God as we understood following questions: Him. 1. Do you have any _________ (example:self-pity)? (a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. 2. Who was effected by ______ (example:by self-pity)? (b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. Dishonesty Selfishness (c) That God could and would if He were sought. False Pride Envy p60 Bigbook Laziness Procrastination “God, I offer myself to Thee — to Greed Intolerance build with me and to do with me as Impatience Hate Thou wilt. Relieve me of the Jealousy Insincerity Self-Pity bondage of self, that I may better do Self-Justification Thy will. Take away my difficulties, Self-Importance that victory over them may bear Self-Condemnation witness to those I would help of Thy Criticizing Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Negative Thinking life. May I do Thy will always!” Vulgar, Immoral Thinking p63 Bigbook Back to Basic’s Beginner’s Big Book www.spiritualsteps.com 6-11-2006 www.niteandayclub.org FOURTH STEP LIABILITIES Procrastination – Putting things off.
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