aa friends Community Group
Welcome. If you come to visit for the first time and have some questions feel free to ask. PM someone if you like but don't stay a stranger. We were all in the pit. We know a way out. No condemnation and no hammers. Just ask and prepare to make a load of friends.
As Bill Sees It
Pg. 1
Personality Change
"It has often been said of A.A. that we are interested only in alcoholism. That is not true. We have to get over drinking in order to stay alive. But anyone who knows the alcoholic personality by firsthand contact knows that no true alky ever stops drinking permanently without undergoing a profound personality change."
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We thought "conditions" drove us to drink, and when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't do so to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics. It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.
1. Letter, 1940
2. 12 & 12, p. 47
Pg. 1
Personality Change
"It has often been said of A.A. that we are interested only in alcoholism. That is not true. We have to get over drinking in order to stay alive. But anyone who knows the alcoholic personality by firsthand contact knows that no true alky ever stops drinking permanently without undergoing a profound personality change."
<< << << >> >> >>
We thought "conditions" drove us to drink, and when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't do so to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics. It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.
1. Letter, 1940
2. 12 & 12, p. 47
There was never a condition that made me drink it was all about the effect, just my experience. .
What a great statement:
It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.
When we get sober and stop fighting everyone and everything we find that our self imposed anger disappears the longer we stay away from alcohol. We find that our denial to our alcoholism may have caused irreparable damage to our families and to our relationships to the ones we love the most. If our personality change doesnt repair our relationships and that it maynot solve the damage that we had caused. The remorse we may feel is of little consequence to anyone but ourselves. It is then that we discover the meaning of being humble. We are sober and we are trying to make amends for our behaviour and they fall on deaf ears. After all how many times did we say I'm sorry. How many times did we admit we had a problem and how many times did we fail.
The personality changes that we make have to be for ourselves not for those that we hope to make amends to. Our personality changes are a direct result of our spiritual changes. Our spiritual changes and our behaviuor changes seem to go hand in hand. We must accept the the damage we have done and be willing to accept the consequenses of our behaviour regardless of the outcome. We might even discover that the feelings we had for our wives or husbands were only superficial to begin with. Our inventories may reveal a whole other person altogether. We have been living a lie for so long that we actually believed that lie. Our new found freedom from the the lies and deciet will open the doors to a whole new you. We look forward to the future and thank our God for the opportunity to start over with a new outlook on life based on the rigorous honesty that we learned as a result of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Life will go on,our personalities will change and we will become better people as a result of that change. Sobriety isn't for sissys. Greg