July 29

July 29 – AM

Page 95, Working With Others, Chapter 7

If he is not interested in your solution, if he expects you to act only as a banker for his financial difficulties or a nurse for his sprees, you may have to drop him until he changes his mind.  This he may do after he gets hurt some more.

If he is sincerely interested and wants to see you again, ask him to read this book in the interval.  After doing that, he must decide for himself whether he wants to go on.  He should not be pushed or prodded by you, his wife, or his friends.  If he is to find God, the desire must come from within.

If he thinks he can do the job in some other way, or prefers some other spiritual approach, encourage him to follow his own conscience.  We have no monopoly on God; we merely have an approach that worked with us.  But point out that we alcoholics have much in common and that you would like, in any case, to be friendly.  Let it go at that.

July 29 – PM

Page 152-153, A Vision For You, Chapter 11

You are going to meet these new friends in your own community.  Near you, alcoholics are dying helplessly like people in a sinking ship.  If you live in a large place, there are hundreds.  High and low, rich and poor, these are future fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Among them you will make lifelong friends.  You will be bound to them with new and wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey.  Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life.  You will learn the full meaning of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”