March 14

March 14 – AM          Page 49-50, We Agnostics, Chapter 4

We, who have traveled this dubious path, beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion.  We have learned that whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions.  People of faith have a logical idea of what life is all about.  Actually, we used to have no reasonable conception whatever.  We used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices when we might have observed that many spiritually-minded persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness and usefulness which we should have sought ourselves.
Instead, we looked at the human defects of these people, and sometimes used their shortcomings as a basis of wholesale condemnation.  We talked of intolerance, while we were intolerant ourselves.  We missed the reality and the beauty of the forest because we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees.  We never gave the spiritual side of life a fair hearing.

March 14 – PM          Page xiii, Foreword to First Edition (1939)

It is important that we remain anonymous because we are too few, at present to handle the overwhelming number of personal appeals which may result from this publication.  Being mostly business or professional folk, we could not well carry on our occupations in such an event.  We would like it understood that our alcoholic work is an avocation.
When writing or speaking publicly about alcoholism, we urge each of our Fellowship to omit his personal name, designating himself instead as “a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Very earnestly we ask the press also, to observe this request, for otherwise we shall be greatly handicapped.