Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition

CHAPTER 1 - BILL'S STORY

reorganized. He was on a different footing. His roots
grasped a new soil.

Despite the living example of my friend there re-
mained in me the vestiges of my old prejudice. The
word God still aroused a certain antipathy. When the
thought was expressed that there might be a God per-
sonal to me this feeling was intensified. I didn't like
the idea. I could go for such conceptions as Creative
Intelligence, Universal Mind or Spirit of Nature but I
resisted the thought of a Czar of the Heavens, however
loving His sway might be. I have since talked with
scores of men who felt the same way.

My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea.
He said, "Why don't you choose your own conception
of God?"

That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intel-
lectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and
shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last.

It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a
Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required
of me to make my beginning. I saw that growth could
start from that point. Upon a foundation of complete
willingness I might build what I saw in my friend.
Would I have it? Of course I would!

Thus was I convinced that God is concerned with us
humans when we want Him enough. At long last I
saw, I felt, I believed. Scales of pride and prejudice
fell from my eyes. A new world came into view.

The real significance of my experience in the Cathe-
dral burst upon me. For a brief moment, I had needed
and wanted God. There had been a humble willing-
ness to have Him with me—and He came. But soon
the sense of His presence had been blotted out by