"You will only get back what you give out."

Joe Coyhis  Stockbridge-Munsee

Immediately I felt there was something different about Ebby. It was not only that he was sober. I could not put a finger on what it was. I offered him a drink and he refused. Then I asked him, "What's this all about? You say you aren't drinking. But you also say you aren't on the water wagon, either. What's up? "Well," said Ebby, “I’ve got religion.”

 What a crusher that was--Ebby and religion! Maybe his alcoholic insanity had become religious insanity. It was an awful letdown. I had been educated at a wonderful engineering college where somehow I had gathered the impression that man was God. But I had to be polite, so I said, "What brand of religion have you got, Ebby?" "Oh," he said, "I don't think it has got any special brand name. I just fell in with a group of people, the Oxford Groups. I don't go along with all their teachings by any means. But those folks have given me some wonderful ideas. I learned that I had to admit I was licked; I learned that I ought to take stock of myself and confess my defects to another person in confidence; I learned that I needed to make restitution for the harm I had done others. I was told that I ought to practice the kind of giving that has no price tag on it, the giving of yourself to somebody. Now," he added, "I know you are going to gag on this, but they taught me that I should try to pray to whatever God I thought there was for the power to carry out these simple precepts. And if I did not believe there was any God, then I had better try the experiment of praying to whatever God there might be. And you know, Bill, it's a queer thing, but even before I had done all this, just as soon as I decided that I would try with an open mind, it seemed to me that my drinking problem was lifted right out of me.

AA Comes Of Age  pgs. 58 & 59

Reprinted with permission A.A.W.S.

Great Sprit open my heart to give.