The beginning is purification, that's the first step. And purification means purification of body and mind. You don't purify the body without cleansing the mind; that's the way it works.

Rolling Thunder  Cherokee

 

 

 

Why all this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice A.A. program unless they hit bottom. For practicing A.A.’s remaining eleven Steps means adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking. Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A.A.’s message to the next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn’t care for this prospect—unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself.

Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions  pg. 24

 

  

 

 

Great Mystery cleanse my mind, show me how to think good things, help me be whole today.