From the books ...
Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book) and
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (12 & 12)
ABILITY occurs
19 times
(
Definition from Merriam-Webster Online)
Click
to display the full page from the Big Book
1.
... ability.
12&12 p.124,
Step Twelve
It
mattered little
whether we had
sat on the
shore of
life drinking ourselves into
forgetfulness or had
plunged in
recklessly
and
willfully beyond
our
depth and
ability.
2.
... ability.
BB p.13,
Bill's Story
I was to
right all such
matters to the
utmost of my
ability.
3.
... ability and
his knowledge of alcoholism.
12&12 p.158,
Tradition Six
4.
... ability, by
God's grace, to take these ...
12&12 p.114,
Step Twelve
Our
basic troubles are
the same as
everyone else's, but when an
honest effort is made "to
practice these
principles in all our
affairs," well-
grounded A.A.'s
seem to have the
ability, by
God's
grace, to take these
troubles in
stride and
turn them into
demonstrations of
faith.
5.
... ability, good
sense, and high character.
BB p.26,
There Is A Solution
6.
... ability of
each A.A. to identify himself ...
12&12 p.150,
Tradition Five
The
unique ability of each
A.A. to
identify himself
with, and bring
recovery to, the
newcomer in no way
depends
upon his
learning,
eloquence, or on any
special individual skills.
7.
... ability, or
of his own strong personal ...
BB p.137,
To Employers
Because of the
employee's
special ability, or of his
own strong personal attachment to
him, the
employer has sometimes
kept such a
man at
work long beyond a
reasonable period.
8.
... ability our
suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, ...
12&12 p.174,
Tradition Nine
9.
... ability to
accept conditions I cannot change?
12&12 p.52,
Step Four
Or, if my
disturbance was
seemingly caused by the
behavior of others, why do I
lack the
ability to
accept conditions I
cannot
change?
10.
... ability to
be fair-minded and tolerant evaporates ...
12&12 p.91,
Step Ten
When we
speak or
act hastily or
rashly, the
ability to be
fair-
minded and
tolerant evaporates on the
spot.
11.
... ability to
carry A.A.'s message.
12&12 p.111,
Step Twelve
Perhaps this will
happen in a
succession of
cases, and
we may be
deeply discouraged as to our
ability to
carry A.A.'s
message.
12.
... ability to
control our drinking.
BB p.30,
More About Alcoholism
We
alcoholics are
men and
women who have
lost the
ability to
control our
drinking.
13.
... ability to
cope with life.
12&12 p.48,
Step Four
But all who are in the
least reasonable will
agree upon
one
point: that there is
plenty wrong with us
alcoholics about which
plenty will have to be done if we are to
expect sobriety,
progress, and any
real ability to
cope with
life.
14.
... ability to
elect all the directors of ...
BB p.575,
Appendix VII, Twelve Concepts (Short Form)
15.
... ability to
help other people as we ...
12&12 p.102,
Step Eleven
Our
immediate temptation will be to
ask
for
specific solutions to
specific problems, and for the
ability
to
help other people as we have already
thought they should be
helped.
16.
... ability to
recover?
BB p.143,
To Employers
Can you have every
confidence in his
ability to
recover?
17.
... ability to
think?
BB p.54,
We Agnostics
Did we not have
confidence in our
ability to
think?
18.
... ability to
think, I went carefully over ...
BB p.41,
More About Alcoholism
"As soon as I
regained my
ability to
think, I went
carefully over that
evening in
Washington.
19.
... ability to
think straight, be called anything ...
BB p.37,
More About Alcoholism
How can such a
lack of
proportion, of the
ability
to
think straight, be
called anything else?
Passages from the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous
and the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
are reprinted with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.
The A.A. Preamble, copyright ©
The A.A. Grapevine, Inc., is reprinted with permission.
Permission to reprint does not in any way imply affiliation with or
endorsement by either Alcoholics Anonymous or The A.A. Grapevine, Inc.
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