Bill W's Last Message --- “Concept of Anonymity”
Channel: AA - Recovered - Alcoholics Anonymous - AA100011
Date: 17/04/2022

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My dear friends,
 
Recently an A.A. member sent me an unusual greeting which I would like to extend to you. He told me it was an ancient Arabian salutation. Perhaps we have no Arabian groups, but it still seems a fitting expression of how I feel for each of you. It says, “I salute you and thank you for your life.”

My thoughts are much occupied these days with gratitude to our Fellowship and for the myriad blessings bestowed upon us by God’s Grace.
 
If I were asked which of these blessings I felt was most responsible for our growth as a fellowship and most vital to our continuity, I would say, the “Concept of Anonymity.”
 
Anonymity has two attributes essential to our individual and collective survival; the spiritual and the practical.
 
On the spiritual level, anonymity demands the greatest discipline of which we are capable; on the practical level, anonymity has brought protection for the newcomer, respect and support of the world outside, and security from those of us who would use A.A. for sick and selfish purposes.
 
A.A. must and will continue to change with the passing years. We cannot, nor should we, turn back the clock. However, I deeply believe that the principle of anonymity must remain our primary and enduring safeguard. As long as we accept our sobriety in our traditional spirit of anonymity we will continue to receive God’s Grace.
 
And so—once more, I salute you in that spirit and again I thank you for your lives.
May God bless us all now, and forever.

 

*Read by Lois at the annual dinner given by the New York Intergroup Association in honor of Bill’s 36th anniversary—October 10, 1970.


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STEP 1
We admitted we were 
powerless over alcohol - that 
our lives had become 
unmanageable.


STEP 2
Came to believe that a Power 
greater than ourselves could 
restore us to sanity


STEP 3
Made a decision to turn our 
will and our lives over to the 
care of God as we understood 
Him.


STEP 4
Made a searching and fearless 
moral inventory of ourselves.


STEP 5
Admitted to God, to ourselves, 
and to another human being 
the exact nature of our wrongs.


STEP 6
Were entirely ready to have 
God remove all these defects 
of character.


STEP 7
Humbly asked Him to remove 
our shortcomings.


STEP 8
Made a list of all persons we 
had harmed, and became 
willing to make amends to 
them all.


STEP 9
Made direct amends to such 
people wherever possible, 
except when to do so would 
injure them or others.


STEP 10
Continued to take personal 
inventory and when we were 
wrong promptly admitted it.


STEP 11
Sought through prayer and 
meditation to improve our 
conscious contact with God as 
we understood Him, praying 
only for knowledge of 
His will for us and the power 
to carry that out.


STEP 12
Having had a spiritual 
awakening as the result of 
these steps, we tried to 
carry this message to 
alcoholics, and to practice 
these principles in all 
our affairs.





SURRENDER
SHARING
AMENDS
GUIDANCE

HONESTY
PURITY
UNSELFISHNESS
LOVE

TRUST GOD
CLEAN HOUSE
HELP OTHERS


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