1938 Original Manuscript for 1939 1st Edition BigBook Searchable 1976 3rd Edition BigBook On-Line
The Prescription
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“Sacrifice”

A fellow at a meeting was "grousing" about what he had to "sacrifice" to go to meetings to get his court slip signed and how hard it was to take an hour out of each day to do this... How it took time away from his family and the effort required of him to explain to his employer why he had to take time from work to do this. etc...etc.

The first meaning one encounters when looking up this word is from the Latin, to "make holy (sacred)". The second definition is "the surrender of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing value."

We alcoholics have a definite relationship with both meanings. But we must put the second definition first and come to realize that "the thing" we are gaining by "our sacrifice," "our surrender," is of far greater value than what we have "given up".

For alcoholics, it's a spiritual axiom that we must give up the physical to attain the spiritual. And we need to recognize the danger in reversing that process. How many have gone back to the bottle by not sacrificing a little time attending meetings???

In a nutshell, this is why we go to meetings ---- to be of service to others, to work with other alcoholics, to sacrifice a little time from the pursuit of physical things, making the time holy, to gain the spiritual, the much greater value.


Love and Peace, Barefoot

Index of AA History Pages on Barefoot's Domain


As in so many things, especially with we alcoholics, our History is our Greatest Asset!.. We each arrived at the doors of AA with an intensive and lengthy "History of Things That Do Not Work" .. Today, In AA and In Recovery, Our History has added an intensive and lengthy "History of Things That DO Work!!" and We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it!!

ABC Page 60 from the Big Book

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