EDITORIAL:
The Shape of Things to Come

In the book Alcoholics Anonymous there is a chapter called “A Vision for You”. Wandering through it recently, my eye was caught by this startling paragraph written a short five years ago. “Someday we hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find a Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination. To some extent, this is already true. Some of us are salesmen and go about. Little clusters of twos and threes and fives of us have sprung up in other communities through contact with our two large centers—–” Rubbing my eyes I looked again. A lump came into my throat. “Only five years,” I thought. “Then but two large centers—little clusters of twos and threes — travelers who hoped one day to find us at every destination.” Could it be that only yesterday this was just a hope—those little clusters of twos and threes, those little beacons so anxiously watched as they flickered, but never went out. And today—hundreds of centers shedding their warm illumination upon the lives of thousands, lighting the dark shoals where the stranded and hopeless lie breaking up—those fingers of light already stretching to our beachheads in other lands. Now comes another lighted lamp—this little newspaper called “The Grapevine”. May its rays of hope and experience ever fall upon the current of our A.A. life and one day illumine every dark corner of this alcoholic world. The aspirations of its editors, contributors, and readers could well be voiced in the last words of “A Vision for You”. “Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find, and join us. We shall be with you, in the Fellowship of The Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny. May God bless you and keep you—until then.“

Bill

wives are—they’ve got to feel they’re the most influential factor in a husband’s life. Point is, during all the years my wife tried to get me to quit I just got worse—then I catch up with A.A. and Zingo—I get completely dried up and obviously like the procedure. So I’m afraid she feels there must be something, lacking in my affection or why couldn’t I have quit just for her? It’s obvious at the meetings that others in A.A. have been a lot smarter about this angle and maybe can help with a couple of suggestions. Jim D.

Dear Grapevine: I’ve been in A.A. a year and a month and I’m so happy, so glad at last, to be alive. A year and a month ago I wanted to die—although I didn’t do anything about it except go on drinking, which is a pretty good way. My career, for I happen to be a writer, was at a standstill, and my way of living, my habits and emotions were as distorted as the view I used to see of myself at the bottom of a glass. Now, very, very slowly, I am becoming the person I’m supposed to be. Normal habits and pleasures come back slowly. Things like enjoying food, gardening, going to the theatre, spending an evening with friends while conscious—all these habits had to be reformed, like a paralytic learning the re-use of his limbs. Just the other day I said to myself; “All right—you’re fifteen years behind in your life. Fifteen years behind in your career. Thank God you came into A.A. when you did. Now you can begin, slowly, and get your life back.” Perhaps some of you know this experience of discouraged impatience. Perhaps you’ve been sober a certain number of months and are beginning to say, “Well, so what?” Don’t go out and get drunk, as I came so near doing a month ago. Whether this let-down period between first getting truly sober and getting yourself adjusted to life and living. Work like a beaver with an extra spurt of effort in, for, and with A.A. That’s the solution. I am sure of it. I had to write this because I’m so grateful again to A.A. for seeing me through these “growing pains”. Felicia G.

The Grapevine welcomes letters from its reader-members. Please survey, however, the size of the sheet and keep your notes brief, because we’d like to print a fair cross-section, with as little cutting as possible.

Dear Grapevine: I was surely glad to learn that A.A. is planning to publish a “house- organ”. I think a lot of newer members, like myself, who might incline to be shy about

making personal contacts for help with their
individual problems will welcome this means
of communicating with experienced A.A.s.
For example, I can hardly buttonhole a
fellow-member at a meeting and bluntly say :
“My wife is jealous of you!” Yet that’s pretty
much the situation which bothers me quite a
lot. What I mean is that my Missus doesn’t
understand. She’s delighted with the results
of the past six months, but you know-how

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INTERGROUP MEETING IN MANHATTAN; Capitol
Hotel, 51st Street and 8th Avenue, Walnut
Room; every Tuesday evening at 8:30. Room
open from 5:30. For all other meetings in-
formation watch group news on our Metro-
politan Circuit page, and check each issue for
changes of time and location.