AS BILL SEES IT
Humility expressed by anonymity
Page 257
"Humility is a by-product that allows us to grow and develop in an atmosphere of freedom and removes the fear of becoming known by our employers, families, or friends as addicts. "
Basic Text, pp.75-76
Many of us may not have understood the idea that "anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions." We wondered how this could be. What does anonymity have to do with our spiritual life?
The answer is, plenty! By guarding and cherishing our anonymity, we earn spiritual rewards beyond comprehension. There is great virtue in doing something nice for someone and not telling anyone about it. By the same token, resisting the impulse to proudly announce our membership in NA to the world-in effect, asking everyone to acknowledge how wonderful we are-makes us value our recovery all the more.
Recovery is a gift that we've received from a Power greater than ourselves. Boasting about our recovery, as if it were our own doing, leads to prideful feelings and grandiosity. But keeping our anonymity leads to humility and feelings of gratitude. Recovery is its own reward; public acclaim can't make it any more valuable than it already is.
Just for Today: Recovery is its own reward; I don't need to have mine approved of publicly. I will maintain and cherish my anonymity.
Page 275
For a new prospect, outline the program of action, explaining how you made a self-appraisal, how you straightened out your past, and why you are now endeavoring to be helpful to him. It is important for him to realize that your attempt to pass this on to him plays a vital part in your own recovery. Actually, he may be helping you more than you are helping him. Make it plain that he is under no obligation to you.
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In the first six months of my own sobriety, I worked hard with many alcoholics. Not a one responded. Yet this work kept me sober. It wasn’t a question of those alcoholics giving me anything. My stability came out of trying to give, not out of demanding that I receive.
~ 1. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, P. 94 ~
Page 298
Even the newest of newcomers finds undreamed rewards as he tries to help his brother alcoholic, the one who is even blinder than he. This is indeed the kind of giving that actually demands nothing. He does not expect his brother sufferer to pay him, or even to love him.
And then he discovers that through the divine paradox of this kind of giving he has found his own reward, whether or not his brother has yet received anything. His own character may still be gravely defective, but he somehow knows that God has enabled him to make a mighty beginning, and he senses that he stands at the edge of new mysteries, joys, and experiences of which he had never before dreamed.
~ TWELVE AND TWELVE, PP. 109-110 ~