AA Grapevine Digital Archive

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Classic Reprints

From time to time, the magazine reprints classic articles from the past -- often those written by AA's co-founders -- marking historic moments in the Fellowship, or having a timeless appeal. From the early 1970s on, the magazine November issue has often been devoted to classic reprints.

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1.	YESTERDAY. . .TODAY AND TOMORROW (Editor's Note: Several readers of The Grapevine have expressed particular appreciation for a short article which appeared in an early issue, and have written to ask about its authorship. The Grapevine editors do not know, and so we reprint the piece which has proved inspiring to many already. Do you know who wrote it?) YESTERDAY. . .TODAY AND TOMORROW	July 1945

2.	ALCOHOLIC PSYCHOSES (Editor's Note: For a broader understanding of alcoholism, The A.A. Grapevine will each month in this department print articles and writings of others than A.A.s themselves. Last month the first of these reprints appeared, an editorial entitled "Alcohol--A Management Problem," which had originally appeared in Printers' Ink. This month's "Reference Library" reading is taken from the book, Fundamentals of Psychiatry by Edward A. Strecker, M.D. Portions of pages 81-88 are reprinted by permission of the publisher, J. B. Lippincott Company, and the author.) ALCOHOLIC PSYCHOSES	August 1947

3.	The Selfishness of Love (Speaking recently before the Park Slope Group in Brooklyn, George B. quoted several passages taken from the weekly bulletin of the Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh. The article is reproduced here with the permission of the rector of the Church of the Ascension, the Rev. Wilburn C. Campbell.--Editor) THE SELFISHNESS OF LOVE	March 1948

4.	Lest We Forget WE, of Alcoholics Anonymous, know thousands of men and women who were once just as hopeless as Bill. All have recovered. They have solved the drink problem.	September 1952

5.	Lest We Forget You may already have asked yourself why it is that all of us became so very ill from drinking. Doubtless you are curious to discover how and why, in the face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. If you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking, "What do I have to do?"	October 1952

6.	Lest We Forget Though it was not our intention to create such an impression, many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming "God-consciousness" followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook.	November 1952

7.	Lest We Forgeta Vision for You FOR most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship, and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom, and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends, and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone. They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it. There was always one more attempt--and one more failure.	December 1952

8.	Lest We Forget RARELY have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.	January 1953

9.	Lest We Forget Selfishness--self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly, without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self, which later placed us in a position to be hurt.	February 1953

10.	Lest We Forget We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm that.	March 1953

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