Follow the Directions

I HAD READ the first sentence on page 58 of the Big Book: "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path." Yet I took no action, for I had no understanding. I was without a drink from my first AA meeting on, but it took me twenty-seven months to begin my first attempt at Steps Four and Five. I realized at the completion of these Steps, ten months later, that they were written for a defiant, grandiose, sensitive, childish, stupid, and stubborn drunk like me.