Mail Call for A.A.s at Home and Abroad

SOME of you wonder why we who are members of the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous are so determined in our efforts to make it a success. If I can tell you something of the price we paid for eligibility maybe you will better understand why we treasure it so much. The money price was not so great, probably no more than the price of a few homes or businesses or a dozen new automobiles, but that was all right. We always did waste money. But what else did it cost--Long nights of misery, awful mornings of fear and terror, countless days of remorse, and months of embarrassment and shame--We lost our wives, we lost our families, we lost our friends, we lost our jobs, we lost our place in the world, we lost the respect of all who knew us. But greater than that we lost our self-respect. We are paying the price in a shortened life, for we burned the candle at both ends. Do you begin to see what we mean by the price of eligibility? This is the most expensive club in the world, to win the right to membership, to be able to say I am an alcoholic, my life has become unmanageable. It does not cost money to join the fellowship. It does not cost dues to maintain membership. The cost is sincerity, unselfishness, kindness, humility, willingness and an earnest determination to share with other alcoholics not our wealth but our sobriety. And the more we share the more we have left. You see we were in the habit of having drunken days and sober days. They did not always follow a pattern with regularity, like day and night. Now we have a regular pattern and it is only Today We Set Aside for Sobriety for no one from Adam down ever saw a tomorrow. By this pattern of sobriety today we have regained our homes, our families, our jobs, our usefulness in the world, our health, our honor, our self-respect, our very life. Suppose a man condemned to death should receive a full pardon. Would he part with it for any other thing on earth? No, to us the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is just as priceless. And we have peace of mind.