Parodoxes, or apparent contradictions, are sometimes essential truths in this program. For instance, you have to give it away to keep it. Or, you have to lose in order to win. This last one is, of course, the first one we have to learn on entering the program.
We surrender to win. No way can we stop drinking until we have to stop doing things our way. Until we admit that we can’t stop drinking ourselves and we need help from a higher power to do it. I had to lose hope that alcohol would ever work for me again and find hope in something that would. Until I was willing to give up completely, without reservation that I could ever drink safely again, I was always in danger that someday I would.
One man, in telling his story in the first edition of the BB, said there were four essentials for him. The first was to have a real desire to quit. The second was to admit you can’t. This he said was the hardest. The third was to ask for His help. And the fourth was to accept and acknowledge this help. He also said that the men who came and talked to him didn’t tell him that he should stop drinking. Instead they told him how he could.
I was reading a couple of stories in the book Experience, Strength, and Hope, which are from stories from the first three editions which have been removed, and thinking about the wisdom I have derived from these old timers, who passed this along to us; giving it away to keep it.