Those adolescent urges that so many of us have
for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance
--urges quite appropriate to age seventeen--
prove to be an impossible way of life
when we are at age forty-seven or fifty-seven.
Since AA began,
I've taken immense wallops in all these areas
because of my failure to grow up,
emotionally and spiritually.
My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible,
and how very painful to discover finally,
that all along we have had the cart before the horse!
Then comes the final agony of seeing
how awfully wrong we have been,
but still finding ourselves unable
to get off the emotional merry-go-round.
- Bill W., January 1958.
Change is inevitable, growth is optional.
H O W = Honest, Open, Willing.