Choose to Become Willing

As Bill Sees It

Can We Choose?, p. 4

We must never be blinded by the futile philosophy that we are just the
hapless victims of our inheritance, of our life experience, and of our
surroundings--that these are the sole forces that make our decisions for
us. This is not the road to freedom. We have to believe that we can
really choose.

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"As active alcoholics, we lost our ability to choose whether we would
drink. We were the victims of a compulsion which seemed to decree
that we must go on with our own destruction.

"Yet we finally did make choices that brought about our recovery. We
came to believe that alone we were powerless over alcohol. This was
surely a choice, and a most difficult one. We came to believe that a
Higher Power could restore us to sanity when we became willing to
practice A.A.'s Twelve Steps.

"In short, we chose to 'become willing,' and no better choice did we ever
make."

1. Grapevine, November 1960
2. Letter, 1966