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Occurrences of the Word “God” and Related Words
on Pages 1-164 in Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Ed.
Part 1: The 135 Occurrences of the Word “God”
on Pages 1-164 in Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Ed. (further corrected)
(Bolding added for Clarity)
Chapter 1: Bill’s Story—Twelve (12) occurrences
p. 10: “a God personal to me”
p. 11 (1st): “the power of God in human affairs”
p. 11 (2d): “God had done for him what he could not do for himself.”
p. 12 (1st): “The word God still aroused a certain antipathy” **
p. 12 (2d): “a God personal to me” **
p. 12 (3rd): “’Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?’” **
p. 12 (4th): “God is concerned with us humans when we want Him enough.”
p. 12 (5th): “For a brief moment, I had needed and wanted God.”
p. 13 (1st): “There I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him,”
p. 13 (2d): “I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within.”
p. 13 (3rd): “Belief in the power of God,”
p. 14: “God comes to most men gradually,”
** NOTE: These three occurrences of the word “God” are part of a four-paragraph, handwritten section of text that was inserted into the printer’s copy of Alcoholics Anonymous just before the first edition was published on April 10, 1939. The four-paragraph section of text begins with the words “Despite the living example of my friend . . .” and ends with the words “Of course I would!” This four-paragraph section of text was not present in the prepublication copy of Alcoholics Anonymous, better known as “the Multilith Edition” or “the Original Manuscript.” Please see The Book That Started It All (Hazelden, 2010) for more details.
Chapter 2: There Is a Solution—Six (6) occurrences
p. 24: “For God’s sake,”
p. 25 (1st): “But for the grace of God”
p. 25 (2d): “revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God’s universe.”
p. 28 (1st): “the loving and powerful hand of God.”
p. 28 (2d): “a multitude of ways in which men have discovered God.”
p. 29: “Each individual, in the personal stories, describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God.” ***
*** NOTE: The prepublication copy of Alcoholics Anonymous read: “. . . from his own point of view the way he found or rediscovered God.” http://anonpress.org/manu/02.htm
Chapter 3: More about Alcoholism—No (0) occurrences
Chapter 4: We Agnostics—Twenty-Eight (28) occurrences
p. 45 (1st): “we are going to talk about God.”
p. 45 (2d): “especially when we mention God,”
p. 45 (3rd): “To others the word ‘God’ brought up a particular idea of Him”
p. 45 (4th): “we imagined we had abandoned the God idea entirely.”
p. 46 (1st): “impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.
p. 46 (2d): “we did not need to consider another’s conception of God.”
p. 46 (3rd): “God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him.”
p. 47 (1st): “When, therefore, we speak to you of God,”
p. 47 (2d): “we mean your own conception of God.”
p. 47 (3rd): “to effect our first conscious relation with God as we understood Him.”
p. 49 (1st): “thinking we believe this universe needs no God to explain it.”
p. 49 (2d): “spearheads of God’s ever advancing Creation,”
p. 51 (1st): “the consciousness of the Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives,”
p. 51 (2d): “Had not people said God had reserved this privilege”
p. 52 (1st): “we had to stop doubting the power of God.”
p. 52 (2d): “But the God idea did.”
p. 52 (3rd): “When others showed us that ‘God-sufficiency’ worked with them,”
p. 53 (1st): “the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing”
p. 53 (2d): “God either is, or He isn’t.”
p. 54: “the God of Reason.”
p. 55 (1st): “They said God made these things possible,”
p. 55 (2d): “deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God.”
p. 55 (3rd): “faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up,”
p. 56 (1st): “Our friend’s gorge rose as he bitterly cried out: “If there is a God, He certainly hasn’t done anything for me!’”
p. 56 (2d): “‘Who are you to say there is no God?’”
p. 56 (3rd): “he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God.”
p. 57 (1st): “God had restored his sanity.”
p. 57 (2d): “Even so has God restored us all to our right minds.”
Chapter 5: How It Works—Twenty-Seven (27) occurrences
p. 59 (1st): “But there is One who has all Power—that One is God.”
p. 59 (2d): “the care of God as we understood Him.” [Step 3]
p. 59 (3rd): “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being” [Step 5]
p. 59 (4th): “to have God remove all these defects of character.” [Step 6]
p. 59 (5th): “our conscious contact with God as we understood Him,” [Step 11]
p. 60 (1st): “(c) That God could and would if He were sought.”
p. 60 (2): “turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him.”
p. 62 (1st): “God makes that possible.”
p. 62 (2d): “We had to have God’s help.”
p. 62 (3rd): “First of all, we had to quit playing God.”
p. 62 (4th): “hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director.”
p. 63 (1st): “‘God, I offer myself to Thee–”
p. 63 (2d): “it is better to meet God alone than with one who might misunderstand.”
p. 67 (1st): “We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance,”
p. 67 (2d): “God save me from being angry.”
p. 67 (3rd): “at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view”
p. 68 (1st): “the basis of trusting and relying upon God.”
p. 68 (2d): “We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves.”
p. 68 (3rd): “All men of faith have courage. They trust their God.”
p. 68 (4th): “We never apologize for God.”
p. 69 (1st): “We asked God to mold our ideals”
p. 69 (2d): “our sex powers were God-given and therefore good,”
p. 69 (3rd): “In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter.”
p. 69 (4th): “God alone can judge our sex situation.”
p. 70 (1st): “we let God be the final judge.”
p. 70 (2d): “have the honest desire to let God take us to better things,”
p. 71: “God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him.”
Chapter 6: Into Action—Twenty (20) occurrences
p. 72: “we have admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being,”
p. 75: “We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know Him better.”
p. 76 (1st): “Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things”
p. 76 (2d): “we ask God to help us be willing.”
p. 77 (1st): “Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God”
p. 77 (2d): “We don’t use this as an excuse for shying away from the subject of God.”
p. 80 (1st): “If we have obtained permission, have consulted with others, asked God to help”
p. 80 (2d): “He saw that he had to place the outcome in God’s hands”
p. 81: “and, God willing, it shall not be repeated.”
p. 83: “As God’s people we stand on our feet; we don’t crawl before anyone.”
p. 84 (1st): “God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”
p. 84 (2d): “When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them.”
p. 85 (1st): “we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities.”
p. 85 (2d): “To some extent we have become God-conscious.”
p. 86 (1st): “After making our review we ask God’s forgiveness”
p. 86 (2d): “we ask God to direct our thinking,”
p. 86 (3rd): “after all God gave us brains to use.”
p. 86 (4th): “Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision.”
p. 87: “Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God,”
p. 88: “So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.”
Chapter 7: Working with Others—Nine (9) occurrences
p. 93: “he does not have to agree with your conception of God.”
p. 95 (1st): “If he is to find God, the desire must come from within.”
p. 95 (2d): “We have no monopoly on God; . . .”
p. 98 (1st): “the alcoholic commences to rely upon our assistance rather than upon God.”
p. 98 (2d): “we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.”
p. 98 (3rd): “The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house.”
p. 100 (1st): “It is dependent upon his relationship with God.”
p. 100 (2d): “the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God’s hands”
p. 102: “Keep on the firing line of life with these motives and God will keep you unharmed.”
Chapter 8: To Wives—Eight (8) occurrences
p. 114: “The power of God goes deep!”
p. 116 (1st): “it opened up a path which led to the discovery of God.”
p. 116 (2d): “If God can solve the age-old riddle of alcoholism, He can solve your problems too.”
p. 116 (3rd): “But it was a silly idea that we were too good to need God.”
p. 117: “the radically changed attitude toward him which God will show you how to have.”
p. 120 (1st): “God has either removed your husband’s liquor problem or He has not.”
p. 120 (2d): “place the problem, along with everything else, in God’s hands.”
p. 121: “we say ‘Good luck and God bless you!’”
Chapter 9: The Family Afterward—Twelve (12) occurrences
p. 123: “God, they believe, almost owes this recompense on a long overdue account.”
p. 124: “in God’s hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have”
p. 128 (1st): “He may demand that the family find God in a hurry,”
p. 128 (2d): “They may be jealous of a God who has stolen dad’s affections.”
p. 128 (3rd): “God has accomplished the miracle where they failed.”
p. 128 (4th): “What about his talk that God will take care of them?”
p. 129: “now he has become a superior person with God on his side.”
p. 130 “a great sense of purpose, accompanied by a growing consciousness of the power of God in our lives.”
p. 133 (1st): “We are sure that God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free.”
p. 133 (2d): “it is clear that we made our own misery. God didn’t do it.”
p. 133 (3rd): “God has abundantly supplied this world with fine doctors,”
p. 133 (4th): “though God has wrought miracles among us,”
Chapter 10: To Employers—No (0) occurrences
Chapter 11: A Vision for You—Thirteen (13) occurrences
p. (154-)155: “His sanity returned and he thanked God.”
p. (155-)156: “face his problems squarely that God might give him mastery.”
p. 158 (1st): “I’ve prayed to God on hangover mornings”
p. 158 (2d): “‘God ought to be able to do anything.’”
p. 158 (3rd): “But he had found God”
p. 158 (4th): “and in finding God had found himself.”
p. 161: “being restored and united under one God,”
p. 162: “Many of us have felt, for the first time, the Presence and Power of God”
p. 164 (1st): “God will determine that,”
p. 164 (2d): “God will constantly disclose more to you and to us.”
p. 164 (3&4): “Abandon yourself to God as you understand God.”
p. 164 (5th): “May God bless you and keep you—until then.”
Dick B. on Recovery Blog 