–these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes.

And, for me–and, I kid you not–no amount of “slight buzz,” the type of which I chased relentlessly almost literally to the gates of hell and the jaws of the death.  The actual gate, and real jaws.

The exact satisfactions came earlier in this paragraph and the previous paragraph.  I’m no longer (not that “I” was ever doing these exact things, though surely I did my own version of all of them and still do to a lesser degree)

• striving to dominate or rule
• trying to gain self-importance
• seeking fame, honor and praise

I am now

• understanding that leadership depends on love, service, and able example
• gladly rendering service
• squarely meeting obligations

It continues on.

I’ve recently talked to two women, one who is new to the program and one who has struggled.  The new one is on work release from jail, because one of the few things she has left is her job.  The struggling one hasn’t yet lost her job.  The new one is about ten months sober.  The struggling one stops drinking for several weeks at a time, then drinks again.  Both are over 40.

I just leave these encounters with such a feeling of gratitude that I got so sick so quickly.  The work release one is optimistic.  She’s been forced into trying a life of sobriety and, as difficult as her situation is, I can whole-heartedly assure her that she is on the right path, that things were bound to get worse for her the way she was going, but that now, though it’s very difficult, things will get better.  I’m just about as sure that things will get worse for the struggling one.

The choice between a drunken-stuporous life and a spiritual existence seems so silly now.  Of course I would choose this path.  If only the other way lead to the drugged semi-consciousness I craved.  It didn’t.   It’s not like I even ever had an actual choice.

In the years since, however, most of us have come to agree with those doctors.  We have had a much keener look at ourselves and those about us.  We have seen that we were prodded by unreasonable fears or anxieties into making a life business of winning fame, money, and what we thought was leadership.  So false pride became the reverse side of that ruinous coin marked “Fear.”  We simply had to be number one people to cover up our deep-lying inferiorities.  In fitful successes we boasted of greater feats to be done; in defeat we were bitter.  If we didn’t have much of any worldly success we became depressed and cowed.  Then people said we were of the “inferior” type.  But now we see ourselves as chips off the same old block.  At heart we had all been abnormally fearful.  It mattered little whether we had sat on the shore of life drinking ourselves into forgetfulness or had plunged in recklessly and willfully beyond our depth and ability.  The result was the same–all of us had nearly perished in a sea of alcohol.

Included for completeness, and because, if I continue for a few more years, I’ll have transcribed the entire book!

Included for thoroughness, because this ain’t me.

Let’s here take note of our improved outlook upon the problems of personal importance, power, ambition, and leadership.  These were reefs upon which many of us came to shipwreck during our drinking careers.

Practically every boy in the United States dreams of becoming our President.  He wants to be his country’s number one man.  As he gets older and see the impossibility of this, he can smile good-naturedly at his childhood dream.  In later life he finds that real happiness is not to be found in just trying to be a number one man, or even a first-rater in the heartbreaking struggle for money, romance, or self-importance.  He learns that he can be content as long as he plays well whatever cards life deals him.  He’s still ambitious, but not absurdly so, because he can now see and accept actual reality.  He’s willing to stay right size.

I was more the “hide beneath the heap” kind of person.