"To return to the subject matter of this book: It contains full suggestions by which the employee may solve his problem. To you, some of the ideas which it contains are novel. Perhaps you are not quite in sympathy with the approach we suggest. By no means do we offer it as the last word on this subject, but so far as we are concerned, it has worked with us. After all, are you not looking for results rather than methods?" pg 144 To the Employers
Results, rather than methods.
At the time of my bottom in April of 2014, if someone would have offered me a pill or a free stint in a rehab instead of having to walk the hour it took to get to my first AA meeting at a church and then ask a complete stranger to sponsor me, I would have honestly taken them up on the offer. The truth is that I had nowhere else to go-I had finally ran out of road and AA was indeed the last house on the block.
In that state of surrender I really wasn't spending too much time or energy protesting the methodology of the program, "offensive" wording, whether God was a man or woman, or if AA was ensuring everyones ideas were being accounted for....I was dying, and when one is dying, one doesn't care about that stuff.
I needed results so I took the suggestions in all earnestness that I was capable of at the time-and again, I had run out of options, so your way was it for me and I was gonna have to fit myself to that, and not the other way around. If I didn't like the suggestions, the words or the method-"bye" or, in less offensive terms "keep coming back".
We never claimed to be the only answer, but this way is AA, which is why we are currently in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and not somewhere else using another method or modality.God is our method-and we don't care what that looks like or is for you-and I am grateful for that.I am grateful every single day.
I am grateful I reached the low I did and that those other options were not available to me.I am grateful that the issue of my alcoholism wasn't confused with outside issues that could deter or distract me from your primary purpose which was to carry a message to me. I am also grateful that there are other options available to those that seek them.