Common Denominators

AA Thought for Today

As Bill read on [in: The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James], his own powers of reasoning helped him extract some important ideas from the weighty and intricate text. He saw that all the cases described by James had certain common denominators, despite the diverse ways in which they manifested themselves. These insights became important to Bill in his thinking about the plight of the alcoholic and his need for spiritual help. (He would later say that James, though long in his grave, had been a founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.) Of the three common denominators in the case histories, the first was calamity; each person James described had met utter defeat in some vital area of his life. All human resources had failed to solve his problems. Each person had been utterly desperate.
The next common point was admission of defeat; each of the individuals acknowledged his own defeat as utter and absolute.
The third common denominator was an appeal to a Higher Power. This cry for help could take many forms, and it might or might not be in religious terms.

-- Pass It On, pages 124-125