The treatment center gave me a copy of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. I started reading the latter because it was smaller and I wanted to experience a sense of accomplishment sooner than later.
I’m not sure how many times I have read these two books; I keep them handy. But, I continue to read as much as I can about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and its history, including As Bill Sees It, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, Came to Believe, Living Sober, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, Pass It On, A New Pair of Glasses, Drop the Rock, A.A. in Prison, The Little Red Book, The Language of the Heart, Back to Basics, The Soul of Sponsorship, This Is Bill, and Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous.
In the spirit of the Bill Wilson and Carl Jung letters (Grapevine, 1963) see below:
Reading:
- Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy: An Interpretation of the Great Mystics, East and West
- Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God & the Spiritual Maxims
- The Book of Privy Counseling
- Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul
- Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
- Charles Baudouin, The Myth of Modernity
- The Cloud of Unknowing
- Edwin Diller Starbuck, The Psychology of Religion, an Empirical Study of the Growth of Religious Consciousness
- Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
- Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning
- Gerald Heard, Pain, Sex and Time: A New Outlook on Evolution and the Future of Man
- Huston Smith, The World’s Religions
- Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius
- Jonathan Star (trans.), Tao Te Ching
- Joseph Pieper, The Silence of St. Thomas
- Juan Mascaro (trans.), The Upanishads
- Ken Wilber, A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality
- Miguel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life
- N. K. Sanders (trans.), The Epic of Gilgamesh
- Paul Elmer More, The Religion of Plato
- Robert Kegan, In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life
- Roger Walsh, Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind
- S. Radhakrishnan, An Idealist View of Life
- Steven Kotler, West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief
- Thich Naht Hanh, Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles 1
- Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu
- Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
- Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Faith and Belief: The Difference Between Them
- Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Belief and History
- William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
Listening:
Anthony DeMello, Wake Up To Life
Father Terry, Powerlessness & Insanity (Courtesy of Sobercast)