Bill W. becomes willing to believe. 12:9-19
My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?
That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. It stood in the sunlight at last.
It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. I saw that growth could start form that point. Upon a foundation of complete willingness I might build what I saw in my friend. Would I have it? Of course I would!
The melting of our own “icy intellectual mountains” allows us to move away from an intellectual conception of our Higher Power to direct conscious contact with this Power. The authors are not asking “blind faith” of us. They are not saying “believe this and you will be all right.” They are merely asking us to try this new way of living, which begins with a willingness to look in a spiritual direction and see for ourselves if it works or not.
An intellectual understanding of spiritual matters does not equal the vital spiritual experience we require to overcome alcoholism. Our very best thinking got us where we are now. We seek direct personal experience with our Higher Power through working the twelve steps.