“Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.” (Chapter 5, Big Book)
Two phrases that have struck me recently. Firstly, someone referred to having been ‘in the madness’, and someone else said that they were ‘struggling with the language of the Big Book’. Of course I know what people mean, but I would phrase these two ideas as follows:
I would say not that I was in the madness but that the madness was in me.
I would say not that I was struggling with the language of the Big Book but that I was struggling with my intolerance.
My ego will always see the problem as outside. It is not. It is inside.