How it Works (Continued)
J: He was faced with the task of writing the foundation of the book, the recovery program (see A. A. Comes of Age p. 160). He felt very inadequate that night as he began this. He said, as the story goes, he laid in his bed with a pad and a pencil. He knew that he had to really get into this now. He just couldn't get the job done. He laid down his pad and his pencil for a while, and he paused.
He had a period of prayer and meditation, and asked God for strength and (to) give him some directions in writing how It works. What we read, and we read it a lot in all our meetings. After a short period of time of prayer he picked up his pad and his pencil. In thirty minutes he wrote... the portion of How It Works which we read in our meetings including the Twelve Steps.
And Charlie--we usually read that original version of the manuscript as Bill (wrote) it. We'll talk a little bit about how we got our version, that came from that. So we'll--
Charlie's going to read from the original manuscript the way Bill wrote it the first night.
C: Now, Bill in his own word. said that after this period of prayer and meditation that
night, that he picked up the pencil. He said it seemed as though the pencil had a mind of its own. He began to write. In
approximately twenty to thirty minutes, he wrote this How It Works. It's going to be a little bit different than what's in your book. This is the How It Works, the original manuscript, before the other members got hold of it. (laughter) And before any changes were made in it. (See "Pass It On, "pp. 198-199)
