"A New Pair of Glasses" was a term initially coined by a guy (Dr Paul) in his story "Doctor, Addict, Alcoholic" or I think it's called "Acceptance is The Answer" in the fourth edition (I still have 4 copies of the third edtion, so I don't know) and in it he describes the change of perception Sobriety brought to him, he talked about how he used to focus on his wife's bad qualities, and they grew and grew and she shrunk and shrunk until that was all he could see, until he started remembering and focusing on her good qualities, and they grew and grew and grew, and so did she under postive reinforcement, it was like he was given "A new Pair of Glasses" to see his wife with, and she then "became" that person

A guy named Chuck C had one of his "talks" turned into a book, and he used it as the entire basis of his talk, how he sat in the same chair for years and lived in hell, and he used to ask people what they saw when they sat in that chair, and he realized that no one saw the same thing he did, so he realized that even sitting in the same chair, from the same viewpoint, what he saw was simply a matter of perception, and after he got sober, he would sit in that chair, and he was in heaven, he never had it so good.

Same chair, Same Wife, two different perceptions

It has been said that no one is too stupid to "get" this program, but many are "too smart"

The reason for that is if we are "too smart" we reject the idea that our perceptions may be wrong, we are smart, we know A+B=B+A and that Pi is 3.14 etc but what we don't realize is we are ruled by our perceptions, by what we focus on, our skills in analysis are very very good, but what we don't realize is we are putting the "wrong values" in our initial assessment of A and B, so no matter how we try to change the equation, we keep getting the same answer because we keep using the same variables, we literally don't realize there is an infinite number of variables we aren't seeing we have been focused on the negative for so long it rules our lives in ways we don't even understand, and if someone puts forth the idea we have untrained minds, undisciplined minds, we "poopoo" the idea and state how smart we are.

Nothing wrong with out powers of deductive reasoning, it's our perceptions that are shot to hell when we get to AA, and we cling to them because they are what we have known our entire life

If, for example, we go to a dinner, and someone says, "heeey, long time no see, gained some weight huh?" that is what we focus on, that is what we walk away with, if someone asks us about the dinner we say "so and so was an ass, he said X,Y, Z"

When we walk into a room there are thousands of details, but we only notice what we WANT to notice, our mind literally picks up every detail, a policeman for example is trained to recite 1000's of details from a single short observation, or we can bring it back under hypnosis, but we notice if it is dirty, if the curtains are ugly, if there are dirty dishes on the table, if there is a picture we like or don't like, but we don't really see the room, we only see part of it

Before we work the steps we do the same things with our lives, we have untrained minds that focus on the negative, compliments bounce off us and are deflected yet the smallest dig can hurt and damage us for years.

That is why we stress the steps as being so incredibly important, they change our entire perception of the world around us, they show us a world we can live in and be comfortable in our own skin. They give us a new pair of glasses. This why it's recomended we do the steps and run all our "problems" through the newly discovered grid while checking with other people.

We caused all of our own problems with our "old thinking" so we can't use that same thinking to solve the problems it causes, we need outside observors, and we need a new pair of glasses to view our reality

I will give an example from my own life, I have recently begun "dating" and I have talked to many women who are angry and bitter because they haven't met "the one", and it colors their entire perception of men, they view all men as "pass" or "fail" as a possible mate, so therefore stop even viewing these men as human beings, just as potential mates

I, on the other hand, have had a -blast-, I have had many experiences, one date I blew so badly the woman ran out like she was shot out of a cannon, I can't tell the story here, but I laughed so hard I had tears running down my face, I have met many wonderful people and have had a ton of great experiences, even the so-called "bad dates" make me smile, because I have no expectations, and the good dates have been a blast, I haven't made any "love connection" and thats OK, I have been to many great restaurants, seen a ton of movies, been on some great walks, seen some great museums, made some good friends, got any number of massages, and even had my ashes hauled a number of times.

I can view this as a "failure" because I haven't met the great love of my life, or I can view this as a series of really fun experiences, which they are

here are 2 examples, one I posted recently, but they -kind of- explain this change in our perception that we are trying to impart to the newcomer