Reflections For Every Day - August

[yukonm]

August 5

Today's Thought:

I told my sponsor I'd never do any of the amends ... that changing my attitudes and behaviors was just going to have to do. Wrong! She laughed at me and said I'd do just fine if I relaxed and waited for opportunities to pop up.

Submitted By:

Rose

[yukonm]

August 6

Today's Thought:

No one gives up their religious freedom when they walk into a 12 step meeting, and no one asks them to either. We just share what worked for us.

Submitted By:

Buddy

[yukonm]

August 7

Today's Thought:

The program has given me so many blessings in my life, just the ability and the humility to recognize when I am being self-righteous is a gift. I never could when I was drinking.

Submitted By:

Becky

[yukonm]

August 8

Today's Thought:

I did not even take the time to write it down. I just hunted people down and apologized ... sincerely to them. I found it impossible to not immediately apologize to all of those I could find on my list as soon as I could get in touch with them.

Submitted By:

Mascot

[yukonm]

August 9

Today's Thought:

Hearing others share their experience gave real life examples of what they were going through. They shared how they found solutions through working the steps and pointed out excerpts in the Big Book that guided them to those solutions. And, finally the hope of staying sober one day at a time, the happy, peaceful and productive days I had to look forward to if I just didn't drink that day.

Submitted By:

[yukonm]

August 10

Today's Thought:

The tough part for me on the fourth step is just recognizing and accepting things and then understanding that I have to change myself. This is character building. I have learned too that God places me in circumstances and places that will challenge me to change the way I handle those circumstances.

Submitted By:

Carolyn

[yukonm]

August 11

Today's Thought:

Well, because I didn't take it "seriously." I turned from an "entry level" alcoholic into a "professional" alcoholic. I do attend meetings now. I work the 12 steps. I spoke three times in my first meetings and all I want to say it "Thank God" for sobriety

Submitted By:

George

[yukonm]

August 12

My sponsor and I are not close friends. We do nothing together but 12 step meetings and 12 step work. We are almost completely opposite. We do not travel in the same circles. We are of very different ages and backgrounds. The only things we have in common are the 12 steps, we are both women, and we live in the same town. I am starting to like her as I get to know her better, but the only thing I knew about her when I asked her to help me is that she had something I wanted.

Submitted By:

Mascot

[yukonm]

August 13

Today's Thought:

If the disease concept doesn't work for you, let it go. No one says you have to believe anything. More importantly, I have found that the 'whys' of my drinking were interesting, but irrelevant. What I needed was some practical tools for permanent sobriety. That I found in the 12 steps.

Submitted By:

Oaktree

[yukonm]

August 14

Today's Thought:

I see a character strength I truly admire in someone else. I'd like to have it for my own. I have no foggy clue what it feels like nor looks like to act in that manner. So? I act as if I already have that strength and see how it works. In time, it'll either be discarded or become part of me. The belief has now followed the act.

Submitted By:

Rose

[yukonm]

August 15

Today's Thought:

It's okay today for me to make one decision and if it turns out the be the wrong one back up and apply the Step 10 principle and admit it was wrong and get it right the next time. Just for today I don't have to be perfect.

Submitted By:

Buddy

[yukonm]

August 16

Today's Thought:

I halfheartedly started working the steps, pretty much because I didn't know what else to do, and somewhere along the line it hit me: I was an alcoholic, just like everyone else in AA. The fact that I hid it well didn't change the facts.

Submitted By:

Claire

[yukonm]

August 17

Today's Thought:

My sponsor reminded me more than once, "You have no guilt or glory in someone else's sobriety". In other words, I can't get a person drunk nor can I get them sober.

Submitted By:

Magic

[yukonm]

August 18

Today's Thought:

Friendship is fine, however, sponsorship is another thing. I can sponsor some people and never be friends with them. On the other hand I have life long friends that I have sponsored.

Submitted By:

Richard

[yukonm]

August 19

Today's Thought:

The first step has always been the one that I have always looked at as my favorite. It was the first time I was ever honest with me or anyone else. When I did look at that step, I thought, gee how simple, how come I never thought about that?

Submitted By:

Skip

[yukonm]

August 20

Today's Thought:

Today I know that I am an addict through and through and my disease will latch onto anything self destructive. I am doing my best to work through my underlying issues, to accept painful challenges and to continue to do the next right thing.

Submitted By:

Lake Ladey

[yukonm]

August 21

Today's Thought:

I started Al-Anon when he was in the hospital and I found it to be a big help. Before I wouldn't go anywhere especially with him. I just sat here and worried about him, his job and our marriage. Now I do what I want.

Submitted By:

Diane

[yukonm]

August 22

Today's Thought:

"Cured" of alcoholism would mean that I could go drink like a NON alcoholic. I do not believe that I am "cured". However, I AM "recovered" in the sense that I am not driven to take that first drink today, nor have I been for some time.

Submitted By:

Jeff

[yukonm]

August 23

Today's Thought:

When I first came into the program I basically traded one addiction for another. You know, just another way of running. It wasn't until after multiple relapses that I was finally able to confront all the issues, and I mean all of them!

Submitted By:

Magic

[yukonm]

August 24

Today's Thought:

On his death bed he admitted to his daughter that he was an alcoholic and had tried to stop drinking for years but couldn't and could not go to AA. The disease of alcoholism (not the drinking) is powerful, baffling and uncontrollable. The disease is what controlled his anger, his fears, not him.

Submitted By:

Edie

[yukonm]

August 25

Today's Thought:

When my fiancee got killed by a drunk driver, I did what we alcoholics do DRINK. After 8 months of drinking I asked GOD for help. He did, but first I had to thoroughly believe I was powerless over alcohol. Today, seven years later, when I am asked by others to help them take the steps, I state how important that first half of the 1st step is, and how thoroughly it must be done.

Submitted By:

Nury

[yukonm]

August 26

Today's Thought:

One friend would have had 30 years this year but he chose to take his life, as a result of the misery that drinking brought back into his life. I have been coming regularly for 11 years now, and am finding that even though at times, I feel it's a job to make myself go, meetings are more and more important to my maintaining continuous sobriety.

Submitted By:

Miss S.

[yukonm]

August 27

Today's Thought:

He needed nine more years of sobriety, relapse, sobriety, relapse before he attained continuous sobriety and today he's got 15.5 years. I can smile and say God Bless him now but I sure couldn't do that years ago. Notice that I said "he needed" those nine in-out years? I think it's what had to happen for him to realize how much more he needed sobriety than addiction.
Once he was finally brought to his knees, he was able to grab and hang onto the program. It took what it took and today I'm quite proud of him.

Submitted By:

Rose R.

[yukonm]

August 27

AA 'Big Book' - Quote

The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, 'It won't burn me this time, so here's how!' Or perhaps he doesn't think at all. How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way, and after the third or fourth, pounded on the bar and said to ourselves, 'For God's sake, how did I ever get started again?' Only to have that thought supplanted by 'Well, I'll stop with the sixth drink.' Or 'What's the use anyhow?'
When this sort of thinking is fully established in an individual with alcoholic tendencies, he has probably placed himself beyond human aid, and unless locked up, may die or go permanently insane. These stark and ugly facts have been confirmed by legions of alcoholics throughout history. But for the grace of God, there would have been thousands more convincing demonstrations. So many want to stop but cannot. - Pgs. 24-25 - There Is A Solution

Hour To Hour - Book - Quote

Many times in beginning sobriety, we have absolutely insane thoughts and feelings! But remember that transformation and insanity often intersect. The process of change is fraught with ambiguity--as long as you don't use, you're OK.

As long as God is running my life, my insanities will be used for the highest good of all and are nothing to be afraid of.

Trauma

This disease is traumatizing. It is shocking. It takes away my sense of normal. It makes people I love unpredictable and scary. It undermines my trust and faith in an orderly and predictable world and in my primary relationships. The earth beneath me feels unsolid, shaky and unreliable. And when I feel like this, I want to hold on tighter, to control, to fix and pin things down so I won't have to feel this way any more. Today I will accept these feelings as natural and I will breath through them and give them space to move through me knowing that there is a new kind of solidity growing daily within me. The power of presence.

- Tian Dayton PhD

Pocket Sponsor - Book - Quote

Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen To Good People said that pain is the price we pay for being alive. So instead of wondering why we feel pain, more correctly we should ask, 'What can I do to make my pain mean something more than suffering?'

A No Pain; No Gain/Know Pain; Know Gain

"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

If you're not getting mad at meetings, you're not going to enough meetings.

Time for Joy - Book - Quote

Today I am discovering who I am. Today I am becoming my person, worthy of developing all of me. Today I am beginning to know that I am okay just the way I am.

Alkiespeak - Book - Quote

I never went to bed with an ugly woman/man, but I sure woke up with a few.- Bobby Bare song.

[yukonm]

August 28

Today's Thought:

First few years was just dry. When I begin to study the BB and practice the steps, I got sober. My wife described my dryness as "stark raving sobriety" and how right she was. My 4 children had there own description.
However, today, I have 16 grand children and 3 great grand children, and 1 more on the way. Today, we are a "family unit" for the first time! That too, by the grace of God.

Submitted By:

Corky

[yukonm]

August 29

Today's Thought:

When you pretended to believe in God, it was like dialing a phone number while the receiver was still on the hook. But you got through anyway. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Submitted By:

GEM

[yukonm]

August 30

Today's Thought:

The tough part for me on the fourth step is just recognizing and accepting things and then understanding that I have to change myself. This is character building. I have learned too that God places me in circumstances and places that will challenge me to change the way I handle those circumstances.

Submitted By:

Carolyn

[yukonm]

August 31

Today's Thought:

I love to get up on Monday mornings or Sunday knowing I did not binge and feeling alive and alert. I love to listen to soothing music and smell the air in the mornings without a hangover and the headaches. I love being myself again. It is not easy the first few miles, but when you get there it is wonderful.

Submitted By:

Pam