bluidkiti
05-07-2023, 08:46 AM
God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
and Wisdom to know the difference.
Thy will, not mine, be done.
May 8
Daily Reflections
A RESTING PLACE
All of A.A.'s Twelve Steps ask us to go contrary to our natural
desires . . . they all deflate our egos. When it comes to ego
deflation, few Steps are harder to take than Five. But scarcely
any Step is more necessary to longtime sobriety and peace of
mind than this one.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 55
After writing down my character defects, I was unwilling to
talk about them, and decided it was time to stop carrying this
burden alone. I needed to confess those defects to someone else.
I had read - and been told - I could not stay sober unless I
did. Step Five provided me with a feeling of belonging, with
humility and serenity when I practiced it in my daily living.
It was important to admit my defects of character in the order
presented in Step Five: "to God, to ourselves and to another
human being." Admitting to God first paved the way for admission
to myself and to another person . As the taking of the Step is
described, a feeling of being at one with God and my fellow man
brought me to a resting place where I could prepare myself for
the remaining Steps toward a full and meaningful sobriety.
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Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
I'm grateful that I found a program in A.A. that could keep me
sober. I'm grateful that A.A. has shown me the way to faith in
a Higher Power, because the renewing of that faith has changed
my way of life. And I've found a happiness and contentment that
I had forgotten existed, by simply believing in God and trying
to live the kind of a life that I know He wants me to live. As
long as I stay grateful, I'll stay sober. Am I in a grateful
frame of mind?
Meditation For The Day
God can work through you better when you are not hurrying. Go
very slowly, very quietly, from one duty to the next, taking
time to rest and pray between. Do not be too busy. Take
everything in order. Venture often into the rest of God and
you will find peace. At work that results from resting with
God is good work. Claim the power to work miracles in human
lives. Know that you can do many things through the Higher
Power. Know that you can do good things through God who rests
you and gives you strength. Partake regularly of rest and
prayer.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may not be in too much of a hurry. I pray that
I may take time out often to rest with God.
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As Bill Sees It
Back To Work, p. 128
It is possible for us to use the alleged dishonesty of other people as a
plausible excuse for not meeting our own obligations.
Once, some prejudiced friends exhorted me never to go back to Wall
Street. They were sure that the rampant materialism and
double-dealing down there would stunt my spiritual growth. Because
this sounded so high-minded, I continued to stay away from the only
business that I knew.
When, finally, my household went broke, I realized I hadn't been able
to face the prospect of going back to work. So I returned to Wall
Street, and I have ever since been glad that I did. I needed to
rediscover that there are many fine people in New York's financial
district. Then, too, I needed the experience of staying sober in the
very surroundings where alcohol had cut me down.
A Wall Street business trip to Akron, Ohio, first brought me face to
face with Dr. Bob. So the birth of A.A. hinged on my effort to meet
my bread-and-butter responsibilities.
Grapevine, August 1961
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Walk in Dry Places
Regrets over roads not taken
Releasing the past.
Looking back, every one of us can point to moment when we made choices that helped set the course of our lives. It’s easy to waste time and energy wondering what our lives would have been like if other choices had been made at these critical points.
Such thinking is mostly a waste of time and may reflect dissatisfaction with our lives today. Whatever our past mistakes, the decisions we made that brought us sobriety were the correct ones. Realizing this, many of us even come to feel gratitude for the problem that brought us into the program.
We are never able to say with certainty that different choices made earlier in life would have been better in the long run. Bill W., an AA co-founder, said that a business setback moved him to make the calls that led him to Dr. Bob, the other co-founder. Had his business venture succeeded, it’s doubtful that Bill would have been thinking about helping another alcoholic.
The best choice any of us can make is to turn such maters and questions over to our Higher Power. We have a duty to do the best we can with today’s opportunities and conditions.
I'll live today in the present. The good experiences from the past are always with me, and I can benefit from any lessons learned by my mistakes.
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Keep It Simple
The only way to speak truth is to speak lovingly.---Thoreau
Recovery teaches us to tell the truth. We must be honest if we want to save our lives. We must learn to speak with care---care for ourselves and for others. To be honest means to speak in a fair and truthful way. To be honest and loving means learning when to speak, and how to speak, in a caring way. We can help others by honestly telling them what we think and feel and see---but only when we do this with love. We must be careful when we speak. Speaking the truth is like using a sharp knife---it can be used for good, or it can be used to hurt others. We should never handle it carelessly of use it to hurt someone.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me know the truth. Help me speak the truth to others with love.
Action for the Day: I'll make a list of three times I've hurt someone be being honest, but not with love. I'll also list three times I've helped someone by being truthful, with love.
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Each Day a New Beginning
The battle to keep up appearances unnecessarily, the mask--whatever name you give creeping perfectionism--robs us of our energies. --Robin Worthington
How familiar we are with trying to be women other than ourselves; ones more exciting, we think, or sexier, or smarter. We have probably devoted a great deal of energy to this over the years. It's likely that we are growing more content with ourselves now. However, aren't there still situations in which we squirm, both because we want to project a different image, and because we resent our desire to do so?
We each have been blessed with unique qualities. There is no other woman just like ourselves. We each have special features that are projected in only one way, the way we alone project them.
Knowing that we are perfect as we are is knowledge that accompanies recovery. How much easier life is, how much more can be gained from each moment, when we meet each experience in the comfort of our real selves. The added gift of simply being ourselves is that we'll really hear, see, and understand others for the first time in our lives.
I can only fully focus on one thing, one person at a time. I will free my focus from myself today and be filled up by my experiences with others.
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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition
Foreword To Second Edition
Figures given in this foreword describe the Fellowship as it was in 1955.
Our Society then entered a fearsome and exciting adolescent period. The test that it faced was this: Could these large numbers of erstwhile erratic alcoholics successfully meet and work together? Would there be quarrels over membership, leadership and money? Would there be strivings for power and prestige? Would there be schisms which would split A.A. apart? Soon A.A. was beset by these very problems on every side and in every group. But out of this frightening and at first disrupting experience the conviction grew that A.A.'s had to hang together or die separately. We had to unify our Fellowship or pass off the scene.
pp. xviii-xix
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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories
GROUNDED - Alcohol clipped this pilot's wings until sobriety and hard work brought him back to the sky.
I also learned I was going to federal prison. The sentence was mandatory if convicted, and there was no doubt in my mind that I would be. With nothing left, I dedicated myself to learning about recovery. I fervently believed that the key to my sobriety, and hence my survival, lay in the power of all I was being taught, and I spent no idle moments in treatment. I worked as hard as I had worked to earn my wings, but this time my life was at stake. I struggled to regain a spiritual connection as I underwent one legal crisis after another.
p. 525
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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Step Twelve - "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."
But not so with alcoholics. When A.A. was quite young, a number of eminent psychologists and doctors made an exhaustive study of a good-sized group of so-called problem drinkers. The doctors weren't trying to find how different we were from one another; they sought to find whatever personality traits, if any, this group of alcoholics had in common. They finally came up with a conclusion that shocked the A.A. members of that time. These distinguished men had the nerve to say that most of the alcoholics under investigation were still childish, emotionally sensitive, and grandiose.
pp. 122-123
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Remember To Live Your Life Today
Today is a beautiful day to be alive, to be the person you are. A beautiful
day, simply, to be. Don't waste energy trying to possess or control. Don't
let yourself be burdened by things that have happened in the past. Don't
worry about being "right," or about impressing anyone.
Focus instead on creating things that have never before existed. On
adding value to the lives of others. On finding ways to express the unique
person that you are. Feel good by simply deciding to, rather than by
abusing yourself or others. Look at everything that happens as an
opportunity for growth.
Accept and be thankful for the abundance that is yours. Dust off your
dreams and find a way to follow them. Life is precious and beautiful.
Every breath you take is an opportunity to live life to the fullest.
--Ralph S. Marston, Jr.
"Today, I will relax. I am being prepared. I can let go of timing. I can stop manipulating outcomes. Good things will happen when the time is right, and they will happen naturally."
--Melody Beattie
"We find comfort among those who agree with us; growth among those who don't."
--Frank A. Clark
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Father Leo's Daily Meditation
HONESTY
"Where is there dignity unless
there is honesty?"
--Marcus Cicero
The cornerstone of my life today is honesty. It is the quality I most desire
in my life because I believe that with honesty comes a knowledge of God,
self and relationships. It is the key to my recovery from addiction. It is
the key to the meaning of spirituality. Honesty affords me hope for
tomorrow.
As an alcoholic I was a dishonest man. I was not just dishonest because
I told lies and manipulated the truth, I was dishonest because I refused
to risk the journey into self. My dishonesty was not about what I said but
what I did not say! Not so much about what I did but what I did not do.
My dishonesty stopped me from discovering my God-given dignity.
Today I risk the journey into self and I am discovering more about God
"as I understand Him". My level of honesty helps me to be happy and
relaxed with who I am today.
"Be still and know that I am God." In the silence of self-honesty may I
know myself.
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O LORD my God, I cried out to You, And You healed me.
Psalm 30:2
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to
God.
Philippians 4:6
. . .the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace."
Romans 8:6
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Daily Inspiration
When we want things around us to change, the best place to start in within ourselves. Lord, grant that my frustrations can be a motivation to better myself and my environment.
Tragedy and suffering often opens the soul to the heights of spiritual growth. Lord, let the hardships of my life be my prayer and work to draw You closer and closer.
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NA Just For Today
Teachable
"We have learned that it is okay to not know all the answers, for then we are teachable and can learn to live our new life successfully."
Basic Text, p. 93
In a way, addiction is a great teacher. And if addiction teaches us nothing else, it will teach us humility. We hear it said that it took our very best thinking to get to NA. Now that we're here, we're here to learn.
The NA Fellowship is a wonderful learning environment for the recovering addict. We aren't made to feel stupid at meetings. Instead, we find others who've been exactly where we've been and who've found a way out. All we have to do is admit that we don't have all the answers, then listen as others share what's worked for them.
As recovering addicts and as human beings, we have much to learn. Other addicts—and other humans—have much to teach us about what works and what doesn't. As long as we remain teachable, we can take advantage of the experience of others.
Just for today: I will admit that I don't have all the answers. I will look and listen to the experience of others for the answers I need.
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You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
Talking little, and with the low, tender part of our voices, as in nodding to one who already knows what you mean. --Tess Gallagher
Once there was a small child whose only word was no. When she wanted to indicate yes, she nodded her head emphatically. What she liked to do instead of talk was play. She liked to play outside in the meadow with the bugs and rocks and plants.
The mullein was her favorite plant. She rubbed the soft, furry leaves across her cheek. Her mother told her that in the old days, American Indians used these leaves as bandages. Several years later, Lucy picked a mullein leaf and took it in the house to her mother. "Look, Mama. Indian owee."
We, too, can remember some surprising things from the dim past, before we could talk or understand all that went on around us. Communication does not always depend on words alone but on the tenderness with which they are spoken. Walking through the world in a tender, loving way is a form of communication that goes beyond words to our deepest feelings.
What are some of the ways we show our love without words?
You are reading from the book Touchstones.
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them. --Oscar Wilde
The mature man eventually forgives his parents. Any adult can look back and see childhood wrongs and unfairness. Many of us were disappointed by our parents, even neglected or hurt by them. We certainly didn't get all we wanted or needed. Yet, upon joining the ranks of grown men and women, we become responsible for ourselves. Every situation has limited choices, and we work with what we've got. As adults, we realize this is exactly where our parents were when we were children. They, too, were born into an imperfect world and had to do the best they could.
When we can forgive our parents, we are free to accept them as they are, as we might a friend. We can accept them, enjoy the relationship, and forget about collecting old debts. Making peace with them imparts to us the strengths of previous generations and helps us be more at peace with ourselves.
I pray for the maturity and the wisdom to be more forgiving of my parents.
You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
The battle to keep up appearances unnecessarily, the mask--whatever name you give creeping perfectionism--robs us of our energies. --Robin Worthington
How familiar we are with trying to be women other than ourselves; ones more exciting, we think, or sexier, or smarter. We have probably devoted a great deal of energy to this over the years. It's likely that we are growing more content with ourselves now. However, aren't there still situations in which we squirm, both because we want to project a different image, and because we resent our desire to do so?
We each have been blessed with unique qualities. There is no other woman just like ourselves. We each have special features that are projected in only one way, the way we alone project them.
Knowing that we are perfect as we are is knowledge that accompanies recovery. How much easier life is, how much more can be gained from each moment, when we meet each experience in the comfort of our real selves. The added gift of simply being ourselves is that we'll really hear, see, and understand others for the first time in our lives.
I can only fully focus on one thing, one person at a time. I will free my focus from myself today and be filled up by my experiences with others.
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Giving Ourselves What We Deserve
I worked at a good job, making a decent salary. I had been recovering for years. Each morning, I got into my car and I thanked God for the car. The heater didn't work. And the chance of the car not starting was almost as great as the chance that it would. I just kept suffering through, and thanking God. One day, it occurred to me that there was absolutely no good reason I couldn't buy myself a new car - that moment - if I wanted one. I had been gratitude-ing myself into unnecessary deprivation and martyrdom. I bought the new car - that day. --Anonymous
Often, our instinctive reaction to something we want or need, No! I can't afford it!
The question we can learn to ask ourselves is, But, can I?
Many of us have learned to habitually deprive ourselves of anything we might want, and often things we need.
Sometimes, we can misuse the concept of gratitude to keep ourselves unnecessarily deprived.
Gratitude for what we have is an important recovery concept. So is believing we deserve the best and making an effort to stop depriving ourselves and start treating ourselves well.
There is nothing wrong with buying ourselves what we want when we can afford to do that. Learn to trust and listen to yourself about what you want. There's nothing wrong with buying yourself a treat, buying yourself something new.
There are times when it is good to wait. There are times when we legitimately cannot afford a luxury. But there are many times when we can.
Today, I will combine the principles of gratitude for what I have with the belief that I deserve the best. If there is no good reason to deprive myself, I wont.
I am letting go of all self-criticism today and changing all my judging thoughts to thoughts of love. I am becoming softer and more gentle and accepting of myself, making more space to feel joy and love. --Ruth Fishel
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Journey to the Heart
Love Yourself
No matter what, love yourself.
Love yourself, even if it feels like the world around you is irked with you, even if it feels like those you’ve counted on most have gone away, even if you wonder if God has abandoned you.
When it feels like the journey has stopped, the magic is gone, and you’ve been left sitting on the curb, love yourself. When you’re confused and angry about how things are going or how they’ve gone, love yourself. No matter what happens or where you are, love yourself. No matter if you aren’t certain where you’re going or if there’s anyplace left to go, love yourself.
This situation will change, this time will pass, and the magic will return. So will joy and faith. You will feel connected again– to yourself, God, the universe, and life. But the first thing to do is love yourself. And all the good you want will follow.
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More Language Of Letting Go
Say when something triggers you
How do you defend yourself when you feel angry and hurt?
When Sally was a child, she lived with disturbed parents. They said mean, hurtful things to her much of the time. She wasn’t allowed to say anything back, and she especially wasn’t allowed to say how angry and hurt she felt.
“The only way I could deal with anger was by going numb and telling myself I didn’t care– that the relationship wasn’t important,” Sally said. “Then I carried this behavior into my adult life. I learned to just go cold when I felt angry or hurt. I automatically shut down and pushed people away. One hint of feeling hurt or angry, and boom– I was gone.”
It’s important to know our boundaries. It’s even more important not to allow people to be reckless with our hearts. It’s also important to know how hurt and anger trigger our defenses.
Do you have an instant reaction, not to other people, but to your own feelings of being betrayed, hurt, or angered? Do you shut down? Lose your self-esteem? Do you “go away” from yourself or others? Do you counterattack?
Feelings of hurt and anger will arise in the course of most relationships. Sometimes when we feel that way, it’s a warning that we need to beware. Other times it’s a minor incident, something that can be worked out. You may have needed to protect yourself once, a long time ago. But now it’s okay to be vulnerable and let yourself feel what you feel.
Say when something triggers you and learn how you defend yourself.
God, help me become aware of how I protect myself when I feel hurt, angry, and attacked. Give me the courage to be vulnerable and learn new ways of taking care of myself.
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The Power Within
Energy 101 by Madisyn Taylor
Energy cannot be destroyed, but it be changed and transformed.
There is an undercurrent of energy thrumming through the Universe. Like the wind or a whisper, we can sometimes hear it and often feel it. Most of the time, we sense this energy unconsciously without any tangible proof it is really there. Thoughts, emotions, and the life force in all living things are forms of this kind of energy. So are creativity, growth, and change. The impressions, images, and vague premonitions we get about people and situations are other examples of formless energy. When you enter a space and feel an “intangible tension” in the air that gives you a sense of foreboding in your gut, what you are likely experiencing is energy.
Energy cannot be destroyed, but it can be transformed or transferred from one person, thing, or source to another. Though energy is formless, it does take form and shape in the way it flows and resides within all things: a grain of sand, a bird, a stone, and an ocean wave. Living things radiate complex vibrations while nonliving things’ vibrations are simpler. Energy is a magnifier that can attract like energies while repelling disparate ones. Many of our reactions to people and circumstances are based on unconscious reactions to their energies. We may even intuitively tune into the energy of a situation we are facing when making a decision about how to proceed. With careful practice and meditation, we can learn to sense the energy within other living things and ourselves. We can also become more attuned to how we are impacted by different kinds of energy. For instance, being around too many energies can leave one person feeling edgy or excited, while another person will fe! el tired and drained.
While some people feel that energy can be controlled, others see it is as the unknowable force that moves through all things. The combined energy in all things plays a hand in birth, death, growth, movement, and stillness. Practitioners of Aikido believe that all living beings share a common energy source that is our life force. Whatever your beliefs, it is worthwhile to explore the roles energy plays in your life so you can understand it more fully. Published with permission from Daily OM
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A Day At A Time
Reflection For The Day
I’ve learned in The Program that I need not apologize to anyone for depending upon God as I understand Him. In fact, I now have good reason to disbelieve those who think spirituality is the way of weakness. For me, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that men and women of faith seldom lack courage. they trust their God. So I never apologize for my belief in Him, but, instead, I try to let Him demonstrate, through me and those around me, what He can do. Do I walk as I talk?
Today I Pray
May my faith be confirmed as I see how God has worked through others since the beginning of time. May I see that the brave ones, the miracle-workers, the happy people are those who have professed their spirituality. May I see, even now as I look around, how God works through those who believe in Him.
Today I Will Remember
To Watch God at Work.
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One More Day
Leisure is the most challenging responsibility a man can be offered.
– William Russell
We are a work-oriented society. As children, we were taught to do our homework and the chores. We may have “played house” or pretended we were “going to work.”
Play, therefor, can be a real challenge, especially for adults. Keyed up from a day in the work force or a day coping with the rigors of illness or pain, we can hardly settle down when busy thoughts crowd our consciousness. Leisure time can be a burden to us if we don’t’ know how to creatively fill it.
Regardless of what our job is, at home or away, we can learn to set it aside when work is over. Playtime should become sacred, for it’s a special time when we feed our need to be carefree and spontaneous.
Using my leisure time for play will keep me healthier, mentally and physically.
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Food For Thought
Fake Pride
Our pride often gets in the way of our recovery. Not the good kind of pride, the self-respect which belongs to all of us as God's children, but the false pride is what trips us up.
We are falsely proud when we think we can "go it alone," when we recognize no authority higher than our own ego. We are falsely proud when we refuse to ask for help or follow directions. False pride is involved whenever we consider ourselves better than someone else.
As soon as we start off on an ego trip, we are headed for trouble. Sometimes it takes many hard falls before we can give up false pride. Compulsive overeating guarantees that we will learn humility once we recognize that we are powerless over food and cannot manage our own lives.
When we conscientiously examine our motives for overeating and when we look honestly at the damage our wrong thinking has done to ourselves and those around us, we are on the way to getting rid of our false pride. It is something we have to fight continually, since this kind of pride has a way of springing up again and again.
Please forgive my false pride.
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One Day At A Time
POSITIVE THOUGHTS
“I’ve always believed that you can think positive
just as well as you can think negative.”
James Arthur Baldwin
What did I think about before I was in recovery? I worried about what others thought of me. I thought of what and when I could eat next. I picked apart the way others' bodies looked, while being jealous of them. I didn't know that thinking of negative things brought my energy level down. I thought self-discipline meant disciplining myself -- which meant mentally beating myself up.
My Higher Power has shown me a way of thinking that was new to me, but is age old -- positive thoughts. Thinking positive brings me to a level of serenity. When my mind wanders, I can bring it back. When I find myself obsessing over something negative, I can work the first three steps with it. I am powerless over negativity. I have a HP who can remove it from me. I choose to let my HP direct my thoughts. And then let myself to think of something else.
One day at a time...
I choose to think positively. The result is serenity.
Nancy F.
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AA 'Big Book' - Quote
BUT THE EX-PROBLEM DRINKER WHO HAS FOUND THIS SOLUTION, WHO IS PROPERLY ARMED WITH FACTS ABOUT HIMSELF, CAN GENERALLY WIN THE ENTIRE CONFIDENCE OF ANOTHER ALCOHOLIC IN A FEW HOURS. UNTIL SUCH AN UNDERSTANDING IS REACHED, LITTLE OR NOTHING CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED. - Pg. 18 - There Is A Solution
Hour To Hour - Book - Quote
We often feel tremendous remorse for transgressions of the past. Today, at this hour, we can stay clean, stay sober, stay drug free. This is the beginning. Later in our program, we will work steps to neutralize our transgressions. But at this hour, we must heal our bodies first.
God, as I understand You, keep me clean and sober, now.
New Life
I can feel my body and my spirit trying to come back to health. I am breathing in and out with relaxed, complete breaths and with each breath I take, I feel more serene. I sense the life within each pore of my body and it feels good, it feels right, it feels alive. My body needed to fall apart a little, it needed to get my attention and tell me it needed tender, loving care. Today, I will pay attention to what my body is trying to tell me it wants and needs and I will give it what it is calling out for.
I listen to what my body is asking for and I do something about it
- Tian Dayton PhD
Pocket Sponsor - Book - Quote
We are now learning to keep our thoughts in recovery and not in the insanity of the past. The program fixes it so we don't have to suffer from insanity anymore. Now we can enjoy it!
Crazy-making is what I make of it.
"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book
You cannot think your way into right actions. You have to act your way into right thinking.
Time for Joy - Book - Quote
I am letting go of all self-criticism today and changing all my judging thoughts to thoughts of love. I am becoming softer and more gentle and accepting of myself, making more space to feel joy and love.
Alkiespeak - Book - Quote
I had an unusual childhood....and a long one. - Anon.
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AA Thought for the Day
May 8
Time
And what is time to me now? It is a most precious asset.
I have the luxury of being able to cherish the memory of yesterday,
to live today with serenity, to wait for tomorrow.
I find great contentment in just knowing where I was and where I am.
And I am grateful; grateful the existence of Alcoholics Anonymous;
grateful to my God for leading me to the doors of AA and to Himself, grateful for hope.
- The Best of the Grapevine [Vol. 2], p. 21
Thought to Ponder . . .
I am grateful for this minute. My eternity may be in it.
AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
T I M E = This Is My Eternity.
~*~A.A. Thoughts For The Day~*~
Friendship
"We commenced to make many fast friends
and a fellowship has grown up among us
of which it is a wonderful thing to feel a part of.
The joy of living we really have,
even under pressure and difficulty.
I have seen hundreds of families set their feet
in the path that really goes somewhere;
have seen the most impossible
domestic situations righted;
feuds and bitterness of all sorts wiped out.
I have seen men come out of asylums
and resume a vital place in the lives
of their families and communities.
Business and professional men
have regained their standing.
There is scarcely any form of trouble and misery
which has not been overcome among us."
Bill W., Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 15
Thought to Consider . . .
"Most of us feel we need look no further for Utopia.
We have it with us right here and now."
Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 16
*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
EGO
Easing God Out
*~*~*~*~*^Just For Today!^*~*~*~*~*
Psychology
From "Medicine Looks at Alcoholics Anonymous":":
"As excuse-makers and rationalizers, we drunks are champions. It is the business of the psychiatrist to get behind our
excuses and to find the deeper causes for our conduct. Though uninstructed in psychiatry, we can, after a little time in
A.A., see that our motives have not been what we thought they were and that we have been motivated by forces
unknown to us. Therefore we ought to look with the deepest respect, interest, and profit upon the findings of psychiatry,
remembering that up to now the psychiatrists have been far more tolerant of us than we have been of them. "Bill W."
2001 AAWS, Inc.; Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, pg. 236
*~*~*~*~*^ Grapevine Quote ^*~*~*~*~*
"Should our present success continue, people will commence to assert that AA is a brand new way of life, maybe a
new religion, capable of saving the world. We shall be told it is our bounden duty to show modern society how it ought to live ...
"Fortunately most of us are convinced that these are perilous speculations, alluring ingredients of that new heady wine
we are now being offered, each bottle marked 'Success'!
"Of this subtle vintage may we never drink too deeply."
AA Co-Founder, Bill W., April 1948
"Tradition Five"
The Language of the Heart
~*~*~*~*^ Big Book & Twelve N' Twelve Quotes of the Day ^*~*~*~*~*
"Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get
well regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trust in
God and clean house."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Working With Others, pg. 98~
"No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that
bitter morass of self pity. Quicksand stretched around me in all
directions. I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol
was my master."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Bill's Story, pg. 8
During this process of learning more about humility, the most profound result of all was the change in our attitude toward God.
-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p. 75
Misc. AA Literature - Quote
Back To Work
It is possible for us to use the alleged dishonesty of other people as a plausible excuse for not meeting our own obligations.
Once, some prejudiced friends exhorted me never to go back to Wall Street. They were sure that the rampant
materialism and double-dealing down there would stunt my spiritual growth. Because this sounded so high-minded, I
continued to stay away from the only business that I knew.
When, finally, my household went broke, I realized I hadn't been able to face the prospect of going back to work. So I
returned to Wall Street, and I have ever since been glad that I did. I needed to rediscover that there are many fine people
in New York's financial district. Then, too, I needed the experience of staying sober in the very surroundings where
alcohol had cut me down.
A Wall Street business trip to Akron, Ohio, first brought me face to face with Dr. Bob. So the birth of A.A. hinged on my
effort to meet my bread-and-butter responsibilities. GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1961
Ask and you shall receive,
Seek and ye shall find,
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Matthew 7:7
Courage to change the things I can;
and Wisdom to know the difference.
Thy will, not mine, be done.
May 8
Daily Reflections
A RESTING PLACE
All of A.A.'s Twelve Steps ask us to go contrary to our natural
desires . . . they all deflate our egos. When it comes to ego
deflation, few Steps are harder to take than Five. But scarcely
any Step is more necessary to longtime sobriety and peace of
mind than this one.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 55
After writing down my character defects, I was unwilling to
talk about them, and decided it was time to stop carrying this
burden alone. I needed to confess those defects to someone else.
I had read - and been told - I could not stay sober unless I
did. Step Five provided me with a feeling of belonging, with
humility and serenity when I practiced it in my daily living.
It was important to admit my defects of character in the order
presented in Step Five: "to God, to ourselves and to another
human being." Admitting to God first paved the way for admission
to myself and to another person . As the taking of the Step is
described, a feeling of being at one with God and my fellow man
brought me to a resting place where I could prepare myself for
the remaining Steps toward a full and meaningful sobriety.
************************************************** *********
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
I'm grateful that I found a program in A.A. that could keep me
sober. I'm grateful that A.A. has shown me the way to faith in
a Higher Power, because the renewing of that faith has changed
my way of life. And I've found a happiness and contentment that
I had forgotten existed, by simply believing in God and trying
to live the kind of a life that I know He wants me to live. As
long as I stay grateful, I'll stay sober. Am I in a grateful
frame of mind?
Meditation For The Day
God can work through you better when you are not hurrying. Go
very slowly, very quietly, from one duty to the next, taking
time to rest and pray between. Do not be too busy. Take
everything in order. Venture often into the rest of God and
you will find peace. At work that results from resting with
God is good work. Claim the power to work miracles in human
lives. Know that you can do many things through the Higher
Power. Know that you can do good things through God who rests
you and gives you strength. Partake regularly of rest and
prayer.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may not be in too much of a hurry. I pray that
I may take time out often to rest with God.
************************************************** *********
As Bill Sees It
Back To Work, p. 128
It is possible for us to use the alleged dishonesty of other people as a
plausible excuse for not meeting our own obligations.
Once, some prejudiced friends exhorted me never to go back to Wall
Street. They were sure that the rampant materialism and
double-dealing down there would stunt my spiritual growth. Because
this sounded so high-minded, I continued to stay away from the only
business that I knew.
When, finally, my household went broke, I realized I hadn't been able
to face the prospect of going back to work. So I returned to Wall
Street, and I have ever since been glad that I did. I needed to
rediscover that there are many fine people in New York's financial
district. Then, too, I needed the experience of staying sober in the
very surroundings where alcohol had cut me down.
A Wall Street business trip to Akron, Ohio, first brought me face to
face with Dr. Bob. So the birth of A.A. hinged on my effort to meet
my bread-and-butter responsibilities.
Grapevine, August 1961
************************************************** *********
Walk in Dry Places
Regrets over roads not taken
Releasing the past.
Looking back, every one of us can point to moment when we made choices that helped set the course of our lives. It’s easy to waste time and energy wondering what our lives would have been like if other choices had been made at these critical points.
Such thinking is mostly a waste of time and may reflect dissatisfaction with our lives today. Whatever our past mistakes, the decisions we made that brought us sobriety were the correct ones. Realizing this, many of us even come to feel gratitude for the problem that brought us into the program.
We are never able to say with certainty that different choices made earlier in life would have been better in the long run. Bill W., an AA co-founder, said that a business setback moved him to make the calls that led him to Dr. Bob, the other co-founder. Had his business venture succeeded, it’s doubtful that Bill would have been thinking about helping another alcoholic.
The best choice any of us can make is to turn such maters and questions over to our Higher Power. We have a duty to do the best we can with today’s opportunities and conditions.
I'll live today in the present. The good experiences from the past are always with me, and I can benefit from any lessons learned by my mistakes.
************************************************** *********
Keep It Simple
The only way to speak truth is to speak lovingly.---Thoreau
Recovery teaches us to tell the truth. We must be honest if we want to save our lives. We must learn to speak with care---care for ourselves and for others. To be honest means to speak in a fair and truthful way. To be honest and loving means learning when to speak, and how to speak, in a caring way. We can help others by honestly telling them what we think and feel and see---but only when we do this with love. We must be careful when we speak. Speaking the truth is like using a sharp knife---it can be used for good, or it can be used to hurt others. We should never handle it carelessly of use it to hurt someone.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me know the truth. Help me speak the truth to others with love.
Action for the Day: I'll make a list of three times I've hurt someone be being honest, but not with love. I'll also list three times I've helped someone by being truthful, with love.
************************************************** *********
Each Day a New Beginning
The battle to keep up appearances unnecessarily, the mask--whatever name you give creeping perfectionism--robs us of our energies. --Robin Worthington
How familiar we are with trying to be women other than ourselves; ones more exciting, we think, or sexier, or smarter. We have probably devoted a great deal of energy to this over the years. It's likely that we are growing more content with ourselves now. However, aren't there still situations in which we squirm, both because we want to project a different image, and because we resent our desire to do so?
We each have been blessed with unique qualities. There is no other woman just like ourselves. We each have special features that are projected in only one way, the way we alone project them.
Knowing that we are perfect as we are is knowledge that accompanies recovery. How much easier life is, how much more can be gained from each moment, when we meet each experience in the comfort of our real selves. The added gift of simply being ourselves is that we'll really hear, see, and understand others for the first time in our lives.
I can only fully focus on one thing, one person at a time. I will free my focus from myself today and be filled up by my experiences with others.
************************************************** *********
Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition
Foreword To Second Edition
Figures given in this foreword describe the Fellowship as it was in 1955.
Our Society then entered a fearsome and exciting adolescent period. The test that it faced was this: Could these large numbers of erstwhile erratic alcoholics successfully meet and work together? Would there be quarrels over membership, leadership and money? Would there be strivings for power and prestige? Would there be schisms which would split A.A. apart? Soon A.A. was beset by these very problems on every side and in every group. But out of this frightening and at first disrupting experience the conviction grew that A.A.'s had to hang together or die separately. We had to unify our Fellowship or pass off the scene.
pp. xviii-xix
************************************************** *********
Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories
GROUNDED - Alcohol clipped this pilot's wings until sobriety and hard work brought him back to the sky.
I also learned I was going to federal prison. The sentence was mandatory if convicted, and there was no doubt in my mind that I would be. With nothing left, I dedicated myself to learning about recovery. I fervently believed that the key to my sobriety, and hence my survival, lay in the power of all I was being taught, and I spent no idle moments in treatment. I worked as hard as I had worked to earn my wings, but this time my life was at stake. I struggled to regain a spiritual connection as I underwent one legal crisis after another.
p. 525
************************************************** *********
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Step Twelve - "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."
But not so with alcoholics. When A.A. was quite young, a number of eminent psychologists and doctors made an exhaustive study of a good-sized group of so-called problem drinkers. The doctors weren't trying to find how different we were from one another; they sought to find whatever personality traits, if any, this group of alcoholics had in common. They finally came up with a conclusion that shocked the A.A. members of that time. These distinguished men had the nerve to say that most of the alcoholics under investigation were still childish, emotionally sensitive, and grandiose.
pp. 122-123
************************************************** *********
Remember To Live Your Life Today
Today is a beautiful day to be alive, to be the person you are. A beautiful
day, simply, to be. Don't waste energy trying to possess or control. Don't
let yourself be burdened by things that have happened in the past. Don't
worry about being "right," or about impressing anyone.
Focus instead on creating things that have never before existed. On
adding value to the lives of others. On finding ways to express the unique
person that you are. Feel good by simply deciding to, rather than by
abusing yourself or others. Look at everything that happens as an
opportunity for growth.
Accept and be thankful for the abundance that is yours. Dust off your
dreams and find a way to follow them. Life is precious and beautiful.
Every breath you take is an opportunity to live life to the fullest.
--Ralph S. Marston, Jr.
"Today, I will relax. I am being prepared. I can let go of timing. I can stop manipulating outcomes. Good things will happen when the time is right, and they will happen naturally."
--Melody Beattie
"We find comfort among those who agree with us; growth among those who don't."
--Frank A. Clark
************************************************** *********
Father Leo's Daily Meditation
HONESTY
"Where is there dignity unless
there is honesty?"
--Marcus Cicero
The cornerstone of my life today is honesty. It is the quality I most desire
in my life because I believe that with honesty comes a knowledge of God,
self and relationships. It is the key to my recovery from addiction. It is
the key to the meaning of spirituality. Honesty affords me hope for
tomorrow.
As an alcoholic I was a dishonest man. I was not just dishonest because
I told lies and manipulated the truth, I was dishonest because I refused
to risk the journey into self. My dishonesty was not about what I said but
what I did not say! Not so much about what I did but what I did not do.
My dishonesty stopped me from discovering my God-given dignity.
Today I risk the journey into self and I am discovering more about God
"as I understand Him". My level of honesty helps me to be happy and
relaxed with who I am today.
"Be still and know that I am God." In the silence of self-honesty may I
know myself.
************************************************** *********
O LORD my God, I cried out to You, And You healed me.
Psalm 30:2
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to
God.
Philippians 4:6
. . .the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace."
Romans 8:6
************************************************** *********
Daily Inspiration
When we want things around us to change, the best place to start in within ourselves. Lord, grant that my frustrations can be a motivation to better myself and my environment.
Tragedy and suffering often opens the soul to the heights of spiritual growth. Lord, let the hardships of my life be my prayer and work to draw You closer and closer.
************************************************** *********
NA Just For Today
Teachable
"We have learned that it is okay to not know all the answers, for then we are teachable and can learn to live our new life successfully."
Basic Text, p. 93
In a way, addiction is a great teacher. And if addiction teaches us nothing else, it will teach us humility. We hear it said that it took our very best thinking to get to NA. Now that we're here, we're here to learn.
The NA Fellowship is a wonderful learning environment for the recovering addict. We aren't made to feel stupid at meetings. Instead, we find others who've been exactly where we've been and who've found a way out. All we have to do is admit that we don't have all the answers, then listen as others share what's worked for them.
As recovering addicts and as human beings, we have much to learn. Other addicts—and other humans—have much to teach us about what works and what doesn't. As long as we remain teachable, we can take advantage of the experience of others.
Just for today: I will admit that I don't have all the answers. I will look and listen to the experience of others for the answers I need.
************************************************** *********
You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
Talking little, and with the low, tender part of our voices, as in nodding to one who already knows what you mean. --Tess Gallagher
Once there was a small child whose only word was no. When she wanted to indicate yes, she nodded her head emphatically. What she liked to do instead of talk was play. She liked to play outside in the meadow with the bugs and rocks and plants.
The mullein was her favorite plant. She rubbed the soft, furry leaves across her cheek. Her mother told her that in the old days, American Indians used these leaves as bandages. Several years later, Lucy picked a mullein leaf and took it in the house to her mother. "Look, Mama. Indian owee."
We, too, can remember some surprising things from the dim past, before we could talk or understand all that went on around us. Communication does not always depend on words alone but on the tenderness with which they are spoken. Walking through the world in a tender, loving way is a form of communication that goes beyond words to our deepest feelings.
What are some of the ways we show our love without words?
You are reading from the book Touchstones.
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them. --Oscar Wilde
The mature man eventually forgives his parents. Any adult can look back and see childhood wrongs and unfairness. Many of us were disappointed by our parents, even neglected or hurt by them. We certainly didn't get all we wanted or needed. Yet, upon joining the ranks of grown men and women, we become responsible for ourselves. Every situation has limited choices, and we work with what we've got. As adults, we realize this is exactly where our parents were when we were children. They, too, were born into an imperfect world and had to do the best they could.
When we can forgive our parents, we are free to accept them as they are, as we might a friend. We can accept them, enjoy the relationship, and forget about collecting old debts. Making peace with them imparts to us the strengths of previous generations and helps us be more at peace with ourselves.
I pray for the maturity and the wisdom to be more forgiving of my parents.
You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
The battle to keep up appearances unnecessarily, the mask--whatever name you give creeping perfectionism--robs us of our energies. --Robin Worthington
How familiar we are with trying to be women other than ourselves; ones more exciting, we think, or sexier, or smarter. We have probably devoted a great deal of energy to this over the years. It's likely that we are growing more content with ourselves now. However, aren't there still situations in which we squirm, both because we want to project a different image, and because we resent our desire to do so?
We each have been blessed with unique qualities. There is no other woman just like ourselves. We each have special features that are projected in only one way, the way we alone project them.
Knowing that we are perfect as we are is knowledge that accompanies recovery. How much easier life is, how much more can be gained from each moment, when we meet each experience in the comfort of our real selves. The added gift of simply being ourselves is that we'll really hear, see, and understand others for the first time in our lives.
I can only fully focus on one thing, one person at a time. I will free my focus from myself today and be filled up by my experiences with others.
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Giving Ourselves What We Deserve
I worked at a good job, making a decent salary. I had been recovering for years. Each morning, I got into my car and I thanked God for the car. The heater didn't work. And the chance of the car not starting was almost as great as the chance that it would. I just kept suffering through, and thanking God. One day, it occurred to me that there was absolutely no good reason I couldn't buy myself a new car - that moment - if I wanted one. I had been gratitude-ing myself into unnecessary deprivation and martyrdom. I bought the new car - that day. --Anonymous
Often, our instinctive reaction to something we want or need, No! I can't afford it!
The question we can learn to ask ourselves is, But, can I?
Many of us have learned to habitually deprive ourselves of anything we might want, and often things we need.
Sometimes, we can misuse the concept of gratitude to keep ourselves unnecessarily deprived.
Gratitude for what we have is an important recovery concept. So is believing we deserve the best and making an effort to stop depriving ourselves and start treating ourselves well.
There is nothing wrong with buying ourselves what we want when we can afford to do that. Learn to trust and listen to yourself about what you want. There's nothing wrong with buying yourself a treat, buying yourself something new.
There are times when it is good to wait. There are times when we legitimately cannot afford a luxury. But there are many times when we can.
Today, I will combine the principles of gratitude for what I have with the belief that I deserve the best. If there is no good reason to deprive myself, I wont.
I am letting go of all self-criticism today and changing all my judging thoughts to thoughts of love. I am becoming softer and more gentle and accepting of myself, making more space to feel joy and love. --Ruth Fishel
************************************************** *********
Journey to the Heart
Love Yourself
No matter what, love yourself.
Love yourself, even if it feels like the world around you is irked with you, even if it feels like those you’ve counted on most have gone away, even if you wonder if God has abandoned you.
When it feels like the journey has stopped, the magic is gone, and you’ve been left sitting on the curb, love yourself. When you’re confused and angry about how things are going or how they’ve gone, love yourself. No matter what happens or where you are, love yourself. No matter if you aren’t certain where you’re going or if there’s anyplace left to go, love yourself.
This situation will change, this time will pass, and the magic will return. So will joy and faith. You will feel connected again– to yourself, God, the universe, and life. But the first thing to do is love yourself. And all the good you want will follow.
************************************************** *********
More Language Of Letting Go
Say when something triggers you
How do you defend yourself when you feel angry and hurt?
When Sally was a child, she lived with disturbed parents. They said mean, hurtful things to her much of the time. She wasn’t allowed to say anything back, and she especially wasn’t allowed to say how angry and hurt she felt.
“The only way I could deal with anger was by going numb and telling myself I didn’t care– that the relationship wasn’t important,” Sally said. “Then I carried this behavior into my adult life. I learned to just go cold when I felt angry or hurt. I automatically shut down and pushed people away. One hint of feeling hurt or angry, and boom– I was gone.”
It’s important to know our boundaries. It’s even more important not to allow people to be reckless with our hearts. It’s also important to know how hurt and anger trigger our defenses.
Do you have an instant reaction, not to other people, but to your own feelings of being betrayed, hurt, or angered? Do you shut down? Lose your self-esteem? Do you “go away” from yourself or others? Do you counterattack?
Feelings of hurt and anger will arise in the course of most relationships. Sometimes when we feel that way, it’s a warning that we need to beware. Other times it’s a minor incident, something that can be worked out. You may have needed to protect yourself once, a long time ago. But now it’s okay to be vulnerable and let yourself feel what you feel.
Say when something triggers you and learn how you defend yourself.
God, help me become aware of how I protect myself when I feel hurt, angry, and attacked. Give me the courage to be vulnerable and learn new ways of taking care of myself.
************************************************** *********
The Power Within
Energy 101 by Madisyn Taylor
Energy cannot be destroyed, but it be changed and transformed.
There is an undercurrent of energy thrumming through the Universe. Like the wind or a whisper, we can sometimes hear it and often feel it. Most of the time, we sense this energy unconsciously without any tangible proof it is really there. Thoughts, emotions, and the life force in all living things are forms of this kind of energy. So are creativity, growth, and change. The impressions, images, and vague premonitions we get about people and situations are other examples of formless energy. When you enter a space and feel an “intangible tension” in the air that gives you a sense of foreboding in your gut, what you are likely experiencing is energy.
Energy cannot be destroyed, but it can be transformed or transferred from one person, thing, or source to another. Though energy is formless, it does take form and shape in the way it flows and resides within all things: a grain of sand, a bird, a stone, and an ocean wave. Living things radiate complex vibrations while nonliving things’ vibrations are simpler. Energy is a magnifier that can attract like energies while repelling disparate ones. Many of our reactions to people and circumstances are based on unconscious reactions to their energies. We may even intuitively tune into the energy of a situation we are facing when making a decision about how to proceed. With careful practice and meditation, we can learn to sense the energy within other living things and ourselves. We can also become more attuned to how we are impacted by different kinds of energy. For instance, being around too many energies can leave one person feeling edgy or excited, while another person will fe! el tired and drained.
While some people feel that energy can be controlled, others see it is as the unknowable force that moves through all things. The combined energy in all things plays a hand in birth, death, growth, movement, and stillness. Practitioners of Aikido believe that all living beings share a common energy source that is our life force. Whatever your beliefs, it is worthwhile to explore the roles energy plays in your life so you can understand it more fully. Published with permission from Daily OM
************************************************** *********
A Day At A Time
Reflection For The Day
I’ve learned in The Program that I need not apologize to anyone for depending upon God as I understand Him. In fact, I now have good reason to disbelieve those who think spirituality is the way of weakness. For me, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that men and women of faith seldom lack courage. they trust their God. So I never apologize for my belief in Him, but, instead, I try to let Him demonstrate, through me and those around me, what He can do. Do I walk as I talk?
Today I Pray
May my faith be confirmed as I see how God has worked through others since the beginning of time. May I see that the brave ones, the miracle-workers, the happy people are those who have professed their spirituality. May I see, even now as I look around, how God works through those who believe in Him.
Today I Will Remember
To Watch God at Work.
************************************************** *********
One More Day
Leisure is the most challenging responsibility a man can be offered.
– William Russell
We are a work-oriented society. As children, we were taught to do our homework and the chores. We may have “played house” or pretended we were “going to work.”
Play, therefor, can be a real challenge, especially for adults. Keyed up from a day in the work force or a day coping with the rigors of illness or pain, we can hardly settle down when busy thoughts crowd our consciousness. Leisure time can be a burden to us if we don’t’ know how to creatively fill it.
Regardless of what our job is, at home or away, we can learn to set it aside when work is over. Playtime should become sacred, for it’s a special time when we feed our need to be carefree and spontaneous.
Using my leisure time for play will keep me healthier, mentally and physically.
************************************
Food For Thought
Fake Pride
Our pride often gets in the way of our recovery. Not the good kind of pride, the self-respect which belongs to all of us as God's children, but the false pride is what trips us up.
We are falsely proud when we think we can "go it alone," when we recognize no authority higher than our own ego. We are falsely proud when we refuse to ask for help or follow directions. False pride is involved whenever we consider ourselves better than someone else.
As soon as we start off on an ego trip, we are headed for trouble. Sometimes it takes many hard falls before we can give up false pride. Compulsive overeating guarantees that we will learn humility once we recognize that we are powerless over food and cannot manage our own lives.
When we conscientiously examine our motives for overeating and when we look honestly at the damage our wrong thinking has done to ourselves and those around us, we are on the way to getting rid of our false pride. It is something we have to fight continually, since this kind of pride has a way of springing up again and again.
Please forgive my false pride.
*****************************************
One Day At A Time
POSITIVE THOUGHTS
“I’ve always believed that you can think positive
just as well as you can think negative.”
James Arthur Baldwin
What did I think about before I was in recovery? I worried about what others thought of me. I thought of what and when I could eat next. I picked apart the way others' bodies looked, while being jealous of them. I didn't know that thinking of negative things brought my energy level down. I thought self-discipline meant disciplining myself -- which meant mentally beating myself up.
My Higher Power has shown me a way of thinking that was new to me, but is age old -- positive thoughts. Thinking positive brings me to a level of serenity. When my mind wanders, I can bring it back. When I find myself obsessing over something negative, I can work the first three steps with it. I am powerless over negativity. I have a HP who can remove it from me. I choose to let my HP direct my thoughts. And then let myself to think of something else.
One day at a time...
I choose to think positively. The result is serenity.
Nancy F.
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AA 'Big Book' - Quote
BUT THE EX-PROBLEM DRINKER WHO HAS FOUND THIS SOLUTION, WHO IS PROPERLY ARMED WITH FACTS ABOUT HIMSELF, CAN GENERALLY WIN THE ENTIRE CONFIDENCE OF ANOTHER ALCOHOLIC IN A FEW HOURS. UNTIL SUCH AN UNDERSTANDING IS REACHED, LITTLE OR NOTHING CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED. - Pg. 18 - There Is A Solution
Hour To Hour - Book - Quote
We often feel tremendous remorse for transgressions of the past. Today, at this hour, we can stay clean, stay sober, stay drug free. This is the beginning. Later in our program, we will work steps to neutralize our transgressions. But at this hour, we must heal our bodies first.
God, as I understand You, keep me clean and sober, now.
New Life
I can feel my body and my spirit trying to come back to health. I am breathing in and out with relaxed, complete breaths and with each breath I take, I feel more serene. I sense the life within each pore of my body and it feels good, it feels right, it feels alive. My body needed to fall apart a little, it needed to get my attention and tell me it needed tender, loving care. Today, I will pay attention to what my body is trying to tell me it wants and needs and I will give it what it is calling out for.
I listen to what my body is asking for and I do something about it
- Tian Dayton PhD
Pocket Sponsor - Book - Quote
We are now learning to keep our thoughts in recovery and not in the insanity of the past. The program fixes it so we don't have to suffer from insanity anymore. Now we can enjoy it!
Crazy-making is what I make of it.
"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book
You cannot think your way into right actions. You have to act your way into right thinking.
Time for Joy - Book - Quote
I am letting go of all self-criticism today and changing all my judging thoughts to thoughts of love. I am becoming softer and more gentle and accepting of myself, making more space to feel joy and love.
Alkiespeak - Book - Quote
I had an unusual childhood....and a long one. - Anon.
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AA Thought for the Day
May 8
Time
And what is time to me now? It is a most precious asset.
I have the luxury of being able to cherish the memory of yesterday,
to live today with serenity, to wait for tomorrow.
I find great contentment in just knowing where I was and where I am.
And I am grateful; grateful the existence of Alcoholics Anonymous;
grateful to my God for leading me to the doors of AA and to Himself, grateful for hope.
- The Best of the Grapevine [Vol. 2], p. 21
Thought to Ponder . . .
I am grateful for this minute. My eternity may be in it.
AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
T I M E = This Is My Eternity.
~*~A.A. Thoughts For The Day~*~
Friendship
"We commenced to make many fast friends
and a fellowship has grown up among us
of which it is a wonderful thing to feel a part of.
The joy of living we really have,
even under pressure and difficulty.
I have seen hundreds of families set their feet
in the path that really goes somewhere;
have seen the most impossible
domestic situations righted;
feuds and bitterness of all sorts wiped out.
I have seen men come out of asylums
and resume a vital place in the lives
of their families and communities.
Business and professional men
have regained their standing.
There is scarcely any form of trouble and misery
which has not been overcome among us."
Bill W., Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 15
Thought to Consider . . .
"Most of us feel we need look no further for Utopia.
We have it with us right here and now."
Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 16
*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
EGO
Easing God Out
*~*~*~*~*^Just For Today!^*~*~*~*~*
Psychology
From "Medicine Looks at Alcoholics Anonymous":":
"As excuse-makers and rationalizers, we drunks are champions. It is the business of the psychiatrist to get behind our
excuses and to find the deeper causes for our conduct. Though uninstructed in psychiatry, we can, after a little time in
A.A., see that our motives have not been what we thought they were and that we have been motivated by forces
unknown to us. Therefore we ought to look with the deepest respect, interest, and profit upon the findings of psychiatry,
remembering that up to now the psychiatrists have been far more tolerant of us than we have been of them. "Bill W."
2001 AAWS, Inc.; Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, pg. 236
*~*~*~*~*^ Grapevine Quote ^*~*~*~*~*
"Should our present success continue, people will commence to assert that AA is a brand new way of life, maybe a
new religion, capable of saving the world. We shall be told it is our bounden duty to show modern society how it ought to live ...
"Fortunately most of us are convinced that these are perilous speculations, alluring ingredients of that new heady wine
we are now being offered, each bottle marked 'Success'!
"Of this subtle vintage may we never drink too deeply."
AA Co-Founder, Bill W., April 1948
"Tradition Five"
The Language of the Heart
~*~*~*~*^ Big Book & Twelve N' Twelve Quotes of the Day ^*~*~*~*~*
"Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get
well regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trust in
God and clean house."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Working With Others, pg. 98~
"No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that
bitter morass of self pity. Quicksand stretched around me in all
directions. I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol
was my master."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Bill's Story, pg. 8
During this process of learning more about humility, the most profound result of all was the change in our attitude toward God.
-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p. 75
Misc. AA Literature - Quote
Back To Work
It is possible for us to use the alleged dishonesty of other people as a plausible excuse for not meeting our own obligations.
Once, some prejudiced friends exhorted me never to go back to Wall Street. They were sure that the rampant
materialism and double-dealing down there would stunt my spiritual growth. Because this sounded so high-minded, I
continued to stay away from the only business that I knew.
When, finally, my household went broke, I realized I hadn't been able to face the prospect of going back to work. So I
returned to Wall Street, and I have ever since been glad that I did. I needed to rediscover that there are many fine people
in New York's financial district. Then, too, I needed the experience of staying sober in the very surroundings where
alcohol had cut me down.
A Wall Street business trip to Akron, Ohio, first brought me face to face with Dr. Bob. So the birth of A.A. hinged on my
effort to meet my bread-and-butter responsibilities. GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1961
Ask and you shall receive,
Seek and ye shall find,
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Matthew 7:7