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01-07-2008, 04:09 PM
Daily Reflections
DO I HAVE A CHOICE?
The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet
obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our
so-called willpower becomes practically nonexistent.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p.24
My powerlessness over alcohol does not cease when I
quit drinking. In sobriety I still have no choice - I
can't drink. The choice I do have is to pick up and
use the "kit of spiritual tools" (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 25).
When I do that, my Higher Power relieves me of my lack
of choice - and keeps me sober one more day. If I could
choose not to pick up a drink today, where then would
be my need for A.A. or a Higher Power?
************************************************** *********
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
Everyone who comes into A.A. knows from bitter experience
that he or she can't drink. I know that drinking has been
the cause of all my major troubles or has made them worse.
Now that I have found a way out, I will hang on to A.A.
with both hands. Saint Paul once said that nothing in the
world, neither powers nor principles, life nor death,
could separate him from the love of God. Once I have given
my drink problem to God, should anything in the world
separate me from my sobriety?
Meditation For The Day
I know that my new life will not be immune from
difficulties, but I will have peace even in difficulties.
I know that serenity is the result of faithful, trusting
acceptance of God's will, even in the midst of
difficulties. Saint Paul said: "Our light afflictions,
which are but for a moment, work for us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may welcome difficulties. I pray that they
may test my strength and build my character.
************************************************** *********
As Bill Sees It
Compelling Love, p.273
The life of each A.A. and of each group is built around our Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions. We know that the penalty for
extensive disobedience to these principles is death for the individual
and dissolution for the group. But an even greater force for
A.A.'s unity is our compelling love for our fellow members and for
our principles.
********************************
You might think the people at A.A.'s headquarters in New York
would surely have to have some personal authority. But, long ago,
trustees and secretaries alike found they could do no more than
make very mild suggestions to the A.A. groups.
They even had to coin a couple of sentences which still go into half
the letters they write: "Of course you are at perfect liberty to
handle this matter any way you please. But the majority experience
in A.A. does seem to suggest . . ."
A.A. world headquarters is not a giver of orders. It is, instead, our
largest transmitter of the lessons of experience.
1. Twelve Concepts, p.8
2. 12 & 12, pp. 173-174
************************************************** *********
Walk In Dry Places
Finding New Values____Restoration
Recovering alcoholics sometimes waste time and energy brooding over lost opportunities, and we do have a record of many lost opportunities! Bill W., the co-founder of AA, once made it big on Wall Street before crashing in the 1929 cataclysm. He later drank away two wonderful chances for a comeback. Most of us can recall similar opportunities we lost by drinking. We can eliminate these regrets by practicing gratitude for the recovery we have made. Without rationalizing, we can remind ourselves that few opportunities would have benefited us if we had continued to drink.
We can take comfort, too, in the clear evidence that there's a wonderful restoration going on in our lives. While not every one gets aback a lost job or rebuilds a business, manly of us do find sufficient prosperity and productive work in our new lives. Some even find satisfying second careers or businesses after getting sober. Best of all, most recovering people discover that sobriety gives them the ability to appreciate their opportunities without worshipping material success.
I will make the best of my opportunities today and see them as stepping stones toward a more abundant life. I will not regret the past, because it brought necessary lessons.
************************************************** *********
Keep It Simple
Believe more deeply. Hold your face up to the light, even though for the moment you do not see...Bill W.
At times, we'll go through pain and hardship, At times, we'll have doubts. At times, we'll get angry and think we just don't care anymore. These things can spiritually blind us. But this normal. Hopefully, we'll be ready for those times. Hopefully, we will have friends who will be there for you. Thank God for these moments! Yes, hard times can make our spirits deep and strong. These moments tell us who we are as sober people. These moments help us grow and change. Spirituality is about choice. To be spiritual, we must turn ourselves over to the care of our Higher Power.
Prayer for the Day: God, help me find You in my moments of blindness. This is when I really need You.
Action for the Day: Today I'll get ready for the hard times ahead. I will list my friends who will be there for me.
************************************************** *********
Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition
A VISION OF RECOVERY - A feeble prayer forged a lasting connection with a Higher Power for this Mic-Mac Indian.
I spent a number of years in and out of juvenile correctional facilities, and after my eighteenth birthday, I began spending time in county jail. I actually got a high when I came home, knowing that my friends and relatives would respect me more because I had been in jail and was becoming a man.
p. 495
************************************************** *********
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Step Four - "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."
Creation gave us instincts for a purpose. Without them we wouldn't be complete human beings. If men and women didn't exert themselves to be secure in their persons, made no effort to harvest food or construct shelter, there would be no survival. If they didn't reproduce, the earth wouldn't be populated. If there were no social instinct, if men cared nothing for the society of one another, there would be no society. So these desires--for the sex relation, for material and emotional security, and for companionship--are perfectly necessary and right, and surely God-given.
p. 42
************************************************** *********
Dig within.
There lies the wellspring of good:
Ever dig and it will ever flow.
--Marcus Aurelius
What are you going through in your life right now?
Don't feel you're the only one.
Open your eyes.
Open your heart to your connections with your larger family.
Let them share their stories with you.
Let them share their strengths, hopes, fears, and joys.
Stop looking for what's different and what makes you separate and apart.
Go on an adventure of discovering your common bonds.
--Melody Beattie
"Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile." --Mother Theresa
"Life is a great and wondrous mystery, and the only thing we know that we have for sure is what is right here right now. Don't miss it." --Leo Buscaglia
"Any fool can try to defend his mistakes--and most fools do--but it gives one a feeling of nobility to admit one's mistakes. By fighting, you never get enough, but by yielding, you get more than you expected." --Lawrence G. Lovasik
************************************************** *********
Father Leo's Daily Meditation
MUSIC
"I haven't understood a bar of
music in my life, but I have felt
it."
-- Igor Stravinsky
It is okay not to "understand".
A miracle is not to be understood but experienced. So much in life we will never
understand and there is growth in confusion. We are not perfect. We will never be
perfect. The mystery of life is exactly that --- a mystery.
As an alcoholic I often sought to appear "as God". I had to have an answer for
everything, even if I made up the answer! Not to know was humiliating for me
because it took away control, my need to be in charge, my hopeless and exhausting
quest for perfection. With the failure to be perfect came the guilt, shame and anger.
Today I am able to live with life's daily confusions --- and it's okay!
************************************************** *********
The Lord is righteous in all His ways and loving to all that He has made. Psalm 145:17
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1
I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. Job 19:25
************************************************** *********
Daily Inspiration
Smooth seas don't make skillful sailors. Lord, teach me as I am able to learn so that I may grow from my difficulites and become the person You intended.
Know that you can do even if things are not always easy. Lord, in You I have the support of an unlimited power source and can accomplish great things because You strengthen me.
DO I HAVE A CHOICE?
The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet
obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our
so-called willpower becomes practically nonexistent.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p.24
My powerlessness over alcohol does not cease when I
quit drinking. In sobriety I still have no choice - I
can't drink. The choice I do have is to pick up and
use the "kit of spiritual tools" (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 25).
When I do that, my Higher Power relieves me of my lack
of choice - and keeps me sober one more day. If I could
choose not to pick up a drink today, where then would
be my need for A.A. or a Higher Power?
************************************************** *********
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
Everyone who comes into A.A. knows from bitter experience
that he or she can't drink. I know that drinking has been
the cause of all my major troubles or has made them worse.
Now that I have found a way out, I will hang on to A.A.
with both hands. Saint Paul once said that nothing in the
world, neither powers nor principles, life nor death,
could separate him from the love of God. Once I have given
my drink problem to God, should anything in the world
separate me from my sobriety?
Meditation For The Day
I know that my new life will not be immune from
difficulties, but I will have peace even in difficulties.
I know that serenity is the result of faithful, trusting
acceptance of God's will, even in the midst of
difficulties. Saint Paul said: "Our light afflictions,
which are but for a moment, work for us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may welcome difficulties. I pray that they
may test my strength and build my character.
************************************************** *********
As Bill Sees It
Compelling Love, p.273
The life of each A.A. and of each group is built around our Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions. We know that the penalty for
extensive disobedience to these principles is death for the individual
and dissolution for the group. But an even greater force for
A.A.'s unity is our compelling love for our fellow members and for
our principles.
********************************
You might think the people at A.A.'s headquarters in New York
would surely have to have some personal authority. But, long ago,
trustees and secretaries alike found they could do no more than
make very mild suggestions to the A.A. groups.
They even had to coin a couple of sentences which still go into half
the letters they write: "Of course you are at perfect liberty to
handle this matter any way you please. But the majority experience
in A.A. does seem to suggest . . ."
A.A. world headquarters is not a giver of orders. It is, instead, our
largest transmitter of the lessons of experience.
1. Twelve Concepts, p.8
2. 12 & 12, pp. 173-174
************************************************** *********
Walk In Dry Places
Finding New Values____Restoration
Recovering alcoholics sometimes waste time and energy brooding over lost opportunities, and we do have a record of many lost opportunities! Bill W., the co-founder of AA, once made it big on Wall Street before crashing in the 1929 cataclysm. He later drank away two wonderful chances for a comeback. Most of us can recall similar opportunities we lost by drinking. We can eliminate these regrets by practicing gratitude for the recovery we have made. Without rationalizing, we can remind ourselves that few opportunities would have benefited us if we had continued to drink.
We can take comfort, too, in the clear evidence that there's a wonderful restoration going on in our lives. While not every one gets aback a lost job or rebuilds a business, manly of us do find sufficient prosperity and productive work in our new lives. Some even find satisfying second careers or businesses after getting sober. Best of all, most recovering people discover that sobriety gives them the ability to appreciate their opportunities without worshipping material success.
I will make the best of my opportunities today and see them as stepping stones toward a more abundant life. I will not regret the past, because it brought necessary lessons.
************************************************** *********
Keep It Simple
Believe more deeply. Hold your face up to the light, even though for the moment you do not see...Bill W.
At times, we'll go through pain and hardship, At times, we'll have doubts. At times, we'll get angry and think we just don't care anymore. These things can spiritually blind us. But this normal. Hopefully, we'll be ready for those times. Hopefully, we will have friends who will be there for you. Thank God for these moments! Yes, hard times can make our spirits deep and strong. These moments tell us who we are as sober people. These moments help us grow and change. Spirituality is about choice. To be spiritual, we must turn ourselves over to the care of our Higher Power.
Prayer for the Day: God, help me find You in my moments of blindness. This is when I really need You.
Action for the Day: Today I'll get ready for the hard times ahead. I will list my friends who will be there for me.
************************************************** *********
Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition
A VISION OF RECOVERY - A feeble prayer forged a lasting connection with a Higher Power for this Mic-Mac Indian.
I spent a number of years in and out of juvenile correctional facilities, and after my eighteenth birthday, I began spending time in county jail. I actually got a high when I came home, knowing that my friends and relatives would respect me more because I had been in jail and was becoming a man.
p. 495
************************************************** *********
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Step Four - "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."
Creation gave us instincts for a purpose. Without them we wouldn't be complete human beings. If men and women didn't exert themselves to be secure in their persons, made no effort to harvest food or construct shelter, there would be no survival. If they didn't reproduce, the earth wouldn't be populated. If there were no social instinct, if men cared nothing for the society of one another, there would be no society. So these desires--for the sex relation, for material and emotional security, and for companionship--are perfectly necessary and right, and surely God-given.
p. 42
************************************************** *********
Dig within.
There lies the wellspring of good:
Ever dig and it will ever flow.
--Marcus Aurelius
What are you going through in your life right now?
Don't feel you're the only one.
Open your eyes.
Open your heart to your connections with your larger family.
Let them share their stories with you.
Let them share their strengths, hopes, fears, and joys.
Stop looking for what's different and what makes you separate and apart.
Go on an adventure of discovering your common bonds.
--Melody Beattie
"Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile." --Mother Theresa
"Life is a great and wondrous mystery, and the only thing we know that we have for sure is what is right here right now. Don't miss it." --Leo Buscaglia
"Any fool can try to defend his mistakes--and most fools do--but it gives one a feeling of nobility to admit one's mistakes. By fighting, you never get enough, but by yielding, you get more than you expected." --Lawrence G. Lovasik
************************************************** *********
Father Leo's Daily Meditation
MUSIC
"I haven't understood a bar of
music in my life, but I have felt
it."
-- Igor Stravinsky
It is okay not to "understand".
A miracle is not to be understood but experienced. So much in life we will never
understand and there is growth in confusion. We are not perfect. We will never be
perfect. The mystery of life is exactly that --- a mystery.
As an alcoholic I often sought to appear "as God". I had to have an answer for
everything, even if I made up the answer! Not to know was humiliating for me
because it took away control, my need to be in charge, my hopeless and exhausting
quest for perfection. With the failure to be perfect came the guilt, shame and anger.
Today I am able to live with life's daily confusions --- and it's okay!
************************************************** *********
The Lord is righteous in all His ways and loving to all that He has made. Psalm 145:17
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1
I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. Job 19:25
************************************************** *********
Daily Inspiration
Smooth seas don't make skillful sailors. Lord, teach me as I am able to learn so that I may grow from my difficulites and become the person You intended.
Know that you can do even if things are not always easy. Lord, in You I have the support of an unlimited power source and can accomplish great things because You strengthen me.