Recovery Thoughts and Quotes 4/16

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AA Just For Today

Healing

From "Tightrope":

"When I first came to this Fellowship, I had lost my health and sanity, my friends, much of my family, my self-respect, and my God. In the years since, all of these have been restored to me. I no longer have the sense of impending doom. I no longer wish for death or stare at myself in the mirror with loathing. I have come to terms with my Higher Power…"

© 2001 AAWS, Inc., Fourth Edition; Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 368

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AA Thought for the Day
(courtesy AAOnline.net)

April 16, 2008

Guilt

Guilt is really the reverse side of the coin of pride.
Guilt aims at self-destruction, and pride aims at destruction of others.
This is why I see humility for today as that safe and secure stance
midway between these violent emotional extremes.
It is a quiet place where I can keep enough perspective, and enough balance,
to take my next step up the clearly marked road
that points toward eternal values.
- Bill W., June, 1961
© 1990 The AA Grapevine, Inc., The Best Of Bill, p. 47


Thought to Ponder . . .

Guilt is in the past; worry is the future.
Both are manifestations of ego.


AA-related 'Alconym' . . .

H O W = Honesty, Open-mindedness, Willingness.

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

Follow the dictates of a Higher Power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstances! - Pg. 100 - Working With Others



"We have three little mottoes which are apropos.
Here they are:

First Things First
Live and Let Live
Easy Does It."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 135~



"We families of Alcoholics Anonymous keep few skeletons in the
closet. Everyone knows about the others' alcoholic troubles. This
is a condition which, in ordinary life, would produce untold grief;
there might be scandalous gossip, laughter at the expense of other
people, and a tendency to take advantage of intimate information.
Among us, these are rare occurrences. We do talk about each other a
great deal, but we almost invariably temper such talk by a spirit of
love and tolerance."
~Alcoholics Anonymous,, pg. 125~

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Misc. AA Literature - Quote

Two Kinds of Pride

The prideful righteousness of 'good people' may often be just as destructive as the glaring sins of those who are supposedly not so good.

<<<>>>
We loved to shout the damaging fact that millions of the 'good men of religion' were still killing one another off in the name of God. This all meant, of course, that we had substituted negative for positive thinking.
After we came to A.A., we had to recognize that this trait had been an ego-feeding proposition. In belaboring the sins of some religious people, we could feel superior to all of them. Moreover, we could avoid looking at some of our own shortcomings.
Self-righteousness, the very thing that we had contemptuously condemned in others, was our own besetting evil. This phony form of respectability was our undoing, so far as faith was concerned. But finally, driven to A.A., we learned better.

1. GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1961
2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 30

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12 x 12

"When the distortion has been great, however, a long period of patient
striving may be necessary. After the husband joins AA, the wife may
become discontented, even highly resentful that Alcoholics Anonymous
has done the very thing that all her years of devotion had failed to
do. Her husband may become so wrapped up in AA and his new friends that
he is inconsiderately away from home more than when he drank. Seeing
her unhappiness, he recommends AA's Twelve Steps and tries to teach her
how to live. She naturally feels that for years she has made a far
better job of living than he has. Both of them blame each other and ask
when their marriage is ever going to be happy again. They may even
begin to suspect it had never been any good in the first place."
(Twelve and Twelve, Step Twelve, pg. 118)

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Responsibility

"I Am Responsible . . .
When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help,
I want the hand of AA always to be there.
And for that:
I am responsible."
Declaration of 30th Anniversary International Convention, 1965

Thought to Consider . . .

Service is spirituality in action.

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*

EGO
Easing God Out