Recovery Thoughts and Quotes 4/23

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AA Just For Today

Progress

From "Gutter Bravado":

"Still very impatient, I wanted the whole deal right away. That’s why I related so well to the story about a wide-eyed new person and an oldtimer. When the newcomer approached the oldtimer, envying his accomplishments and many years of sobriety, the oldtimer slapped down his hand like a gavel and said, 'I’ll trade you even! My thirty years to your thirty days—right now!' He knew what the newcomer had yet to find out: that true happiness is found in the journey, not the destination."

© 2001 AAWS, Inc., Fourth Edition; Alcoholics Anonymous, pgs. 510-11

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AA Thought for the Day
(courtesy AAOnline.net)

April 23, 2008

Happiness

We're all after the same thing, and that's happiness. We want peace of mind.
The trouble with us alcoholics was this:
We demanded that the world give us happiness and peace of mind
in just the particular way we wanted to get it -- by the alcohol route.
And we weren't successful.
But when we take time to find out some of the spiritual laws,
and familiarize ourselves with them, and put them into practice,
then we do get happiness and peace of mind. . . .
There seem to be some rules we have to follow,
but happiness and peace of mind are always here, open and free to anyone.
© 1980 AAWS, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, p. 308
With permission, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.


Thought to Ponder . . .

Happiness is part of the journey, not some distant destination.


AA-related 'Alconym' . . .

H J F = Happy, Joyous, Free.

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

Nearly every modern employer feels a moral responsibility for the well-being of his help, and he tries to meet these responsibilities. That he has not always done so for the alcoholic is easily understood. To him the alcoholic has often seemed a fool of the first magnitude. Because of the employee's special ability, or of his own strong personal attachment to him, the employer has sometimes kept such a man at work long beyond a reasonable period. Some employers have tried every known remedy. In only a few instances has there been a lack of patience and tolerance. And we, who have imposed on the best of employers, can scarcely blame them if they have been short with us. - Pgs. 137-138 - To Employers



"If we skip this vital step (5th Step), we may not overcome drinking.
Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain
facts about their lives. Trying to avoid this humbling experience,
they have turned to easier methods. Almost invariably they got drunk.
Having persevered with the rest of the program, they wondered why
they fell. We think the reason is that they never completed their
housecleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of
the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their
egoism and fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves. But
they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in
the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all
their life story."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 72~



"We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such
intervals usually brief were inevitably followed by still less
control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible
demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our
type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable
period we get worse, never better."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 30~

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Misc. AA Literature - Quote

No Personal Power

'At first, the remedy for my personal difficulties seemed so obvious that I could not imagine any alcoholic turning the proposition down were it properly presented to him. Believing so firmly that Christ can do anything, I had the unconscious conceit to suppose that He would do everything through me--right then and in the manner I chose. After six long months, I had to admit that not a soul had surely laid hold of the Mater--not excepting myself.
'This brought me to the good healthy realization that there were plenty of situations left in the world over which I had no personal power--that if I was so ready to admit that to be the case with alcohol, so I must make the same admission with respect to much else. I would have to be still and know that He, not I, was God.'

LETTER, 1940

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Gratitude

"One exercise that I practice
is to try for a full inventory of my blessings
and then for a right acceptance
of the many gifts that are mine--
both temporal and spiritual.
Here I try to achieve a state of joyful gratitude.
When such a brand of gratitude
is repeatedly affirmed and pondered,
it can finally displace the natural tendency to
congratulate myself on whatever progress
I may have been enabled to make
in certain areas of living.
I try hard to hold fast to the truth
that a full and thankful heart
cannot entertain great conceits.
When brimming with gratitude,
one's heartbeat must surely result
in outgoing love,
the finest emotion that we can ever know."
Bill W., Box 1980: The AA Grapevine, March 1962
As Bill Sees It, p. 37

Thought to Consider . . .

It's a pity we can't forget our troubles
the same way we forget our blessings.

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
GIFTS
Getting It From The Steps

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12 x 12 Quote

"But as time passed we found that with the help of AA's Twelve Steps we
could lose those fears, no matter what our material prospects were. We
could cheerfully perform humble labor without worrying about tomorrow.
If our circumstances happened to be good, we no longer dreaded a change
for the worse, for we had learned that these troubles could be turned
into great values. It did not matter too much what our material
condition was, but it did matter what our spiritual condition was.
Money gradually became our servant and not our master. It became a
means of exchanging love and service with those about us. When, with
God's help, we calmly accepted our lot, then we found we could live at
peace with ourselves and show others who still suffered the same fears
that they could get over them, too. We found that freedom from fear was
more important than freedom from want." (Twelve and Twelve, Step
Twelve, pg. 121)