Recovery Thoughts and Quotes 4/29

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AA Just For Today

Defects

Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

"To avoid falling into confusion over the names these defects should be called, let’s take a universally recognized list of major human failings—the Seven Deadly Sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. It is not by accident that pride heads the procession. For pride, leading to self-justification, and always spurred by conscious or unconscious fears, is the basic breeder of most human difficulties, the chief block to true progress. Pride lures us into making demands upon ourselves or upon others which cannot be met without perverting or misusing our God-given instincts. When the satisfaction of our instincts for sex, security, and society becomes the sole object of our lives, then pride steps in to justify our excesses."

© 1952, AAWS, Inc.; Printed 2005; Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pgs. 48-49

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AA Thought for the Day
(courtesy AAOnline.net)

April 29, 2008

New Beginning

I knew I had to have a new beginning, and this beginning had to be here.
I could not start anywhere else.
I had to let go of the past and forget the future.
As long as I held on to the past with one hand and grabbed at the future
with the other hand, I had nothing to hold on to today with.
So I had to begin here, now.
© 1973 AAWS, Came To Believe. . ., p. 46
With permission, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.


Thought to Ponder . . .

If I have the courage to begin, I have the courage to succeed.


AA-related 'Alconym' . . .

S I T = Stay In Today.

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one. - Pg. 67 - How It Works



"Thus we grow. And so can you, though you be but one man with this
book in your hand. We believe and hope it contains all you will need
to begin."
Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 162



"It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on
our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a
subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is
a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual
condition."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 85~

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Misc. AA Literature - Quote

Word of Mouth

'In my view, there isn't the slightest objection to groups who wish to remain strictly anonymous, or to people who think they would not like their membership in A.A. known at all. That is their business, and this is a very natural reaction.
'However, most people find that anonymity to this degree is not necessary, or even desirable. Once one is fairly sober, and sure of this, there seems no reason for failing to talk about A.A. membership in the right places. This has a tendency to bring in other people. Word of mouth is one of our most important communications.
'So we should criticize neither the people who wish to remain silent, nor even the people who wish to talk too much about belonging to A.A., provided they do not do so at the public level and thus compromise our whole Society.'

LETTER, 1962

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Member Submitted Quote

If I drink, there are three doors to choose from; bad, worse and terrible.

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Powerless

"Who cares to admit complete defeat?
Practically no one, of course.
Every natural instinct cries out
against the idea of personal powerlessness.
No other kind of bankruptcy is like this one.
Alcohol, the rapacious creditor,
bleeds us of all self-sufficiency
and all will to resist its demands.
But upon entering AA we soon take quite
another view of this absolute humiliation.
Our admissions of personal powerlessness
finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which
happy and purposeful lives may be built."
Bill W., Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 21

Thought to Consider . . .

"Admission of powerlessness is the first step in liberation."
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 5

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
NEW
Nothing Else Worked

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12 x 12 Quote

"But today, in well-matured AA's, these distorted drives have been
restored to something like their true purpose and direction. We no
longer strive to dominate or rule those about us in order to gain
self-importance. We no longer seek fame and honor in order to be
praised. When by devoted service to family, friends, business, or
community we attract widespread affection and are sometimes singled
out for posts of greater responsibility and trust, we try to be
humbly grateful and exert ourselves the more in a spirit of love and
service. True leadership, we find, depends upon able example and not
upon vain displays of power or glory." (Twelve and Twelve, Step
Twelve, pg. 124)