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09-27-2008, 03:58 PM
Daily Reflections
LOVE WITHOUT STRINGS
Practical experience shows that nothing will so much
insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with
other alcoholics.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 89
Sponsorship held two surprises for me. First, that
my sponsees cared about me. What I had thought was
gratitude was more like love. They wanted me to be
happy, to grow and remain sober. Knowing how they felt
kept me from drinking more than once. Second, I
discovered that I was able to love someone else
responsibly, with respectful and genuine concern for
that person's growth. Before that time, I had thought
that my ability to care sincerely about another's
well-being had atrophied from lack of use. To learn
that I can love, without greed or anxiety, has been
one of the deepest gifts the program has given. Gratitude
for that gift has kept me sober many times.
************************************************** *********
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
For the past two months we have been studying passages
and steps from the Big Book. Now why not read the book
itself again? It is essential that the A.A. program become
part of us. We must have its essentials at our finger tips.
We cannot study the big book too much or too often. The
more we read it and study it, the better equipped we are
to think A.A., act A.A., and live A.A. We cannot know too
much about the program. The chances are that we will never
know enough. But we can make as much of it our own as
possible. How much of the Big Book have I thoroughly mastered?
Meditation For The Day
We need to accept the difficulties and disciplines of life
so as to fully share the common life of other people. Many
things that we must accept in life are not to be taken so
much as being necessary for us personally, as to be experienced
in order that we may share in the sufferings and problems of
humanity. We need sympathy and understanding. We must share
many of the experiences of life, in order to understand and
sympathize with others. Unless we have been through the same
experiences, we cannot understand other people or their makeup
well enough to be able to help them.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may accept everything that comes my way as part
of life. I pray that I may make use of it in helping my fellow men.
************************************************** *********
As Bill Sees It
A New Life, p. 8
Is sobriety all that we are to expect of a spiritual awakening? No,
sobriety is only a bare beginning; it is only the first gift of the first
awakening. If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go
on. As it does go on, we find that bit by bit we can discard the old
life--the one that did not work--for a new life that can and does work
under any conditions whatever.
Regardless of worldly success or failure, regardless of pain or joy,
regardless of sickness or health or even of death itself, a new life of
endless possibilities can be lived if we are willing to continue our
awakening, through the practice of A.A.'s Twelve Steps.
Grapevine, December 1957
************************************************** *********
Walk In Dry Places
The Role of self-sufficiency
Success
When AA was first launched, the ideal of the self made person was often exalted. Certain outstanding individuals seem to have achieved amazing success entirely by their own efforts. In the drive to be such a self made person, AA co-founder Bill W. was swept away in a torrent of alcoholic grandeur.
We know today that there's no such thing as a self-made person. We all need each other, and at various times we would have been lost without assistance taht was generously and freely given. Everyone has had such assistance at one time or anotehr. WE are not entirely self-sufficient.
The true role of self-sufficiency is to use our talent and opportunities wisely and beneficially in cooperation with others. Our own success in whatever we do will be enhanced as we continue to acknowledge our need for others.
Throughout the day, there will be many times when I need the help of others, and many times when others will need my help. I will give and receive help gratefully.
************************************************** *********
Keep It Simple
Honesty is the backbone of our recovery program. Honesty opens us up. It breaks down the walls we had built around our secret world. Those walls made a prison for us. But all of that is now changed. We are free.
Honesty has made us wise. We aren’t sneaking drinks anymore. We don’t have a stash to protect.
People who didn’t trust us now depend on our honesty. People who worked hard to avoid us, now seek us out. Self-honesty is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, You are truth. I pray that I may not turn away from truth. I will not lie. My life depends on honesty.
Action For the Day: For twenty or thirty minutes, I will think about how learning to be honest has changed my life.
************************************************** *********
Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition
Foreward To Fourth Edition
WE OF Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the reader will be interested in the medical estimate of the plan of recovery described in this book. Convincing testimony must surely come from medical men who have had experience with the sufferings of our members and have witnessed our return to health.
p. xxv
************************************************** *********
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Tradition Six - "An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose."
In one of their trade associations, the question arose of just how this campaign should be handled. Of course, they would use the resources of radio, press, and films to make their point. But what kind of person should head the job? They immediately thought of Alcoholics Anonymous. If they could find a good public relations man in our ranks, why wouldn't he be ideal? He'd certainly know the problem. His connection with A.A. would be valuable, because the Fellowship stood high in public favor and hadn't an enemy in the world.
p. 157
************************************************** *********
The gift we can offer others is so simple a thing as hope.
--Daniel Berrigan
Until you value yourself, you won't value your time.
Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
--M. Scott Peck
"This above all; to thine own self be true."
--William Shakespeare
The most important things in life aren't things.
H = Help others develop their potential. The possibilities and
rewards are endless.
E = Enlist people to help you. Having a support system improves
your ability to get the results you want.
A = Action keeps you moving forward. Do a little bit every day
and eventually you'll get to your goal.
R = Reach deep inside to find your strength. It's there if you
are willing to be courageous.
T = Trust the process. Rome wasn't built in a day. It takes time
to reap the benefits.
--Carol Gegner
Let there be more joy and laughter in your living.
--Eileen Caddy
***********************************************
Father Leo's Daily Meditation
MISTAKES
"Good people are good because
they've come to wisdom through
failure."
-- William Saroyan
Today I am able to learn from my mistakes because I can see that they
really were mistakes! I was trying to play the game of life without a
full deck. My big mistake in life was trying to drink alcohol like a
non-alcoholic. I couldn't do it.
Drugs do not think; they react. They always work, and for me they
worked against me. Most of my failures in life stemmed from a
fundamental misconception -- alcoholics cannot drink like
non-alcoholics! This I now accept. And in a strange way that is difficult
to explain, I am a stronger person for having lived through my
alcoholism. God has become more real, the world is more
comprehensible, my life is more understandable because of the pain.
If a part of "goodness" is knowing that you are not perfect, then on a
daily basis I am becoming a good person.
God, who has created a world in which there is pain and failure, help
me to accept both as vehicles to wisdom.
************************************************** *********
“Come to me all of you who are tired and have heavy loads, and I will
give you rest. Accept my teachings and learn from me, because I am
gentle and humble in spirit, and you will find rest for your lives. The
teaching I ask you to accept is easy; the load I give you to carry is
light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him
must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Hebrews 11:6
************************************************** *********
Daily Inspiration
Allowing yourself to be less than perfect allows you to accomplish great things in small ways. Lord, may I remove the pressure I overwhelming place on myself and do what I can when I can.
When one door shuts, immediately begin looking for the others that are opening. Lord, thank You for Your unceasing care and generosity.
LOVE WITHOUT STRINGS
Practical experience shows that nothing will so much
insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with
other alcoholics.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 89
Sponsorship held two surprises for me. First, that
my sponsees cared about me. What I had thought was
gratitude was more like love. They wanted me to be
happy, to grow and remain sober. Knowing how they felt
kept me from drinking more than once. Second, I
discovered that I was able to love someone else
responsibly, with respectful and genuine concern for
that person's growth. Before that time, I had thought
that my ability to care sincerely about another's
well-being had atrophied from lack of use. To learn
that I can love, without greed or anxiety, has been
one of the deepest gifts the program has given. Gratitude
for that gift has kept me sober many times.
************************************************** *********
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
For the past two months we have been studying passages
and steps from the Big Book. Now why not read the book
itself again? It is essential that the A.A. program become
part of us. We must have its essentials at our finger tips.
We cannot study the big book too much or too often. The
more we read it and study it, the better equipped we are
to think A.A., act A.A., and live A.A. We cannot know too
much about the program. The chances are that we will never
know enough. But we can make as much of it our own as
possible. How much of the Big Book have I thoroughly mastered?
Meditation For The Day
We need to accept the difficulties and disciplines of life
so as to fully share the common life of other people. Many
things that we must accept in life are not to be taken so
much as being necessary for us personally, as to be experienced
in order that we may share in the sufferings and problems of
humanity. We need sympathy and understanding. We must share
many of the experiences of life, in order to understand and
sympathize with others. Unless we have been through the same
experiences, we cannot understand other people or their makeup
well enough to be able to help them.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may accept everything that comes my way as part
of life. I pray that I may make use of it in helping my fellow men.
************************************************** *********
As Bill Sees It
A New Life, p. 8
Is sobriety all that we are to expect of a spiritual awakening? No,
sobriety is only a bare beginning; it is only the first gift of the first
awakening. If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go
on. As it does go on, we find that bit by bit we can discard the old
life--the one that did not work--for a new life that can and does work
under any conditions whatever.
Regardless of worldly success or failure, regardless of pain or joy,
regardless of sickness or health or even of death itself, a new life of
endless possibilities can be lived if we are willing to continue our
awakening, through the practice of A.A.'s Twelve Steps.
Grapevine, December 1957
************************************************** *********
Walk In Dry Places
The Role of self-sufficiency
Success
When AA was first launched, the ideal of the self made person was often exalted. Certain outstanding individuals seem to have achieved amazing success entirely by their own efforts. In the drive to be such a self made person, AA co-founder Bill W. was swept away in a torrent of alcoholic grandeur.
We know today that there's no such thing as a self-made person. We all need each other, and at various times we would have been lost without assistance taht was generously and freely given. Everyone has had such assistance at one time or anotehr. WE are not entirely self-sufficient.
The true role of self-sufficiency is to use our talent and opportunities wisely and beneficially in cooperation with others. Our own success in whatever we do will be enhanced as we continue to acknowledge our need for others.
Throughout the day, there will be many times when I need the help of others, and many times when others will need my help. I will give and receive help gratefully.
************************************************** *********
Keep It Simple
Honesty is the backbone of our recovery program. Honesty opens us up. It breaks down the walls we had built around our secret world. Those walls made a prison for us. But all of that is now changed. We are free.
Honesty has made us wise. We aren’t sneaking drinks anymore. We don’t have a stash to protect.
People who didn’t trust us now depend on our honesty. People who worked hard to avoid us, now seek us out. Self-honesty is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, You are truth. I pray that I may not turn away from truth. I will not lie. My life depends on honesty.
Action For the Day: For twenty or thirty minutes, I will think about how learning to be honest has changed my life.
************************************************** *********
Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition
Foreward To Fourth Edition
WE OF Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the reader will be interested in the medical estimate of the plan of recovery described in this book. Convincing testimony must surely come from medical men who have had experience with the sufferings of our members and have witnessed our return to health.
p. xxv
************************************************** *********
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Tradition Six - "An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose."
In one of their trade associations, the question arose of just how this campaign should be handled. Of course, they would use the resources of radio, press, and films to make their point. But what kind of person should head the job? They immediately thought of Alcoholics Anonymous. If they could find a good public relations man in our ranks, why wouldn't he be ideal? He'd certainly know the problem. His connection with A.A. would be valuable, because the Fellowship stood high in public favor and hadn't an enemy in the world.
p. 157
************************************************** *********
The gift we can offer others is so simple a thing as hope.
--Daniel Berrigan
Until you value yourself, you won't value your time.
Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
--M. Scott Peck
"This above all; to thine own self be true."
--William Shakespeare
The most important things in life aren't things.
H = Help others develop their potential. The possibilities and
rewards are endless.
E = Enlist people to help you. Having a support system improves
your ability to get the results you want.
A = Action keeps you moving forward. Do a little bit every day
and eventually you'll get to your goal.
R = Reach deep inside to find your strength. It's there if you
are willing to be courageous.
T = Trust the process. Rome wasn't built in a day. It takes time
to reap the benefits.
--Carol Gegner
Let there be more joy and laughter in your living.
--Eileen Caddy
***********************************************
Father Leo's Daily Meditation
MISTAKES
"Good people are good because
they've come to wisdom through
failure."
-- William Saroyan
Today I am able to learn from my mistakes because I can see that they
really were mistakes! I was trying to play the game of life without a
full deck. My big mistake in life was trying to drink alcohol like a
non-alcoholic. I couldn't do it.
Drugs do not think; they react. They always work, and for me they
worked against me. Most of my failures in life stemmed from a
fundamental misconception -- alcoholics cannot drink like
non-alcoholics! This I now accept. And in a strange way that is difficult
to explain, I am a stronger person for having lived through my
alcoholism. God has become more real, the world is more
comprehensible, my life is more understandable because of the pain.
If a part of "goodness" is knowing that you are not perfect, then on a
daily basis I am becoming a good person.
God, who has created a world in which there is pain and failure, help
me to accept both as vehicles to wisdom.
************************************************** *********
“Come to me all of you who are tired and have heavy loads, and I will
give you rest. Accept my teachings and learn from me, because I am
gentle and humble in spirit, and you will find rest for your lives. The
teaching I ask you to accept is easy; the load I give you to carry is
light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him
must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Hebrews 11:6
************************************************** *********
Daily Inspiration
Allowing yourself to be less than perfect allows you to accomplish great things in small ways. Lord, may I remove the pressure I overwhelming place on myself and do what I can when I can.
When one door shuts, immediately begin looking for the others that are opening. Lord, thank You for Your unceasing care and generosity.