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10-07-2008, 05:39 PM
Daily Reflections
DAILY INVENTORY
. . . . and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 59
I was beginning to approach my new life of sobriety with
unaccustomed enthusiasm. New friends were cropping up
and some of my battered friendships had begun to be
repaired. Life was exciting, and I even began to enjoy my
work, becoming so bold as to issue a report on the lack
of proper care for some of our clients. One day a co-worker
informed me that my boss was really sore because a complaint,
submitted over his head, had caused him much discomfort at
the hands of his superiors. I knew that my report had created
the problem, and began to feel responsible for my boss's
difficulty. In discussing the affair, my co-worker tried to
reassure me that an apology was not necessary, but I soon
became convinced that I had to do something, regardless of how
it might turn out. When I approached my boss and owned up to
my hand in his difficulties, he was surprised. But unexpected
things came out of our encounter, and my boss and I were able
to agree to interact more directly and effectively in the future.
************************************************** *********
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
There is such a thing as being too loyal to any one group.
Do I feel put out when another group starts and some members
of my group leave it and branch out into new territory? Or do
I send them out with my blessing? Do I visit that new offshoot
group and help it along? Or do I sulk in my own tent? A.A.
grows by the starting of new groups all the time. I must
realize that it's a good thing for a large group to split up
into smaller ones, even it if means that the large group
--my own group--becomes smaller. Am I always ready to help
new groups?
Meditation For The Day
Pray--and keep praying until it brings peace and serenity and
a feeling of communion with One who is near and ready to help.
The thought of God is balm for our hates and fears. In praying
to God, we find healing for hurt feelings and resentments. In
thinking of God, doubts and fears leave us. Instead of those
doubts and fears, there will flow into our hearts such faith
and love as is beyond the power of material things to give, and
such peace as the world can neither give nor take away. And with
God, we can have the tolerance to live and let live.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may have true tolerance and understanding.
I pray that I may keep striving for these difficult things.
************************************************** *********
As Bill Sees It
To Grow Up, p. 330
Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for complete approval,
utter security, and perfect romance--urges quite appropriate to age
seventeen--prove to be an impossible way of life at forty-seven or
fifty-seven.
Since A.A. began, I've taken huge wallops in all these areas because of
my failure to grow up, emotionally and spiritually.
<< << << >> >> >>
As we grow spiritually, we find that our old attitudes toward instinctual
drives need to undergo drastic revisions. Our demands for emotional
security and wealth, for personal prestige and power all have to be
tempered and redirected.
We learn that the full satisfaction of these demands cannot be the sole
end and aim of our lives. We cannot place the cart before the horse, or
we shall be pulled backward into disillusionment. But when we are
willing to place spiritual growth first--then and only then do we have a
real chance to grow in healthy awareness and mature love.
1. Grapevine, January 1958
2. 12 & 12, p. 114
************************************************** *********
Walk In Dry Places
Changing other people
Relating to others.
"How can I get this person to accept the program?" We hear this often, for example, when a patient at a treatment center complains about another who is so negative toward the program "That he's dragging all of us down."
We discovered long ago that we have no power to change or manipulate others. At the very beginning of AA, its pioneers learned how to maintain their own sobriety and serenity even as others rebelled and turned against the program. They learned that negative people can't drag us down unless we let them.
We might need to review our personal inventory if we're too concerned about the behavior of others. Ours is a program of attraction, not coercion, and we "change" people only by demonstrating how well it works for us. Any concern about another's behavior takes time and energy away from our own commitment to self-improvement.
I have a personal need and responsibility to carry the mess, but I have neither the right nor the responsibility to modify anybody's behavior. I'll keep this in mind today.
************************************************** *********
Keep It Simple
Just Say No.--- Nancy Reagan
We addicts were great at saying no. Our spouse asked us to help around the house and we said no and went drinking. Friends tried to care, but we said, “No, mind your own business!” Our parents or our kids begged us to stop drinking, but we said no.
We were also ask to say yes. We always said yes when asked if we wanted to have a drink or get high. Addiction really mixed us up. When we said no, we should have said yes. And when we said yes we should have said no.
In recovery, we do things better. We say yes when others ask for help. We say yes when somebody wants to give us love. We say no to alcohol and other drugs. We finally answer yes and no the right way---the right way and at the right time for us.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to always say yes to You, even when I’m tired or angry.
Action for the Day: In today’s inventory, I’ll ask myself if there are any ways I’m still saying no to my program and Higher Power.
************************************************** *********
Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition
The Doctor's Opinion
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks—drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
pp. xxviii-xxix
************************************************** *********
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Tradition Seven - "Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions."
"To my surprise, the response of the groups was slow. I got mighty sore about it. Looking at this avalanche of mail one morning at the office, I paced up and down ranting how irresponsible and tightwad my fellow members were. Just then an old acquaintance stuck a tousled and aching head in the door. He was our prize slippee. I could see he had an awful hangover. Remembering some of my own, my heart filled with pit. I motioned him to my inside cubicle and produced a five-dollar bill. As my total income was thirty dollars a week at the time, this was a fairly large donation. Lois really needed the money for groceries, but that didn't stop me. The intense relief on my friend's face warmed my heart. I felt especially virtuous as I thought of all the ex-drunks who wouldn't even send the Foundation a dollar apiece, and here I was gladly making a five-dollar investment to fix a hangover.
pp. 162-163
************************************************** *********
I will exercise patience, as God would, with all others.
--Shelley
"Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than
genial breezes.
Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits."
--Samuel Butler
AA is my anchor in a sea of confusion.
AA brought me home when I had lost my way.
Newcomer or long-timer, we are all the same in our need for each other.
Think it over, not drink over it.
"The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
--Marcel Proust
***********************************************
Father Leo's Daily Meditation
UNDERSTANDING
"Intelligence is proved not by
ease of learning but by
understanding what we learn."
-- Joseph Whitney
For years I learned things without understanding what the words, or the meaning behind
the words, really meant. An example was alcoholism. Then a man said, "My name is Bill,
and I am an alcoholic and a recovering human being!" Then it struck me; recovery from a
drug --- alcohol --- was not simply about putting down the glass but about changing and
developing a positive lifestyle as a human being.
The same is true with spirituality. It is not about being religious, going to church or
accepting dogma. It is about finding God in my life, discovering God in the decisions and
actions I take and seeing Him in the world around me. Today I understand spirituality to
be the link that unites all peoples and is centered on what is true and real.
May I continue to search for the meaning within the word and the harmony of
communication.
************************************************** *********
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress.
Psalm 107:13
"By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer
to the God of my life."
Psalm 42:8
************************************************** *********
Daily Inspiration
Waste no time on situations that aren't worth your precious time. Lord, may I recognize pettiness for what it is and move on so that my imagination doesn't take over and give pettiness more value than it deserves.
Ultimate security does not come from relying on things or people, but from relying on God. Lord, I place my trust in You. Bless me and keep me in Your loving care.
DAILY INVENTORY
. . . . and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 59
I was beginning to approach my new life of sobriety with
unaccustomed enthusiasm. New friends were cropping up
and some of my battered friendships had begun to be
repaired. Life was exciting, and I even began to enjoy my
work, becoming so bold as to issue a report on the lack
of proper care for some of our clients. One day a co-worker
informed me that my boss was really sore because a complaint,
submitted over his head, had caused him much discomfort at
the hands of his superiors. I knew that my report had created
the problem, and began to feel responsible for my boss's
difficulty. In discussing the affair, my co-worker tried to
reassure me that an apology was not necessary, but I soon
became convinced that I had to do something, regardless of how
it might turn out. When I approached my boss and owned up to
my hand in his difficulties, he was surprised. But unexpected
things came out of our encounter, and my boss and I were able
to agree to interact more directly and effectively in the future.
************************************************** *********
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
There is such a thing as being too loyal to any one group.
Do I feel put out when another group starts and some members
of my group leave it and branch out into new territory? Or do
I send them out with my blessing? Do I visit that new offshoot
group and help it along? Or do I sulk in my own tent? A.A.
grows by the starting of new groups all the time. I must
realize that it's a good thing for a large group to split up
into smaller ones, even it if means that the large group
--my own group--becomes smaller. Am I always ready to help
new groups?
Meditation For The Day
Pray--and keep praying until it brings peace and serenity and
a feeling of communion with One who is near and ready to help.
The thought of God is balm for our hates and fears. In praying
to God, we find healing for hurt feelings and resentments. In
thinking of God, doubts and fears leave us. Instead of those
doubts and fears, there will flow into our hearts such faith
and love as is beyond the power of material things to give, and
such peace as the world can neither give nor take away. And with
God, we can have the tolerance to live and let live.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may have true tolerance and understanding.
I pray that I may keep striving for these difficult things.
************************************************** *********
As Bill Sees It
To Grow Up, p. 330
Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for complete approval,
utter security, and perfect romance--urges quite appropriate to age
seventeen--prove to be an impossible way of life at forty-seven or
fifty-seven.
Since A.A. began, I've taken huge wallops in all these areas because of
my failure to grow up, emotionally and spiritually.
<< << << >> >> >>
As we grow spiritually, we find that our old attitudes toward instinctual
drives need to undergo drastic revisions. Our demands for emotional
security and wealth, for personal prestige and power all have to be
tempered and redirected.
We learn that the full satisfaction of these demands cannot be the sole
end and aim of our lives. We cannot place the cart before the horse, or
we shall be pulled backward into disillusionment. But when we are
willing to place spiritual growth first--then and only then do we have a
real chance to grow in healthy awareness and mature love.
1. Grapevine, January 1958
2. 12 & 12, p. 114
************************************************** *********
Walk In Dry Places
Changing other people
Relating to others.
"How can I get this person to accept the program?" We hear this often, for example, when a patient at a treatment center complains about another who is so negative toward the program "That he's dragging all of us down."
We discovered long ago that we have no power to change or manipulate others. At the very beginning of AA, its pioneers learned how to maintain their own sobriety and serenity even as others rebelled and turned against the program. They learned that negative people can't drag us down unless we let them.
We might need to review our personal inventory if we're too concerned about the behavior of others. Ours is a program of attraction, not coercion, and we "change" people only by demonstrating how well it works for us. Any concern about another's behavior takes time and energy away from our own commitment to self-improvement.
I have a personal need and responsibility to carry the mess, but I have neither the right nor the responsibility to modify anybody's behavior. I'll keep this in mind today.
************************************************** *********
Keep It Simple
Just Say No.--- Nancy Reagan
We addicts were great at saying no. Our spouse asked us to help around the house and we said no and went drinking. Friends tried to care, but we said, “No, mind your own business!” Our parents or our kids begged us to stop drinking, but we said no.
We were also ask to say yes. We always said yes when asked if we wanted to have a drink or get high. Addiction really mixed us up. When we said no, we should have said yes. And when we said yes we should have said no.
In recovery, we do things better. We say yes when others ask for help. We say yes when somebody wants to give us love. We say no to alcohol and other drugs. We finally answer yes and no the right way---the right way and at the right time for us.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to always say yes to You, even when I’m tired or angry.
Action for the Day: In today’s inventory, I’ll ask myself if there are any ways I’m still saying no to my program and Higher Power.
************************************************** *********
Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition
The Doctor's Opinion
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks—drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
pp. xxviii-xxix
************************************************** *********
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Tradition Seven - "Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions."
"To my surprise, the response of the groups was slow. I got mighty sore about it. Looking at this avalanche of mail one morning at the office, I paced up and down ranting how irresponsible and tightwad my fellow members were. Just then an old acquaintance stuck a tousled and aching head in the door. He was our prize slippee. I could see he had an awful hangover. Remembering some of my own, my heart filled with pit. I motioned him to my inside cubicle and produced a five-dollar bill. As my total income was thirty dollars a week at the time, this was a fairly large donation. Lois really needed the money for groceries, but that didn't stop me. The intense relief on my friend's face warmed my heart. I felt especially virtuous as I thought of all the ex-drunks who wouldn't even send the Foundation a dollar apiece, and here I was gladly making a five-dollar investment to fix a hangover.
pp. 162-163
************************************************** *********
I will exercise patience, as God would, with all others.
--Shelley
"Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than
genial breezes.
Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits."
--Samuel Butler
AA is my anchor in a sea of confusion.
AA brought me home when I had lost my way.
Newcomer or long-timer, we are all the same in our need for each other.
Think it over, not drink over it.
"The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
--Marcel Proust
***********************************************
Father Leo's Daily Meditation
UNDERSTANDING
"Intelligence is proved not by
ease of learning but by
understanding what we learn."
-- Joseph Whitney
For years I learned things without understanding what the words, or the meaning behind
the words, really meant. An example was alcoholism. Then a man said, "My name is Bill,
and I am an alcoholic and a recovering human being!" Then it struck me; recovery from a
drug --- alcohol --- was not simply about putting down the glass but about changing and
developing a positive lifestyle as a human being.
The same is true with spirituality. It is not about being religious, going to church or
accepting dogma. It is about finding God in my life, discovering God in the decisions and
actions I take and seeing Him in the world around me. Today I understand spirituality to
be the link that unites all peoples and is centered on what is true and real.
May I continue to search for the meaning within the word and the harmony of
communication.
************************************************** *********
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress.
Psalm 107:13
"By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer
to the God of my life."
Psalm 42:8
************************************************** *********
Daily Inspiration
Waste no time on situations that aren't worth your precious time. Lord, may I recognize pettiness for what it is and move on so that my imagination doesn't take over and give pettiness more value than it deserves.
Ultimate security does not come from relying on things or people, but from relying on God. Lord, I place my trust in You. Bless me and keep me in Your loving care.