Recovery Thoughts & Quotes 6/12

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~*~A.A. Thoughts For The Day~*~
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Sacrifices
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"At the beginning we sacrificed alcohol.
We had to, or it would have killed us.
But we couldn't get rid of alcohol
unless we made other sacrifices.
Big-shotism and phony thinking had to go.
We had to toss self-justification, self-pity,
and anger right out the window.
We had to quit the crazy contest for personal prestige
and big bank balances.
We had to take personal responsibility for our sorry state
and quit blaming others for it.
Were these sacrifices? Yes, they were.
To gain enough humility and self-respect
to stay alive at all we had to give up
what had really been our dearest possessions -
our ambitions and our illegitimate pride."
Bill W., January 1955
1988AAGrapevine, The Language of the Heart, p. 210
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Thought to Consider . . .

Sobriety is a journey, not a destination





*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
S O B E R = Son Of a Basket, Everything's Real

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*~*~*~*~*^Just FFor Today!^*~*~*~*~*


Core
From "The Three Legacies of Alcoholics Anonymous":
"On many a day I felt like throwing the book out the window.

"I was in this anything-but-spiritual mood on the night when the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous were written. I was sore and tired clear through. I lay in bed at 182 Clinton Street with pencil in hand and with a tablet of scratch paper on my knee. I could not get my mind on the job, much less put my heart in it. But here was one of those things that had to be done. Slowly my mind came into some kind of focus.

"Since Ebby's visit to me in the fall of 1934 we had gradually evolved what we called 'the word-of-mouth program.' Most of the basic ideas had come from the Oxford Groups, William James, and Dr. Silkworth."

2001 AAWS, Inc.; Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, pg. 160

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*~*~*~*~*^ Big Book Quote ^*~*~*~*~*


"Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for
the alcoholic! For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his
spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could
not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. If he did not
work, he would surely drink again, and if he drank, he would surely
die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us it is just like that."

~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Bill's Story, pg. 14~

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Misc. AA Literature - Quote




Who can render an account of all the miseries that once were ours, and who can estimate the release and joy that the later years have brought to us? Who can possibly tell the vast consequences of what God's work through A.A. has already set in motion?
And who can penetrate the deeper mystery of our wholesale deliverance from slavery, a bondage to a most hopeless and fatal obsession which for centuries possessed the minds and bodies of men and women like ourselves?
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We think cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness. Outsiders are sometimes shocked when we burst into merriment over a seemingly tragic experience out of the past. But why shouldn't we laugh? We have recovered, and have helped others to recover. What greater cause could there be for rejoicing than this?

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Member Submitted Quote



Well done is better than well said. ( Frank N. )

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12 x 12 Quote

"Still more wonderful is the feeling that we do not have to be
specially distinguished among our fellows in order to be useful and
profoundly happy. Not many of us can be leaders of prominence, nor do
we wish to be. Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met,
troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that
at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort,
the well-understood fact that in God's sight all human beings are
important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full
return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in
self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square
pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God's scheme of things--
these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living
for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material
possessions, could possibly be substitutes. True ambition is not what
we thought it was. True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully
and walk humbly under the grace of God." (Twelve and Twelve, Step
Twelve, pg. 124)