June 26
Daily Reflections
A GIFT THAT GROWS WITH TIME
For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 151
The longer I chased these elusive feelings with alcohol, the more out of reach they were. However, by applying this passage to my sobriety, I found that it described the magnificent new life made available to me by the A.A. program. It "truly does get better" one day at a time. The warmth, the love and the joy so simply expressed in these words grow in breadth and depth each time I read it. Sobriety is a gift that grows with time.
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Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
We must know the nature of our weakness before we can determine how to deal with it. When we are honest about its presence, we may discover that it is imaginary and can be overcome by a change of thinking. We admit that we are alcoholics and we would be foolish if we refused to accept our handicap and do something about it. So by honestly facing our weakness and keeping ever present the knowledge that for us alcoholism is a disease with which we are afflicted, we can take the necessary steps to arrest it. Have I fully accepted my handicap?
Meditation For The Day
There is a proper time for everything. I must learn not to do things at the wrong time, that is, before I am ready or before conditions are right. It is always a temptation to do something at once, instead of waiting until the proper time. Timing is important. I must learn, in the little daily situations of life, to delay action until I am sure that I am doing the right thing at the right time. So many lives lack balance and timing. In the momentous decisions and crises of life, they may ask God's guidance, but into the small situations of life, they rush alone.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may delay action until I feel that I am doing the right thing. I pray that I may not rush in alone. ************************************************** *********
As Bill Sees It
Money--Before and After, p. 177
In our drinking time, we acted as if the money supply were inexhaustible, though between binges we'd sometimes go to the other extreme and become miserly. Without realizing it, we were just accumulating funds for the next spree. Money was the symbol of pleasure and self-importance. As our drinking became worse, money was only an urgent requirement which could supply us with the next drink and the temporary comfort of oblivion it brought.
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Although financial recovery is on the way for many of us, we find we cannot place money first. For us, material well-being always follows spiritual progress; it never precedes.
1. 12 & 12, p. 120 2. Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 127
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Walk In Dry Places
Let it Happen Easy Does it. Student pilots learn a simple method for getting an airplane out of a stall; Release the stick forward, and the airplane rights itself. Continue to hold the stick back, and you cause a fatal spin. Many times, we cling too tightly to conditions that could simply right themselves ifwewould only letgo.Situations often work themselves out when we stop pushing and pulling too hard. If we're living on a spiritual basis and following our 12 Step program, lots of unpleasant conditions will clear up without any strainor struggle on our part. The secret, then, is to do our part and act prudently, but also to be willing to let things happen. I'll remember today not to push or pull too hard to get my way. Things might work themselves outifI simplyletnaturalforces work properly in every situation.
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Keep It Simple
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.---Albert Camus Sometimes we sat we're getting out lives together. Together with what? With our selves. The TwelveSteps help us clean up the mess we've made. We're fixing our mistakes. We're looking at ourselves closely---at what we believe, what we feel, what we like to do, who we are. We're asking our High Power to help us to be our best. No wonder over lives are coming together! No wonder we feel more peace, harmony, and happiness! Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me remember the best harmony comes when I sing from Your songbook. Action for the Day: Today, I'll make choices that are in line with who I am.
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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition
The Vicious Cycle
How it finally broke a Southerner's obstinacy and destined this salesman to start A.A. at Philadelphia.
In the spring of 1917, in order to beat being fired from school, I became "patriotic" and joinedtheArmy. I am one of the lads who came out of the service with a lower rank than when I went in. I had been to OTC the previous summer, so I went into the Army as a sergeant but I came out a private, and you really have to be unusual to do that. In the next two years, I washed morepans and peeled more potatoes than any other doughboy. In the Army, I became a periodic alcoholic--the periods always coming whenever I could makethe opportunity. However, I did manage to keep out of the guardhouse. My last bout in the Army lasted from November 5 to 11, 1918. We heard by wireless in the fifth that the Armistice would be signed the next day (this was a premature report), so I had a couple of cognacs to celebrate; then I hopped a truck and went AWOL. My next conscious memory was in BarleDuc, many miles from base. Itwas November 11, and bells were ringing and whistles blowing for the real Armistice. ThereI was, unshaven, clothes torn and dirty,with no recollection of wandering all over France but, of course, a hero to the local French. Back at camp,all was forgiven because it was the End, but in the light of what I have since learned, I know I was a confirmed alcoholic at nineteen.
pp. 222-223
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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Step Ten - "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it."
When evening comes, perhaps just before going to sleep, many of us draw up a balance sheet for the day. This is a good place to remember that inventory-taking is not always done in red ink. It's a poor day indeed when we haven't done something right. As a matter of fact, the waking hours are usually well filled with things that are constructive.Good intentions,goodthoughts,and goodacts arethere for us to see. Even when we have tried hard and failed, we may chalk that up as one of the greatest credits of all. Under these conditions, the pains of failure are converted into assets. Out of them we receive the stimulation weneed to go forward.Someonewho knew what he was talking about once remarked that pain was the touchstone of all spiritual progress. How heartily we A.A.'s can agree with him, for we know that the pains of drinking had to come before sobriety, and emotional turmoil before serenity.
pp. 93-94
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However many holy words you read, However many you speak, What good will they do you, If you do not act upon them? --Buddha
If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were. --Kahlil Gibran
The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do. --John Holt
Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others. --Wilfred Peterson
"Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content." --Helen Keller
"Seven days without a meeting makes one weak." --unknown
"There is no one giant step that does it. It's a lot of little steps." --Peter A. Cohen
Words are powerful tools. Use them to help and not hurt. --Cited in BITS & PIECES
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Father Leo's Daily Meditation
GENIUS
"In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous." --Robert G. Ingersoll
Spirituality is a creative and positive energy that forever seeks new ways to improve and heal itself. Spirituality is never satisfied with mediocrity. God is alive in musicians, writers, singers and prophets --and always the standard of "excellence" is searched for; best can be made better!
As a drunk I often settled for convenience, "no sweat", mediocrity. My motto was "Why bother? It can be done tomorrow." I had low energy. Addiction robs the human being of God's productive energy.
In recovery I seek the best because I believe I am the best; God made me -- and I respect His choice!
Lord, save me from the "comfortable way" that makes no demands on my genius.
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As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor -- this is the gift of God. Ecclesiastes 5:19
"The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with Him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 'Return home and tell how much God has done for you.' So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him." Luke 8:38-39
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." 1 John 1:7
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Daily Inspiration
Enjoy life while you've got the chance. Lord, may I view each day as a gift and a privilege.
Knowing about God and knowing God are very different things. Lord, may I recognizeYourworkings in my lifeso thatI may reallyknow You.
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