Maybe we were a bit demanding...you think?

. . . AND NO MORE RESERVATIONS

We have seen the truth again and again: "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic." . . . If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol. . . . To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 33

These words are underlined in my book. They are true for men and women alcoholics.
On many occasions I've turned to this page and reflected on this passage.
I need never fool myself by recalling my sometimes differing drinking patterns, or by believing I am "cured."

I like to think that, if sobriety is God's gift to me, then my sober life is a gift to God.
I hope God is happy with His gift as I am with mine.

********************************************************************************
Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

Strength comes from the fellowship you find when you come into A.A. just being with men and women who have found the way out gives you a feeling of security. You listen to the speakers, you talk with other members, and you absorb the atmosphere of confidence and hope that you find in the place. Am I receiving strength from the fellowship with other AA. members?

Meditation for the Day

God is with you, to bless and help you. His spirit is all around you. Waver not in your faith or in your prayers. All power is the Lord's. Say that to yourself often and steadily. Say it until your heart sings with joy for the safety and personal power that it means to you. Say it until the very force of the utterance drives back and puts to naught all the evils against you. Use it as a battle cry. All power is the Lord's. Then you will pass on to victory over all your sins and temptations, and you will begin to live a victorious life.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that with strength from God I may lead an abundant life. I pray that I may lead a life of victory.

***********************************
NA - Just for Today

God's gifts

Page 85

"We do the footwork and accept what's being given to us freely on a daily basis."

Basic Text, p. 47

Our relationship with our Higher Power is a two-way street. In prayer, we speak and God listens. When we meditate, we do our best to listen for the will of our Higher Power. We know that we are responsible for our part of the relationship. If we do not pray and listen, we shut our Higher Power out of our lives.

When we think about our relationship with our Higher Power, it's important to remember which one we are: the powerless one. We can ask for guidance; we can ask for willingness or strength; we can ask for knowledge of our Higher Power's will-but we cannot make demands. The God of our understanding-the one with the power-will fulfill that half of the relationship by giving us exactly what we need, when we need it.

We need to take action every day to keep our relationship with a Higher Power alive. One way we do this is by applying the Eleventh Step. Then we remember our own powerlessness and accept the will of a Power greater than ourselves.

Just for Today: In my relationship with my Higher Power, I am the powerless one. Remembering who I am, today I will humbly accept the gifts of the God I understand.
**************************************

Thought for Today

Spirituality

AA is a spiritual program and a spiritual way of life.
Even the first half of the First Step,
"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol,"
is a spiritual experience.
An AA member needs more than physical capabilities;
he needs the use of his full faculties as a human being
to hear the message, to think about it,
to review the effects of the past,
to realize, to admit, and to accept.
These processes are activities of the mind,
which is part of the spirit.

Thought to Ponder . . .

Only those who see the invisible can accomplish the impossible.


AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
K I S S = Keeping It Simple, Spiritually.

**********************************************************

Buddha/Zen Thoughts

All the faults of our mind – our selfishness, ignorance, anger, attachment, guilt, and other disturbing thoughts – are temporary, not permanent and everlasting. And since the cause of our suffering – our disturbing thoughts and obscurations – is temporary, our suffering is also temporary.

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche, "Ultimate Healing:

***********************************
Native American

"We must relearn how to cry. A strong man cries; it is the weak man who holds back his tears."
--Archie Fire Lame Deer, LAKOTA

Indian men and other men should really meditate on this Elder's saying. So many men have been taught it is unmanly to cry, to show emotions or to feel. When people cry, the Elders say there are two types of tears – one type will taste salty; the other type will taste sweet. One is caused by pain, and the other is caused by the release from the pain, or joy tears. A strong man knows himself and knows his relationship with the Great Spirit. The release of tears is a spiritual act. Our bodies are designed to cry. We should honor our bodies and use them as the Creator intended.
Great Spirit, Grandfather, today, teach me to cry.

***********************************
Keep It Simple

If anything, we have tended to be people who have wanted it all now. To hope is not to demand. ---On hope

Maybe we were a bit demanding. Maybe we were a bit impatient. Maybe that’s why we such little hope.

Hope is believing good will, even in bad times. Hope is knowing that “this too, shall pass.”

Hope is knowing that no mater how afraid we are, God will be with us. Hope is knowing we never have to be alone again. It is knowing that time is on our side. Hope is giving up control. Hope is knowing we never had control in the first place. Hope is believing in ourselves. Hope is what our program is all about.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, in our program we share our experiences, our strengths, and our hopes. Thank you for giving all three of these to me to share.

Action for the Day: I will share my hope for the future with myself, my Higher Power, and my friends. I also will share this with someone who has lost hope.

*************************************

Big Book

Chapter 1 BILL'S STORY (pg 10)

He talked for hours. Childhood memories rose before me. I could almost hear the sound of the preacher's voice as I sat, on still Sundays, way over there on the hillside; there was that proffered temperance pledge I never signed; my grandfather's good natured contempt of some church fold and their doings; his insistence that the spheres really had their music; but his denial of the preacher's right to tell him how he must listen; his fearlessness as he spoke of these things just before he died; these recollections welled up from the past. They made me swallow hard.
That war-time day in old Winchester Cathedral came back again.

I had always believed in a Power greater that myself. I had often pondered these things. I was not an atheist. Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere. My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the evolutionist, suggested vast laws and forces at work. Despite contrary indications, I had little doubt that a might purpose and rhythm underlay all. How could there be so much of precise and immutable law, and no intelligence? I simply had to believe in a Spirit of the Universe, who knew neither time nor limitation. But that was as far as I had gone.

With ministers, and the world's religions, I parted right there. When they talked of a God personal to me, who was love, superhuman strength and direction, I became irritated and my mind snapped shut against such a theory.

Visit Friendship House