THE "NUMBER ONE OFFENDER"

Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 64
As I look at myself practicing the Fourth Step, it is easy to gloss over the wrong that I have done, because I can easily see it as a question of "getting even" for a wrong done to me. If I continue to relive my old hurt, it is a resentment and resentment bars the sunlight from my soul. If I continue to relive hurts and hates, I will hurt and hate myself. After years in the dark of resentments, I have found the sunlight. I must let go of resentments; I cannot afford them.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

A police captain once told about certain cases he had come across in his police work. The cause of the tragedy in each case was drunkenness. He told his audience about a man who got into an argument with his wife while he was drunk and beat her to death. Then he went out and drank some more. The police captain also told about a woman who got too near the edge of an old quarry hole when she was drunk and fell one hundred and fifty feet to her death. When I read or hear these stories, do I think about our motto: "But for the grace of God"?

Meditation for the Day

I must keep balance by keeping spiritual things at the center of my life. God will give me this poise and balance if I pray for it. This poise will give me power in dealing with the lives of others. This balance will manifest itself more and more in my own life. I should keep material things in their proper place and keep spiritual things at the center of my life. Then I will be at peace amid the distractions of everyday living.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may dwell with God at the center of my life. I pray that I may keep that inner peace at the center of my being.

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NA - Just for Today

A new vision

Page 108

"Do we really want to be rid of our resentments, our anger, our fear?"

Basic Text, p. 34

Why do we call them "shortcomings"? Perhaps they should be called "long-goings;" because that's often what it takes for them to fade from our lives. Some of us feel that our shortcomings are the very characteristics that saved our lives when we used. If this is true, then it is little wonder that we sometimes cling to them like old, dear friends.

If we are having trouble with resentment, anger, or fear, we may want to envision what our lives could be like without these troubling defects. Asking ourselves why we react in a certain manner can sometimes root out the fear at the core of our conduct. "Why am I afraid to step beyond these aspects of my personality?" we ask ourselves. "Am I afraid of who I will be without these attributes?"

Once we have uncovered our fear, we are able to move beyond it. We try to imagine what our lives could be like without some of our more glaring shortcomings. This gives us a feeling for what lies past our fear, providing the motivation we need to push through it. Our Higher Power offers us a new vision for our lives, free of our defects. That vision is the essence of our own best, brightest dreams for ourselves. We need not fear that vision.

Just for Today: I will imagine what my life would be like without my character defects. I will ask for the willingness to have God remove my shortcomings.
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Thought for Today

"When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring
out the best in ourselves."

--William Arthur Ward

"The 12 steps of AA keep me safe from alcohol and the 12 traditions keep AA safe from me"

Anonymous
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Buddha/Zen Thoughts

'I've got children', 'I've got wealth.' This is the way a fool brings suffering
on himself. He does not even own himself, so how can he have children or wealth?

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Native American

"Dissimilar things were fitted together to make something beautiful and whole."
--Nippawanock, ARAPAHOE
Sometimes we look at something close up and it appears to be ugly; but then we drop back and look at it as a whole and it is beautiful. If we look at an insect close up, it may be ugly, but if we drop back and look at the whole insect it becomes beautiful. We can drop back even more and observe what its role and purpose is, and the insect becomes even more beautiful and whole. How are we looking at ourselves? Are we focused on something ugly about ourselves, or are we dropping back and looking at ourselves as a whole? We all have purpose, and we are all beautiful.
Grandfather, today, let me see the beauty of the whole.

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Keep It Simple

It is enough that I am of value to somebody today. --- Hugh Prather

Even in recovery, we addicts often feel we are not enough. Maybe it's leftover shame from our using days. But we are enough. We are of great value. We all need each other to stay sober.
Each of us needs other recovering people to help us remember the hell of addiction. We can forget how bad it was, but telling our stories makes us remember. When you feel you don't want to stay sober for yourself, then stay sober for your brothers and sisters in the program. They need you.
You're their recovery, as they're yours. There may be days you don't feel glad to be sober. But your friends in this fellowship are glad you're sober. They thank-you for your sobriety

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, may Your will, not mine, be done.

Action For the Day: I'll stop and think of all the people I'm glad for. I'll start telling them today.

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Big Book
Chapter 3 More About Alcoholism (pg 34 & top 35)

As we look back, we feel we had gone on drinking many years beyond the point where we could quit on our will power. If anyone questions whether he has entered this dangerous area, let him try leaving liquor alone for one year. If he is a real alcoholic and very far advanced, there is scant chance of success. In the early days of our drinking we occasionally remained sober for a year or more, becoming serious drinkers again later. Though you may be able to stop for a considerable period, you may yet be a potential alcoholic. We think few, to whom this book will appeal, can stay dry anything like a year. Some will be drunk the day after making their resolutions; most of them within a few weeks.
For those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. Many of us felt that we had plenty of character. There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it-this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish.
How then shall we help our readers determine, to their own satisfaction, whether they are one of us? The experiment of quitting for a period of time will be helpful, but we think we can render an even greater service to alcoholic sufferers and perhaps to the medical fraternity. So we shall describe some of the mental states that precede a relapse into drinking, for obviously this is the crux of the problem.

Join us at Friendship House.