August 11th

DAILY PONDERABLES

Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny

Daily Reflections

REMOVING "THE GROUND GLASS"

The moral inventory is a cool examination of the damages that occurred to us during life and a sincere effort to look at them in a true perspective. This has the effect of taking the ground glass out of us, the emotional substance that still cuts and inhibits.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 140

My Eight Step list used to drag me into a whirlpool of resentment. After years of sobriety, I was blocked by denial connected with an ongoing abusive relationship. The argument between fear and pride eased as the words of the Step moved from my head to my heart. For the first time in years I opened my box of paints and poured out an honest rage, and explosion of reds and blacks and yellows. As I looked at the drawing, tears of joy and relief flowed down my cheeks. In my disease, I had given up my art, a self-inflicted punishment far greater than any imposed from outside. In my recovery, I learned that the pain of my defects is the very substance God uses to cleanse my character and to set me free.

From the book Daily Reflections

Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

"While alcoholics keep strictly away from drink, they react to life much like other people. But the first drink sets the terrible cycle in motion. Alcoholics usually have no idea why they take the first drink. Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied, but in their hearts they really do not know why they do it. The truth is that at some point in their drinking they have passed into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of no avail." Am I satisfied that I have passed my tolerance point for alcohol?

Meditation for the Day

He who made the ordered world out of chaos and set the stars in their courses and made each plant to know its season, He can bring peace and order out of your private chaos if you will let Him. God is watching over you, too, to bless you and care for you. Out of the darkness He is leading you to light, out of unrest to rest, out of disorder to order, out of faults and failure to success. You belong to God and your affairs are His affairs and can be ordered by Him if you are willing.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may be led out of disorder into order. I pray that I may be led out of failure into success.

From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day

NA - Just for Today

Active listening

Page 233

"Through active listening, we hear things that work for us."

Basic Text, pp. 106-107

Most of us arrived in Narcotics Anonymous with a very poor ability to listen. But to take full advantage of "the therapeutic value of one addict helping another," we must learn to listen actively.

What is active listening for us? In meetings, it means we concentrate on what the speaker is sharing, while the speaker is sharing. We set aside our own thoughts and opinions until the meeting is over. That's when we sort through what we've heard to decide which ideas we want to use and which we want to explore further.

We can apply our active listening skills in sponsorship, too. Newcomers often talk with us about some "major event" in their lives. While such events may not seem significant to us, they are to the newcomer who has little experience living life on life's terms. Our active listening helps us empathize with the feelings such events trigger in our sponsee's life. With that understanding, we have a better idea of what to share with them.

The ability to listen actively was unknown to us in the isolation of our addiction. Today, this ability helps us actively engage with our recovery. Through active listening, we receive everything being offered us in NA, and we share fully with others the love and care we've been given.

Just for Today: I will strive to be an active listener. I will practice active listening when others share and when I share with others.

From the book Just for Today

Thought for Today

'Our groups breathe life into us. We start to heal because we once again feel hope.'

HOPE:

Hearing Other People's Experiences

Insanity is 'Belonging to a 12 Step Program and not working the 12 Steps'

Agnostic, Second Class

by Larry R.

Our tent is large, there’s room for all, no matter your belief

You do not have to think the same to work towards your relief

Though most AAs say God is what they call their Higher Power

To other folks it has no name, and some are even doubters

When people start to work the Steps, some struggle with Step Three

It sounds like a religious thing and makes them want to flee

But once they see there are no rules, they do not have to thing

The same way that most others do and still escape from drink

The atheist says there is no God and logic tells him so

Agnostics say they are not sure, they truly just don’t know

But I fall in a different group, quite separate from the mass

I call the way I look at this, Agnostic Second Class

Agnostics doubt that God exists, buy do not rule it out

They see it a religion and think that’s what it’s about

Churches just a place where preachers have something to sell

They swear there is no heaven, then they hope there is no Hell.

As an Agnostic Second Class I have a different point of view

Most times I don’t believe in Him, yet other times I do

When unexpected thinks occur, with benefit to me

I start to feel He may exist and for a time agree

And then the world comes crashing in and logic takes its place

A new horrific tragedy befalls the human race

Men are slain, their women raped because they don’t believe

The same way that their killers do, their children left to greave

Sometimes I see a thing occur that starts our very bad

A pregnancy that terminates, a child we never had

But in a while, another one arrives to our embrace

This precious child is here because that first event took place

I’m grateful AA welcomes in us folks with different views

No doctrine is forced down our throats, they leave us free to choose

Believe or don’t, or just don’t know, about a Higher Power

We all draw strength from what we share, together, for one hour

Larry R.

Buddha/Zen Thoughts

It is easier to meditate than to actually do something for others. I feel that merely to meditate on compassion is to take the passive option. Our meditation should form the basis for action, for seizing the opportunity to do something.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Native American

"May there be peace when we meet."

--Audrey Shenandoah, ONONDAGA

The Elders tell us the greatest gift we can seek is peace of mind, to walk in balance, to respect all things. For us to do this, we must have peace within ourselves and peace within ourselves cannot come unless we are walking the path the Creator would have us walk. Sometimes the tests on this path are difficult, but we know that each test makes us stronger.

Oh Great Spirit, I ask You to whisper Your wisdom in my heart. You are the only one who knows the secret to peaceful living and the mystery of harmony. Teach me of Your peace, understanding and balance and guide me onto your good path.

Keep It Simple

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you're still a rat.

--- Lily Tomlin

Alcoholism is rat race. Drug addiction is a rat race. We were always trying to keep one or two steps ahead of the cat. We were always sneaking around, and everyone was disgusted with us.

Our goal in recovery is stop acting like a rat and join the human race again. Recovery teaches us sayings like Easy Does It and One Day At a Time. Our sayings remind us to pace ourselves. Our sayings remind us that healing takes time.

We live by human values: honesty, respect from others, fairness, openness, self-respect. We work at just being ourselves. We learn that this is enough. We are enough.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me accept my humanness. I am part of the human race, not the rat race.

Action for the Day: Just for today, I'll pace myself. I'll list ways I often go to fast for my own good. I'll ask friends how they pace themselves.

Big Book

Chapter 11 A Vision For You (pg 159 & top 160)

He had three visitors. After a bit, he said, "The way you fellows put this spiritual stuff makes sense. I’m ready to do business. I guess the old folks were right after all." So one more was added to the Fellowship.

All this time our friend of the hotel lobby incident remained in that town. He was there three months. He now returned home, leaving behind his first acquaintances, the lawyer and the devil-may-care chap. These men had found something brand new in life. Though they knew they must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that motive became secondary. It was transcended by the happiness they found in giving themselves for others. They shared their homes, their slender resources, and gladly devoted their spare hours to fellow-sufferers. They were willing, by day or night, to place a new man in the hospital and visit him afterward. They grew in numbers. They experienced a few distressing failures, but in those cases they made an effort to bring the man’s family into a spiritual way of living, thus relieving much worry and suffering.

A year and six months later these three had succeeded with seven more. Seeing much of each other, scarce an evening passed that someone’s home did not shelter a little gathering of men and women, happy in their release, and constantly thinking how they might present their discovery to some newcomer. In addition to these casual get-togethers, it became customary to set apart one night a week for a meeting to be attended by anyone or everyone interested in a spiritual way of life. Aside from fellowship and sociability, the prime object was to provide a time and place where new people might bring their problems.