DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
SEEKING EMOTIONAL STABILITY
When we developed still more, we discovered the best possible
source of emotional stability to be God Himself. We found that
dependence upon His perfect justice, forgiveness, and love was
healthy, and that it would work where nothing else would. If we
really depended upon God, we couldn't very well play God to our
fellows nor would we feel the urge wholly to rely on human
protection and care.
12 & 12, p.116
All my life I depended on people for my emotional needs and
security, but today I cannot live that way anymore. By the grace of
God, I have admitted my powerlessness over people, places and
things. I had been a real "people addict"; wherever I went there
had to be someone who would pay some kind of attention to me. It
was the kind of attitude that could only get worse, because the more
I depended on others and demanded attention, the less I received. I
have given up believing that any human power can relieve me of that
empty feeling. Although I remain a fragile human being who needs to
work A.A.'s Steps to keep this particular principle before my
personality, it is only a loving God who can give me inner peace and
emotional stability.
From the book Daily Reflections
© Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
"Those who do not recover are people who are constitutionally
incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such
unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been
born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and
developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.
Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who
suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them
do recover, if they have the capacity to be honest." Am I completely
honest with myself and with other people?
Meditation For The Day
You can make use of your mistakes, failures, losses, and sufferings.
It is not what happens to you so much as what use you make of it.
Take your sufferings, difficulties, and hardships and make use of
them to help some unfortunate soul who is faced with the same
troubles. Then something good will come out of your suffering and
the world will be a better place because of it. The good you do each
day will live on, after the trouble and distress have gone, after the
difficulty and the pain have passed away.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may make good use of my mistakes and failures. I
pray that some good may result from my painful experiences.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Contribution
Page 244
"We recognize our spiritual growth when we are able to reach out and help others."
Basic Text, p. 58
To make a difference in the world, to contribute something special, is perhaps the highest aspiration of the human heart, Each one of us, no matter what our personal makeup, has a unique quality to offer.
Chances are that at some time in our recovery we met someone who reached us when no one else could. Whether it was someone who made us laugh at our first meeting, a warm and compassionate sponsor, or an understanding friend who supported us through an emotional storm, that person made all the difference in the world.
All of us have had the gift of recovery shared with us by another recovering addict. For that, we are grateful. We express our gratitude by sharing freely with others what was given to us. The individual message we carry may help a newcomer only we can reach.
There are many ways to serve our fellowship. Each of us will find that we do some things better than others, but all service work is equally important. If we are willing to serve, we're sure to find that particular way to contribute that's right for us.
Just for Today: My contribution makes a difference. I will offer a helping hand today.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
"Bitterness and an unforgiving spirit can be likened to you taking poison and
expecting that someone else would die from the effect. Forgiveness is about
setting the prisoner in your heart free only to discover that all along, you had
been the real prisoner."
~ 'Tope Popoola
The Invisible Boat AA (Clancy I.)
Staying sober was all that I wanted when I came to AA. At the time, I
thought that removing the alcohol from my life, as well as the other sources
of amusement, would allow me to be the great guy I pretended I was and let
me look down on those whose only function seemed to be to criticize and make my life hell. Without alcohol I was convinced my “enemies” would have nothing to complain about and their superficiality would be as obvious as my suffering and sacrifice. My ultimate vindication would follow forthwith.
I heard a lot about “surrender” when I came around, but until I became
willing to believe a power greater than me could remove the insane ideas
expressed in the opening paragraph, surrender, whether to alcohol or life
itself, was inconceivable. The paradox is that until I took actions I DID NOT
think would work, I had no chance of believing in anything. Only then did I
begin to realize that what I thought did not have to be consistent with
what I believed.
I bring all this up because lately I’ve been listening to Clancy I’s
story of “The Invisible Boat”, one of the most effective allegories I’ve
encountered in recovery. I’ve heard about this lesson more than I’ve actually
heard it, but it’s included as part of a weekend retreat Clancy led in
Toronto in the early 90’s, (a presentation he has described as his favorite
recording of the zillions of his tapes available). In the version I heard
Clancy used the Invisible Boat as means of distinguishing between good and bad treatment centers, but it can be presented, I suspect, as a basic primer
on the first three steps or the early stages of recovery that lead to long
term sobriety.
What Clancy talks about is the taking of suggestions that, to the average
alcoholic, appear to be ridiculous on their face. He draws a parallel
between two groups of people leaving Toronto for Cleveland, each traveling by boat. In Clancy’s tale the Treatment Centers offer a beautiful yacht with
clean beds, excellent food and first class accommodations. The AA group’s mode of transportation is a boat that only they can see and which they fully
expect you to board and help power. Most of us, given this choice, opt for
the Treatment center’s mode of transport, but it is not until we’re halfway
across the lake that we learn their boat is going only halfway towards
recovery. They get us started, but it is up to us to complete the journey. In
Clancy’s metaphor we’re thrown into the lake, where we meet AA groups
paddling in a boat we still can’t see. And its only when we’re out of options
that we agree to climb into this “boat” that should not float given our
view of such matters. In spite of our cynicism we’re told to shut up and
row; and if we do so, pretty soon we get our oars in the water, we begin to
make progress and little by little the boat gains substance and its means of
keeping us afloat becomes more apparent. The longer we keep at it, the
bigger our boat becomes. That doesn’t mean we don’t need a sponsor to tell
us when we’re rowing with the oars upside down, but it does mean our eyes
are gradually opened to a solution that we could not see before.
In an interesting sidelight, Clancy alludes to the “old timers” who lose
their compass and direction and before they know it their boat begins to
take on water as they begin to take on alcohol. The problem is, when the old
timer comes back to AA they not only face the problem of staying sober
they faces this problem in a little row boat, not the big cabin cruiser to
which they’d become accustomed. The disappointment keeps many from coming back to AA.
For this alcoholic, Prayer was my invisible boat; but I did not find my
oars until I got down on my knees to look for them. The funny thing is, I
still don’t think it will work, even though I believe it has for some time
now. My beliefs have “bailed out” my thoughts many times since those early
days. Thank God for that Invisible boat.
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.
-Shunryu Suzuki, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"
Native American
"When life is too good, we think too highly of ourselves and our blessings. Then we decide we are the wisest and the favored ones, and we don't think we need Wakan-Tanka and the Helpers anymore."
--Fools Crow, LAKOTA
It is sometimes easy to get off track when times are good. We start to take the credit and start to think we are in control. We start to think we are smart. Then we quit praying or pray only with lip service. We say the words but don't mean them. Sometimes our head is our greatest enemy. We start acting like a foolish child. We must develop the discipline to be humble during the good times. We need to remember how honorable it is each day to come into the presence of the Creator. How happy we should be to talk to the Grandfathers, to have the choice to start each day on the Sacred Spot - our place of communion with the Great Spirit.
Oh Great Spirit, first let me thank You for the honor of talking to You today. To have the insight of Your love, that only You can love me when I don't deserve to be loved. Let me be reminded to talk to You all day long.
Keep It Simple
It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear. --- Dick Cavett
We want only to hear good things. That we’re nice people. That our loved ones are healthy.
That we did a good job. We don’t want to hear that anyone is angry with us, or that we made a mistake. We don’t want to hear about illness or troubles.
But life isn’t just happy news. Bad things happen. We can’t change that. As we live our recovery program, we learn to handle the addiction. We choose the path of life. We need to know all the news, good, and bad. Then we can deal with life as it really is.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me listen---even when I don't want to. Gently help me deal with both the good and bad. All the help I need is mine for the asking.
Action for the Day: I will ask my sponsor and three friends to tell me about my blind spots.
TWELVE STEPS
and
TWELVE TRADITIONS
Foreword
pgs 13-17
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS is a worldwide fellowship of more than one hundred thousand* alcoholic men and women who are banded together to solve their common problems and to help fellow sufferers in recovery from that age-old, baffling malady, alcoholism.
This book deals with the “Twelve Steps” and the “Twelve Traditions” of Alcoholics Anonymous. It presents an explicit view of the principles by which A.A. members recover and by which their Society functions.
A.A.’s Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.
A.A.’s Twelve Traditions apply to the life of the Fellowship itself. They outline the means by which A.A. maintains its unity and relates itself to the world about it, the way it lives and grows.
Though the essays which follow were written mainly for members, it is thought by many of A.A.’s friends that these pieces might arouse interest and find application outside A.A. itself.
Many people, nonalcoholics, report that as a result of the practice of A.A.’s Twelve Steps, they have been able to meet other difficulties of life. They think that the Twelve Steps can mean more than sobriety for problem drinkers. They see in them a way to happy and effective living for many, alcoholic or not.
____________
* In 2013, it is estimated that over two million have recovered through A.A.
There is, too, a rising interest in the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Students of human relations are beginning to wonder how and why A.A. functions as a society. Why is it, they ask, that in A.A. no member can be set in personal authority over another, that nothing like a central government can anywhere be seen? How can a set of traditional principles, having no legal force at all, hold the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in unity and effectiveness? The second section of this volume, though designed for A.A.’s membership, will give such inquirers an inside view of A.A. never before possible.
Alcoholics Anonymous began in 1935 at Akron, Ohio, as the outcome of a meeting between a well-known surgeon and a New York broker. Both were severe cases of alcoholism and were destined to become co-founders of the A.A. Fellowship.
The basic principles of A.A., as they are known today, were borrowed mainly from the fields of religion and medicine, though some ideas upon which success finally depended were the result of noting the behavior and needs of the Fellowship itself.
After three years of trial and error in selecting the most workable tenets upon which the Society could be based, and after a large amount of failure in getting alcoholics to recover, three successful groups emerged—the first at Akron, the second at New York, and the third at Cleveland.
Even then it was hard to find two score of sure recoveries in all three groups.
Nevertheless, the infant Society determined to set down its experience in a book which finally reached the public in April 1939. At this time the recoveries numbered about one hundred. The book was called “Alcoholics Anonymous,” and from it the Fellowship took its name. In it alcoholism was described from the alcoholic’s point of view, the spiritual ideas of the Society were codified for the first time in the Twelve Steps, and the application of these Steps to the alcoholic’s dilemma was made clear. The remainder of the book was devoted to thirty stories or case histories in which the alcoholics described their drinking experiences and recoveries. This established identification with alcoholic readers and proved to them that the virtually impossible had now become possible. The book “Alcoholics Anonymous” became the basic text of the Fellowship, and it still is. This present volume proposes to broaden and deepen the understanding of the Twelve Steps as first written in the earlier work.
With the publication of the book “Alcoholics Anonymous” in 1939, the pioneering period ended and a prodigious chain reaction set in as the recovered alcoholics carried their message to still others. In the next years alcoholics flocked to A.A. by tens of thousands, largely as the result of excellent and continuous publicity freely given by magazines and newspapers throughout the world. Clergymen and doctors alike rallied to the new movement, giving it unstinted support and endorsement.
This startling expansion brought with it very severe growing pains. Proof that alcoholics could recover had been made. But it was by no means sure that such great numbers of yet erratic people could live and work together with harmony and good effect.
Everywhere there arose threatening questions of membership, money, personal relations, public relations, management of groups, clubs, and scores of other perplexities. It was out of this vast welter of explosive experience that A.A.’s Twelve Traditions took form and were first published in 1946 and later confirmed at A.A.’s First International Convention, held at Cleveland in 1950. The Tradition section of this volume portrays in some detail the experience which finally produced the Twelve Traditions and so gave A.A. its present form, substance, and unity.
As A.A. now enters maturity, it has begun to reach into forty foreign lands*. In the view of its friends, this is but the beginning of its unique and valuable service.
It is hoped that this volume will afford all who read it a close-up view of the principles and forces which have made Alcoholics Anonymous what it is.
(A.A.’s General Service Office may be reached by writing:
Alcoholics Anonymous, P.O. Box 459,
Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163. U.S.A.)
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* In 2013, A.A. is established in approximately 170 countries
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