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DAILY PONDERABLES

Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny

Daily Reflections

PARTNERS IN RECOVERY

. . . Nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intense work with other alcoholics...Both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress. . . Follow the dictates of a Higher Power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstance!

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pp. 89, 100

Doing the right things for the right reasons -- this is my way of controlling my selfishness and self-centeredness. I realize that my dependency on a Higher Power clears the way for peace of mind, happiness and sobriety. I pray each day that I will avoid my previous actions, so that I will be helpful to others.

From the book Daily Reflections

Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

The way of A.A. is the way of faith. We don't get the full benefit of the program until we surrender our lives to some Power greater than ourselves and trust that Power to give us the strength we need. There is no better way for us. We can get sober without it. We can stay sober for some time without it. But if we are going to truly live, we must take the way of faith in God. That is the path for us. We must follow it. Have I taken the way of faith?

Meditation for the Day

Life is not a search for happiness. Happiness is a by-product of living the right kind of a life, of doing the right thing. Do not search for happiness, search for right living and happiness will be your reward. Life is sometimes a march of duty during dull, dark days. But happiness will come again, as God's smile of recognition of your faithfulness. True happiness is always the by-product of a life well lived.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may not seek happiness but seek to do right. I pray that I may not seek pleasure so much as the things that bring true happiness.

From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day

NA - Just for Today

Where There's Smoke.

"Complacency is the enemy of members with substantial clean time. If we remain complacent for long, the recovery process ceases."

Basic Text pg. 80

Recognizing complacency in our recovery is like seeing smoke in a room. The "smoke" thickens when our meeting attendance drops, contact with newcomers decreases, or relations with our sponsor aren't maintained. With continued complacency; we won't be able to see through the smoke to find our way out. Only our immediate response will prevent an inferno.

We must learn to recognize the smoke of complacency. In NA, we have all the help We need to do that. We need to spend time with other recovering addicts because they may detect our complacency before we do. Newcomers will remind us of how painful active addiction can be. Our sponsor will help us remain focused, and recovery literature kept in easy reach can be used to extinguish the small flare-ups that happen from time to time. Regular participation in our recovery will surely enable us to see that wisp of smoke long before it becomes a major inferno.

Just for today: I will participate in the full range of my recovery; My commitment to NA is just as strong today as it was in the beginning of my recovery.

pg. 366

From the book Just for Today

Thought for Today

"A gift inspires another gift, and a miracle inspires the next miracle.

It's got to start somewhere; it might as well start with you."

--Scott Hamilton

Just act better than you feel

Polly P

Tomorrow is only found in the calendar of Fools.

Og Mandino

Buddha/Zen Thoughts

The point of the teachings is to control your own mind. Restrain your mind from greed, and you will keep your body right, your mind pure and your words faithful. Always thinking of the transiency of your life, you will be able to desist from greed and anger and will be able to avoid all evils.

Native American

"If you have one hundred people who live together, and if each one cares for the rest, there is One Mind."

--Shining Arrows, CROW

One of the principles of Community is Unity. The alignment of thoughts in groups of people will cause One Mind to form. One Mind is Unity. Each individual in the community must align their thoughts with what other members are thinking. If all the people think of helping one another, then the community will be service oriented and powerful results will be enjoyed. Having our thoughts aligned within a group will cause our children to experience a positive environment. When they have children, the grandchildren will automatically experience these results also.

My Creator, help me to contribute to positive group thought.

Keep It Simple

Charity sees the need, not the cause. --- German proverb

Charity is not just giving money to good causes. Charity is having a heart that's ready to give. Charity is helping a friend at two in the morning. Charity is going early to the meeting to put on coffee without being asked.

Service is how Twelve Step programs refer to "Charity". Service and charity are a lifestyle. We see a need, so we try to help. Our values and our heart will guide us in how we help. Service is a big part of our program. Service helps us think of others, not just of ourselves. We stop asking, "What's in it for me?" The act of helping others is what's in it for us. Sobriety is what's in it for us. Serenity is what's in it for us.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, You have given me many talents. Help me see how my talents can make the world a better place. Giving of myself is believing in You and myself.

Action for the Day: Today, I'll list my talents and I'll think of ways I can use them to help others.

Big Book

"God has abundantly supplied this world with fine doctors,

psychologists, and practitioners of various kinds. Do not hesitate to

take your health problems to such persons. Most of them give

freely of themselves, that their fellows may enjoy sound minds and

bodies."

~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, The Family Afterward, pg. 133~

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IN REMEMBRANCE OF "EBBY"

By Bill Wilson AA Grapevine June 1966

In his seventieth year, and on the twenty-first of March, my friend and sponsor "Ebby" passed beyond our sight and hearing.

On a chill November afternoon in 1934 it was Ebby who had brought me the message that saved my life. Still more importantly, he was the bearer of the Grace and of the principles that shortly afterward led to my spiritual awakening. This was truly a call to new life in the Spirit. It was the kid of rebirth that has since become the most precious possession of each and all of us.

As I looked upon him where he lay in perfect repose, I was stirred by poignant memories of all the years I had known and loved him.

There were recollections of those joyous days in a Vermont boarding school. After the war years we were sometimes together, then drinking of course. Alcohol, we thought, was the solvent for all difficulties, a veritable elixir for good living.

Then there was that absurd episode of 1929. Ebby and I were on an all-night spree in Albany. Suddenly we remembered that a new airfield had been constructed in Vermont, on a pasture near my own home town. The opening day was close at hand. Then came the intoxicating thought: If only we could hire a plane we’d beat the opening by several days, thus making aviation history ourselves! Forthwith, Ebby routed a pilot friend out of bed, and for a stiff price we engaged him and his small craft. We sent the town f! athers a wire announcing the time of our arrival. In midmorning, we took to the air, greatly elated -- and very tight.

Somehow our rather tipsy pilot set us down on the field. A large crowd, including the village band and a welcoming committee, lustily cheered his feat. The pilot then deplaned. But nothing else happened, nothing at all. The onlookers stood in puzzled silence. Where were Ebby and Bill? Then the horrible discovery was made -- we were both slumped in the rear cockpit of the plane, completely passed out! Kind friends lifted us down and stood us upon the ground. Whereupon we history-makers fell flat on our faces. Ignominiously, we had to be carted away. The fiasco could not have been more appalling. We spent the next day shakily writing apologies.

Over the following five years, I seldom saw Ebby. But of course our drinking went on and on. In late 1934 I got a terrific jolt when I learned that Ebby was about to be locked up, this time in a state mental hospital.

Following a serious of mad sprees, he had run his father’s new Packard off the road and into the side of a dwelling, smashing right into its kitchen, and just missing a terrified housewife. Thinking to ease this rather awkward situation, Ebby summoned his brightest smile and said, “Well, my dear, how about a cup of coffee?”

Of course Ebby’s lighthearted humor was quite lost on everyone concerned. Their patience worn thin, the town fathers yanked him into court. To all appearances, Ebby’s final destination was the insane asylum. To me, this marked the end of the line for us both. Only a short time before, my physician, Dr. Silkworth, had felt! obliged to tell Lois there was no hope of my recovery; that I, too would have to be confined, else risk insanity or death.

But Providence would have it otherwise. It was presently learned that Ebby had been paroled into the custody of friends who (for the time being) had achieved their sobriety in the Oxford Groups. They brought Ebby to New York where he fell under the benign influence of AA’s great friend-to-be, Dr. Sam Shoemaker, the rector of Calvary Episcopal Church. Much affected by Sam and the “O.G.” Ebby promptly sobered up. Hearing of my serious condition, he had straight-way come to our house in Brooklyn.

As I continued to recollect, the vision of Ebby looking at me across our kitchen table became wonderfully vivid. As most AAs know, he spoke to me of the release from hopelessness that had come to him (through the Oxford Groups) as the result of self-survey, restitution, outgoing helpfulness to others, and prayer. In short, he was proposing the attitudes and principles that I used later in developing AA’s Twelve Steps to recovery.

It had happened. One alcoholic had effectively carried the message to another. Ebby had been enabled to bring me the gift of Grace because he could reach me at depth through the language of the heart. He had pushed ajar that great gate through which all in AA have since passed to find their freedom under God.