DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
7aily Reflections
AN UNSUSPECTED INNER RESOURCE
With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pp. 567-68
From my first days in A.A., as I struggled for sobriety, I found hope in these words from our founders. I often pondered the phrase: "they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource." How, I asked myself, can I find the Power within myself, since I am so powerless? In time, as the founders promised, it came to me: I have always had the choice between goodness and evil, between unselfishness and selfishness, between serenity and fear. That Power greater than myself is an original gift that I did not recognize until I achieved daily sobriety through living A.A.'s Twelve Steps.
From the book Daily Reflections
© Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
The A.A. program is a way of life. It's a way of living and we have to learn to live the program if we're going to stay sober. The twelve steps in the book are like guide-posts. They point the direction in which we have to go. But all members of the group have to find their own best way to live the program. We don't all do it exactly alike. Whether by quiet times in the morning, meetings, working with others, or spreading the word, we have to learn to live the program. Has the A.A. way become my regular, natural way of living?
Meditation for the Day
I will relax and not get tense. I will have no fear, because everything will work out in the end. I will learn soul-balance and poise in a vacillating, changing world. I will claim God's power and use it because if I do not use it, will be withdrawn. As long as I get back to God and replenish my strength after each task, no work can be too much.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may relax and that God's strength will be given to me. I pray that I may subject my will to God's will and be free from all tenseness.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Fear
“We grow to feel comfortable with our Higher Power as a source of strength. As we learn to trust this Power, we begin to overcome our fear of life.”
Basic Text, p. 25
Powerless as we are, living on self-will is a frightening, unmanageable experience. In recovery, we have turned our will and our lives safely over to the care of the God of our understanding. When we lapse in our program, when we lose conscious contact with our Higher Power, we begin to take control of our own lives again, refusing the care of the God of our understanding. If we do not make a daily decision to surrender our lives to the care of our Higher Power, we may become overwhelmed with our fear of life.
Through working the Twelve Steps, we’ve found that faith in a Power greater than ourselves helps relieve our fear. As we draw closer to a loving God, we become more conscious of our Higher Power. And the more conscious we are of God’s care for us, the less our fears.
When we feel afraid, we ask ourselves, “Is this fear an indication of a lack of faith in my life? Have I taken control again, only to find my life still unmanageable?” If we answer yes to these questions, we can overcome our fear by turning our will and our lives back over to care of the God of our understanding.
Just for today: I will rely on the care of my Higher Power to relieve my fear of life.
From the book Just for Today
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
"Different people must contend with different trials, but
adversities in some shape or other come to everyone."
--R. C. McCarthy
Subject: What God's Will May involve:
First of all, let's get the limitation statement down: I don't know God's will for me or any one else. However, here are some descriptions of a general nature of what His Will may involve (please feel free to add your own!):
It will probably ...
1. ...involve another person or persons
2. ...not involve somebody else's loss, if their loss is to my advantage
3. ...involve me learning something
4. ...not support my selfish behavior
5. ...not be very comfortable
6. ...not be a guarantee that I won't screw up again
7. ...involve me paying more attention in the future
8. ...involve me realizing that the universe is much more interrelated than what I thought
9. ...involve me not taking myself so damn seriously.
Phil B.
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
As he instructs others
He should himself act.
Himself fully controlled,
He should control others.
Difficult indeed is to control oneself.
Live in serenity and joy. The wise person delights in the truth And follows the law of the awakened. The farmer channels water to his land. The fletcher whittles his arrows. And the carpenter turns his wood. So the wise direct their mind.
- Dhammapada, translated by Thomas Byrom
Native American
It's all spirit and it's all connected."
--Grandfather William Commanda, ALGONQUIN
If everything is connected, we cannot disconnect. To disconnect is not a real choice. This is why we are always spiritual no matter what we do. Every alcoholic is spiritual. All our brothers and sisters are spiritual. We may not be behaving correctly, but nevertheless, we are spiritual. Our choice is to live out of harmony with spiritual ways or in harmony with spiritual ways. Everything is spiritual.
Great Spirit, give me the knowledge to be in harmony with the spirit today.
Keep It Simple
I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day. -- Albert Camus
"Later." How often have we said this? This trick help us avoid the tasks of the day. Life is full of task--many fun, some boring, others hard. Can I accept the task my Higher Power gives me, easy or hard?
When we used alcohol or other drugs, we'd avoid task, if they became hard for us. We believed we had more control than we really did. We started to believe we could control outcomes. What we really were doing was setting ourselves up for a great fall. We had to face the fact that when our Higher Power had given us a task, we said no, and turned away. Thus, we turned away from the guiding hand of our Higher Power.
Prayer for the Day: God, help me face You and the tasks You give me. Make me a grateful student of life.
Action for the Day: Today I will talk with friends. I will tell them what tasks I'm working on.
Big Book
"...with us, to drink is to die."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, How It Works, pg. 66~
Food for Thought
The story below was sent to me by Ted R. of Gainesville, FL
Ted said "You either go for emotion sobriety or risk a miserable, often lengthy, death BY alcoholism (whilst being crispy dry)! My crew calls it "big n' rich" sobriety."
"We buried him yesterday. The County Coroner had published the required notices for next of kin and nobody had claimed the body. It was just myself and his sponsor, no preacher even, the county doesn't pay for those.
Not much of a send-off, and not the one David had asked for. A cheap coffin, backhoe dug a hole, and that was it - another old AA gone.
He had been sober over 20 years and in AA over 30, a stern and rigid man who tried to soften his edges and never could.
He was a loner, a fringe-er, an isolated man at the edge of life's good things. He hung in there... and in the end hung himself. I don't know why; I can't know.
I know there had been a diagnosis of senile dementia, and I know that the doctor had added cancer to the list. But, I've seen AAs deal with such things before...I don't know why David decided he couldn't.
It isn't the first time I've been through this in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've known several over the years who just up and walked out life's door one day. Sober, but not happy. Sober, but not at peace. Sober, but they died of alcoholism.
Our disease doesn't need us to drink in order to kill us. I wish more folks knew that, and appreciated it.
Alcoholism is the only disease that is entirely capable of fighting back, of taking care of itself, and of emerging in new places and new forms when it isn't properly treated. That's because of the spiritual malady.
Most people think that has something to do with prayer or with God. It doesn't. It has to do with 'our spirit - that force which animates, motivates and propels us.
As an alcoholic, my spirit is ill. It is flawed. My character, or basic nature, doesn't work right. At its root, it is a fundamental and unresolvable insecurity - a hole that can't ever be filled.
It is an instinct run rampant, a desperate need for acceptance and love that cannot be met. It hurts. It fills one with fear. The selfishness and self-centeredness of the alcoholic lies here - we are totally preoccupied with what is going on with ourselves on the inside.
The slings and arrows of experience warped by this need drive us to the fringe, and the voices of the committee in our head keep us there.
We are obsessed with ourselves, and from this condition of mind.... the insanity of feelings gone haywire, we become self-medicators eventually.
We discover alcohol or something else... and the stuff quiets the voices, provides the relief we've never been able to find in any other way. It isn't any wonder we drink, or drug the way we do.
And some of us don't develop an addiction... in attempting to meet these crying demands of our spirit become ill, we develop other malformations of behavior, and suffer in a hundred different ways.
God broke David's obsession to drink. But, I don't think David ever truly understood his disease. I say that because I watched him struggle with those old unresolved issues of his heart for years. His rigidity, coldness, aloofness, isolation and difficulty with other people were a reflection of the pain in his heart.... of the disease of alcoholism gone deep inside, and still active.
Alcoholism didn't need David to drink in order to continue trying to kill him, and in the end... it succeeded. In the end, instead of self abandonment... David abandoned hope.. and discovered a bitter end.
Our recovery from alcoholism through the Steps must be a three-fold process. It is not one dimensional. When we say in AA, that we have a triangle... recovery, unity, service... we mean it.
In working the Steps, I clear a pathway for two purposes... first, to come into a group of human people and away from the fringe of society where I have spent most of my emotional life.
Secondly, to discover 'belonging' through service to the people within that group. It is only this entire, threefold process that heals. It is especially true for those of us who suffer from the spiritual malady to a great degree.
Perhaps the 12th Step says it best: "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps (recovery), we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics (service) and practice these principles in all our affairs (unity).
You see... I cannot hold back. I must not continue to suffer that shyness, aloneness, that overwhelming sense of self in my affairs. I must get involved in a group of people to practice these principles in all my affairs.
Only the total approach is healing. Anything less is little more than driving my disease deep, and, if I do that, it will continue to eat away, trying to destroy me.
It destroyed David. This is a memorial to an old AA who gave his best shot, and I think David ended up on the plus side. It wasn't his fault; he seemed to have been born that way.
There were a lot of old ideas about self that David could never muster the willingness to let go of. He is at rest now.
But it says somewhere that "no matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others."
David cannot speak to his experience any longer; I am speaking in his memory. And I think that if David could talk to us today, he'd say "Understand your disease thoroughly, and work the complete program of recovery!"
God bless you as you Trudge The Road!
To subscribe click the link below:
https://app.getresponse.com/site/dailyponderables/webform.html?wid=108246