DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
FREEDOM FROM GUILT
Where other people were concerned, we had to drop the word "blame" from our speech and thought.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 47
When I become willing to accept my own powerlessness, I begin to realize that blaming myself for all the trouble in my life can be an ego trip back into hopelessness. Asking for help and listening deeply to the messages inherent in the Steps and Traditions of the program make it possible to change those attitudes which delay my recovery. Before joining A.A., I had such a desire for approval from people in powerful positions that I was willing to sacrifice myself, and others, to gain a foothold in the world. I invariably came to grief. In the program I find true friends who love, understand, and care to help me learn the truth about myself. With the help of the Twelve Steps, I am also able to build a better life, free of guilt and the need for self-justification.
From the book Daily Reflections
© Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
Alcoholics carry an awful load around with them. What a load lying puts on your shoulders! Drinking makes liars out of all of us alcoholics. In order to get the liquor we want, we have to lie all the time. We have to lie about where we've been and what we've been doing. When you are lying you are only half alive, because of the fear of being found out. When you come into A.A., and get honest with yourself and with other people, that terrible load of lying falls off your shoulders. Have I gotten rid of that load of lying?
Meditation for the Day
I believe that in the spiritual world, as in the material world, there is no empty space. As fears and worries and resentments depart out of my life, the things of the spirit come in to take their places. Calm comes after a storm. As soon as I am rid of fears and hates and selfishness, God's love and peace and calm can come in.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may rid myself of all fears and resentments, so that peace and serenity may take their place. I pray that I may sweep my life clean of evil, so that good may come in.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Learning how to live again
“We learn new ways to live. We are no longer limited to our old ideas.”
Basic Text, p. 56
We may or may not have been taught right from wrong and other basics of life as children. No matter, by the time we found recovery, most of us had only the vaguest idea of how to live. Our isolation from the rest of society had caused us to ignore basic human responsibilities and develop bizarre survival skills to cope with the world we lived in.
Some of us didn’t know how to tell the truth; others were so frank we wounded everyone we talked to. Some of us couldn’t cope with the simplest of personal problems, while others attempted solving the problems of the whole world. Some of us never got angry, even when receiving unfair treatment; others busily lodged complaints against everyone and everything.
Whatever our problems, no matter how extreme, we all have a chance in Narcotics Anonymous to learn how to live anew. Perhaps we need to learn kindness and how to care about others. Perhaps we need to accept personal responsibilities. Or maybe we need to overcome fear and take some risks. We can be certain of one thing: Each day, simply by living life, we’ll learn something new.
Just for today: I know more about how to live than I did yesterday, but not as much as I’ll know tomorrow. Today, I’ll learn something new.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one
has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome."
--Booker T. Washington
Some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.
Gilda Radner
AA is the only place you come in a "Star" and work your way up to Usher.
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves. Consider, for example: a magician who cuts his body into many parts and places each part in a different region--hands in the south, arms in the east, legs in the north, and then by some miraculous power lets forth a cry which reassembles whole every part of his body. Mindfulness is like that--it is the miracle which can call back in a flash our dispersed mind and restore it to wholeness so that we can live each minute of life.
-Thich Nhat Hanh, "Miracle of Mindfulness"
Native American
"There is no death. Only a change of worlds."
--Chief Seattle, SUQWAMISH AND DUWAMISH
The Elders tell us of the other dimension, the Spirit World. Our spirit in our bodies does not die, it only looks that way to our eyes and our brains. Some of our ceremonies allow us to see into the Spirit World. Death is only part of a process of life. It shows the transition into the Spirit World. The Elders tell us this is a joyful life journey.
My Creator, help me to understand both the seen world and the unseen world. Let me not be afraid of the world You live in.
Walk In Dry Places
Finding a Higher Good. --- Handling Trouble.
There are times when things just don't work out, despite our best efforts. Even in sobriety, we can have business or marriage failures, accidents, sicknesses, or trouble in holding a job. Sobriety is no guarantee that things will always work out according to our expectancies.
But no disappointment or failure has to throw us or cause permanent distress. It is some comfort to remember that the meeting of the first two AA members came out of a business failure, not a success. On many occasions, a disappointment or a setback can actually give a person the insight and understanding needed for a new, more successful effort.
We do not, of course, want to rationalize failure. We should also accept responsibility when failure has been the result of negligence or wrong action on our part. Nevertheless, as we continue to seek and to follow God's guidance, w will find the course of our lives that fits our needs and capabilities. There is a higher good in everything. Even our drinking was indirectly beneficial in pushing us toward AA and the program's healing principles.
I will not waste time today brooding over mistakes or losses. I'll know that God is in charge of my life and can turn liabilities into assets and defeats into victories.
Big Book
"Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction
of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of
Light who presides over us all."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Bill's Story, pg. 14~
In the forward to the second edition on page xx of the Big Book, it shares with us the recovery statistics from the first 16 years of AA. They tell of a 75% success rate. These facts came from the New York office. Lois kept a list as well at 66%. Sister Ignatia also kept track at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron and recorded 700 out of the first 1000 admitted to the hospital there. Some of the early groups in Cleveland and Akron in the 1940’s reported over 90%. Regardless of the which number to use to compare to today, it seems we are not doing a good job at carrying the message. Why? Probably several reasons. We have strayed from the basics in the Big Book in favor of discussion meetings. We have forgotten what sponsorship means; what working with others means. It means intensive work with another alcoholic. However, there are a couple of key words on page xx. It says:
“Of alcoholics who came to AA, and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way; 25% sobered up after some relapses and among the remained those who stayed on with AA showed improvement. Other thousands came to a few AA meetings and at first decided they didn’t want the program. But a great number of these – about two out of every three – began to return as times passed”.
Those two thirds went back through the same rate of success.
So what does really tried mean. Perhaps that is following the 14 directions on page 58 in the Big Book, that are there before we even get to the 12 steps. Maybe this can be thought of as step 0.
In order as the directions appear on page 58 in question form written for me to answer honestly every day.
1) Am I thoroughly following our path, the path as precisely laid out in the Big Book? Remember, rarely have we seen a person fail who does this.
2) Am I completely giving myself to this simple program? Remember, those who do not or will not will not recover.
3) Am I being honest with myself? Remember, those who fail are constitutionally incapable of doing so, usually are those who do not recover.
4) Am I grasping and developing a manner of living which demand rigorous honesty? Am I becoming or am I now capable of being rigorously honest with myself?
5) If I have other mental and emotional issues, am I being honest so that I can and will recover?
6) Does my story disclose in a general way what I used to be like, what happened, and what I am now?
7) Am I willing to go to any length to get it? Am I willing to go to any length to be ready to take certain steps and remain sober?
8) Am I still trying to find an easier softer way?
9) Am I being fearless and thorough from the very start?
10) Am I holding onto my old ideas? Am I willing to let go absolutely?
11) Do I accept and remember that alcohol is cunning, baffling and powerful?
12) Do I accept that to recover is too much for me alone, and accept that there is One Power? That one is God and ask for help now.
13) Half measures availed us nothing. Am I still doing half measures?
14) Am I asking for His protection and care with complete abandon?
Paul C.
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