DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
A RIPPLING EFFECT
Having learned to live so happily, we'd show everyone else how. ...Yes we of A.A. did dream those dreams. How natural that was, since most alcoholics are bankrupt idealists. ...So why shouldn't we share our way of life with everyone?
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 156
The great discovery of sobriety led me to feel the need to spread the "good news" to the world around me. The grandiose thoughts of my drinking days returned. Later, I learned that concentration on my own recovery was a full-time process. As I became a sober citizen in this world, I observed a rippling effect which, without any conscious effort on my part, reached any "related facility or outside enterprise," without diverting me from my primary purpose of staying sober and helping other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
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 program of Alcoholics Anonymous involves a continuous striving for improvement. There can be no long resting period. We must try to work at it all the time. We must continually keep in mind that it is a program not to be measured in years, because we never fully reach our goals nor are we ever cured. Our alcoholism is only kept in abeyance by daily living of the program. It is a timeless program in every sense. We live it day by day, or more precisely, moment by moment - now. Am I always striving for improvement?
Meditation for the Day
Life is all a preparation for something better to come. God has a plan for your life and it will work out, if you try to do His will. God has things planned for you, far beyond what you can imagine now. But you must prepare yourself so that you will be ready for the better things to come. Now is the time for discipline and prayer. The time of expression will come later. Life can be flooded through and through with joy and gladness. So prepare yourself for those better things to come.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may prepare myself for better things that God has in store for me. I pray that I may trust God for the future.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Keeping recovery fresh
Page 187
"Complacency is the enemy of members with substantial clean time. If we remain complacent for long, the recovery process ceases."
Basic Text, p. 84
After the first couple of years in recovery, most of us start to feel like there are no more big deals. If we've been diligent in working the steps, the past is largely resolved and we have a solid foundation on which to build our future. We've learned to take life pretty much as it comes. Familiarity with the steps allows us to resolve problems almost as quickly as they arise.
Once we discover this level of comfort, we may tend to treat it as a "rest stop" on the recovery path. Doing so, however, discounts the nature of our disease. Addiction is patient, subtle, progressive, and incurable. It's also fatal - we can die from this disease, unless we continue to treat it. And the treatment for addiction is a vital, ongoing program of recovery.
The Twelve Steps are a process, a path we take to stay a step ahead of our disease. Meetings, sponsorship, service, and the steps always remain essential to ongoing recovery. Though we may practice our program somewhat differently with five years clean than with five months, this doesn't mean the program has changed or become less important, only that our practical understanding has changed and grown. To keep our recovery fresh and vital, we need to stay alert for opportunities to practice our program.
Just for Today: As I keep growing in my recovery, I will search for new ways to practice my program.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
--Helen Keller
If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you have a problem.
~Richard Bach
Perfection only exists outside of reality. (thanks Jim C.)
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
In reply to the question, 'What is the best that people can possess, what brings them truest happiness, what is the sweetest of the sweet, and what is the pleasantest life to live?' the Buddha answered:
'Trust is the best that people can possess; following the way brings happiness; truth is the sweetest of the sweet; and the practice of insight is the pleasantest way to live.'
-Sutta Nipata.
Native American
"We forget so we consider ourselves superior. But we are, after all, a mere part of the creation and we must consider to understand where we are and we stand somewhere between the mountain and the Ant. Somewhere and only there is a part and parcel of the creation."
--Chief Oren Lyons, ONONDAGA
Every human being gathers information from the center of a circle. If we are not careful, we soon think we are the center of all things. Therefore, it is easy to become self centered. Once we become self centered we start to think we are above all things and therefore superior. But we are really only one part of a great whole. The universe is all connected. Each part is here to do something special and according to its design. We are here to honor and respect the job of each part. We are neither above nor below anything. We need not be ruler over anything, we need only to live in honor and harmony with the system.
My Creator, help me to view and conduct myself in a manner of respect, dignity and honor to all creation. Let me see You in all things.
Keep It Simple
I don't believe in the life afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear. --- Woody Allen
Most of us have many questions about a Higher Power. Sometimes we have more questions than answers. No matter how much we believe about God, there are always questions. Why do bad things happen if God is good? Does God punish people?
Is God called Jesus, Buddha, the Great Spirit? Perhaps we've chosen a name for our Higher Power, or maybe we haven’t. Yet, we know there is some Power great than ourselves that's helping us in recovery.
We know what we need to know about God for today. We know how to ask for help, and how to accept help.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to know You more clearly. There's much I'm not sure about. For now, I will act as if the help I get comes from You.
Action for the Day: I'll think of three ways my Higher Power has done just the right thing for me.
Big Book
Chapter 8 To Wives (pg 114 & top 115)
You may have the reverse situation on your hands. Perhaps you have a husband who is at large, but who should be committed. Some men cannot or will not get over alcoholism. When they become too dangerous, we think the kind thing to do is to lock them up, but of course a good doctor should always be consulted. The wives and children of such men suffer horrible, but not more than the men themselves.
But sometimes you must start life anew. We know women who have done it. If such women adopt a spiritual way of life their road will be smoother.
If your husband is a drinker, you probably worry over what other people are thinking and you hate to meet your friends. You draw more and more into yourself and you think everyone is talking about conditions at your home. You avoid the subject of drinking, even with your own parents. You do not know what to tell your children. When your husband is bad, you become a trembling recluse, wishing the telephone had never been invented.
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