DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
A DAY'S PLAN
On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 86
Every day I ask God to kindle within me the fire of His love, so that love, burning bright and clear, will illuminate my thinking and permit me to better do His will. Throughout the day, as I allow outside circumstances to dampen my spirits, I ask God to sear my consciousness with the awareness that I can start my day over any time I choose; a hundred times if necessary.
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 Prodigal Son "took his journey into a far country and wasted his substance with riotous living." That's what we alcoholics do. We waste our substance with riotous living. "When he came to himself, he said: 'I will arise and go to my father.'" That's what you do in A.A. You come to yourself. Your alcoholic self is not your real self. Your sane, sober, respectable self is your real self. That's why we alcoholics are so happy in A.A. Have I come to myself?
Meditation for the Day
Simplicity is the keynote of a good life. Choose the simple things always. Life can become complicated if you let it be so. You can be swamped by difficulties if you let them take up too much of your time. Every difficulty can be either solved or ignored and something better substituted for it. Love the humble things of life. Reverence the simple things. Your standard must never be the world's standard of wealth and power.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may love the simple things of life. I pray that I may keep my life uncomplicated and free.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Getting out of the rut
Page 74
"Many times in our recovery, the old bugaboos will haunt us. Life may again become meaningless, monotonous, and boring."
Basic Text, p. 78
Sometimes it seems as though nothing changes. We get up and go to the same job every day. We eat dinner at the same time every night. We attend the same meetings each week. This morning's rituals were identical to the ones we performed yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. After the hell of our addiction and the roller-coaster craziness of early recovery, the stable life may have some appeal - for a while. But, eventually, we realize we want something more. Sooner or later, we become turned off to the creeping monotony and boredom in our lives.
There are sure to be times when we feel vaguely dissatisfied with our recovery. We feel as though we're missing something for some reason, but we don't know what or why. We draw up our gratitude lists and find literally hundreds of things to be grateful for. All our needs are being met; our lives are fuller than we had ever hoped they'd be. So what's up?
Maybe it's time to stretch our potential to its fullest. Our possibilities are only limited by what we can dream. We can learn something new, set a new goal, help another newcomer, or make a new friend. We're sure to find something challenging if we look hard enough, and life will again become meaningful, varied, and fulfilling.
Just for Today: I'll take a break from the routine and stretch my potential to its fullest.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
The mind is somewhat like a vacuum cleaner - it works better when you empty the crap.
- Phil B.
Powerlessness
Who cares to admit complete defeat?
Practically no one, of course.
Every natural instinct cries out against the idea of
personal powerlessness.
It is truly awful to admit that, glass in hand,
we have warped our minds
into such an obsession for destructive drinking
that only an act of Providence can remove it from us.
Thought to Ponder . . .
We surrender to win.
AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
K I S S = Keep It Simple, Surrender.
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
Reality as it is becomes the right view of the meditator. Thinking of it as it is becomes the right thought. Awareness of it as it is becomes the right awareness. Concentration on it as it is becomes the right concentration. Actions of the body and speech are then aligned to reality as it is. In this way the meditator develops and is fulfilled.
-Majjhima Nikaya
Native American
"The old people say, `Learn from your mistakes'. So I try to accept everything for what it is and to make the best of each situation one day at a time."
--Dr. A.C. Ross (Ehanamani), LAKOTA
The Creator did not design us to beat ourselves up when we make mistakes. Mistakes are our friends. It is from mistakes that we learn. The more mistakes we learn from, the faster we gain wisdom. The faster we gain wisdom, the more we love. The more we love, the fewer our mistakes. Therefore, mistakes help us to learn love. God is love. Mistakes are sacred and help us learn about God's will for ourselves.
Great Spirit, help me, today, to learn from my mistakes.
Keep It Simple
The Twelve Step program is spiritual, based on action coming from love
. . . Martha Cleveland
To be spiritual means to be an active person. It means spending time with others. It means sharing love. It means looking for ways to be more loving to others. It means looking for ways to make the world a better place. Step Three helps us to look at the world better. We turn our lives over to the care of our Higher Power. So Lets allow care to direct our lives. Let's always be asking ourselves, "Is what I'm doing something that shows care?"
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, let me be active in a loving, caring way. Let the love in my heart be my guide.
Action for the Day: Today, I'll do something good for someone and keep it a secret.
Big Book - Readings
THE DOCTOR'S OPINION (pg. xxix)
What is the solution? Perhaps I can best answer this by relating one of my experiences.
About one year prior to this experience a man was brought in to be treated for chronic alcoholism. He had but partially recovered from a gastric hemorrhage and seemed to a case of pathological mental deterioration. He has lost everything worthwhile in life and was only living, one might say, to drink. He frankly admitted and believed that for him there was no hope. Following the elimination of alcohol, there was found to be no permanent brain injury. He accepted the plan outlined in this book. One year later he called to see me, and I experienced a very strange sensation. I knew the man by name, and partly recognized his features, but there all resemblance ended. From a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck, had emerged a man brimming over with self-reliance and contentment. I talked with him for some time, but was not able to bring myself to feel that I had known him before. To me he was a stranger, and so he left me. A long time has passed with no return to alcohol.
When I need a mental uplift, I often think of another case brought in by a physician prominent in New York. The patient had made his own diagnosis and deciding his situation hopeless, had hidden in a deserted barn determined to die. He was rescued by a searching party, and, in desperate condition, brought to me. Following his physical rehabilitation, he had a talk with me in which he frankly stated he thought the treatment a waste of effort, unless I could assure him, which no one ever had, that in the future he would have the "will power" to resist the impulse to drink.
His alcoholic problem was so complex and his depression so great, that we felt his only hope would be through what we then called "moral psychology", and we doubted if even that would have any effect.
SURRENDER
By Larry R.
He came into the meeting room, his head was hanging low
His face was flushed, his eyes were red, he had no place to go
He didn’t introduce himself, ashamed of who he was
He’s not the man he used to be, he lived to chase the buzz
His clothes were clean, he did not smell, but it was plain to see
He suffers from the same disease that still inflicted me
This cruel disease that brought him here, cared nothing of his past
A soldier’s life, once proud and strong, had vanished in a flash
I sat him down at meetings end and asked if we could talk
He said he found it hard to sit so we should take a walk
We walked and talked for quite some time, he started to explain
How he was lost and so afraid, the reason why he came
He told me of the time that he had served his country well
He’d been in combat, seen the worst, a man-made living hell
He’d been a Ranger, jumped from planes, this man was no pretender
The Ranger’s code, fight to the end, forget the word surrender
So, when he heard a speaker say surrender is to win
He could not start to comprehend, his head began to spin
For all those years of Army life that word did not exist
Another word came to his mind, resist, resist, resist
I told him that I understood, how he’d been taught to think
But he was in a new war now, a battle with the drink
There are no bombs or mortar rounds, but lives are still at stake
The way we found to combat this, we need our will to break
For most our lives, we told ourselves, that we’re the ones in charge
We could defeat most anything, wether small or large
But we found out, to our chagrin, that this thing had us beat
We’d never known the likes before, drink led us to defeat
And when we came to terms with that, twas in our darkest hour
We asked for help from AA folks and from our Higher Power
We could not beat this on our own, we tried without success
The time had come, forget the fight, and give OUR WILL a rest
The new guy said he understood, surrender’s not the end
Instead a new beginning, a chance for him to mend
As we split up, he said he felt a door open a crack
It widens more, I said to him, just keep on coming back
Larry R.
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