03/16

DAILY PONDERABLES

Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny

Daily Reflections

AS WE UNDERSTAND HIM

My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. . . . "Why don't you choose your own conception of God?" That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 12

I remember the times I looked up into the sky and reflected on who started it all, and how. When I came to A.A., an understanding of some description of the spiritual dimension become a necessary adjunct to a stable society. After reading a variety of versions, including the scientific, of a great explosion, I went for simplicity and made the God of my understanding the Great Power that made the explosion possible. With the vastness of the universe under His command, He would, no doubt, be able to guide my thinking and actions if I was prepared to accept His guidance. But I could not expect help if I turned my back on that help and went my own way. I become willing to believe and I have had 26 years of stable and satisfying sobriety.

From the book Daily Reflections

Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

Before we decide to quit drinking, most of us have to come up against a blank wall. We see that we're licked, that we have to quit. But we don't know which way to turn for help. There seems to be no door in that blank wall. A.A. opens the door that leads to sobriety. By encouraging us to honestly admit that we're alcoholics and to realize that we can't take even one drink, and by showing us which way to turn for help, A.A. opens the door in that blank wall. Have I gone through that door to sobriety?

Meditation for the Day

I must have a singleness of purpose to do my part in God's work. I must not let material distractions interfere with my job of improving personal relationships. It is easy to become distracted by material affairs, so that I lose my singleness of purpose. I do not have time to be concerned about the multifarious concerns of the world. must concentrate and specialize on what I can do best.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may not become distracted by material affairs. I pray that I may concentrate on doing what I can do best.

From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day

NA - Just for Today

Inventory

Page 78

"The purpose of a searching and fearless moral inventory is to sort through the confusion and the contradiction of our lives so that we can find out who we really are."

Basic Text, p. 27

Using addicts are a confused and confusing bunch of people. It's hard to tell from one minute to the next what they're going to do or who they're going to be. Usually, the addict is just as surprised as anyone else.

When we used, our behavior was dictated by the needs of our addiction. Many of us still identify our personalities closely with the behavior we practiced while using, leading us to feel shame and despair. Today, we don't have to be the people we once were, shaped by our addiction; recovery has allowed us to change.

We can use the Fourth Step inventory to see past the needs of the old using life and find out who we want to be today. Writing about our behavior and noticing how we ,i>feel about that behavior helps us understand who we want to be. Our inventory helps us see beyond the demands of active addiction, beyond our desire to be loved and accepted-we find out who we are at the root. We begin to understand what's appropriate for us, and what we want our lives to be like. This is the beginning of becoming who we really are.

Just for Today: If I want to find out who I am, I'll look at who I've been and who I want to be.

From the book Just for Today

Thought for Today

A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.

~ Michel de Montaigne

Alcoholism - The Disease of Perception ~ Clancy

What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty,

joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind.

-- Henry Miller (thanks Bill C.)

Buddha/Zen Thoughts

Do not form views in the world through either knowledge, virtuous conduct, or religious observances; likewise, avoid thinking of oneself as being either superior, inferior, or equal to others.

The wise let go of the “self” and being free of attachments they depend not on knowledge. Nor do they dispute opinions or settle into any view.

For those who have no wishes for either extremes of becoming or non-becoming, here or in another existence, there is no settling into the views held by others.

Nor do they form the least notion in regard to views seen, heard, or thought out. How could one influence those wise ones who do not grasp at any views.

-from the Sutta-nipata

Native American

"Each of us must know in our minds and believe in our hearts that even though we are different, you are like me and I am like you."

--Larry P. Aitken, CHIPPEWA

One of the definitions of humility is having an awareness of one's own character defects. To recognize and acknowledge that one has imperfections is being humble. We should never pray for ourselves unless by doing so it would help another person. To have self-importance puts self first and this is not humble. We each have strengths and we each have weaknesses. Both the strengths and weaknesses are sacred. Life is sacred. We learn sacred things from weaknesses also. Therefore, all lives are developed through trial and error, strength and weakness, ups and downs, gains and losses- all of these are part of life and life is sacred.

Great Mystery, let me see and know about the sacredness of life.

Keep It Simple

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. --- Oscar Wilde

We all change. We learn, and change, and grow. We once made alcohol or other drugs our Higher Power. Perhaps we had other higher powers too---like money, gambling, food, or sex. But, it's never too late to be in touch with a true Higher Power. Each day we follow a false higher power, we aren't.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me put my life and will in Your hands today. Help me be a saint, just for today.

Action for the Day: How have my ideas about saints and sinners changed since I got into a Twelve Step program? I'll talk with my sponsor about it today.

Big Book

Chapter 1 BILL'S STORY (pg 3 & top 4)

For the next few years fortune threw money and applause my way. I had arrived. My judgment and ideas were followed by many to the tune of paper millions. The great boom of the late twenties was seething and swelling. Drink was taking an important and exhilarating part in my life. There was loud talk in the jazz places uptown. Everyone spent in thousands and chattered in millions. Scoffers could scoff and be damned. I made a host of fair-weather friends.

My drinking assumed more serious proportions, continuing all day and almost every night. The remonstrances of my friends terminated in a row and I became a lone wolf. There were many unhappy scenes in our sumptuous apartment. There had been no real infidelity, for loyalty to my wife, helped at times by extreme drunkenness, kept me out to those scrapes.

In 1929 I contracted golf fever. We went at once to the country, my wife to applaud while I started out to overtake Walter Hagen. Liquor caught up with me much faster than I came up behind Walter. I began to be jittery in the morning. Golf permitted drinking every day and every night. It was fun to carom around the exclusive course which had inspired such awe in me as a lad. I acquired the impeccable coat of tan one sees upon the well-to-do. The local banker watched me whirl fat checks in and out of his till with amused skepticism.