DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
EQUAL RIGHTS
At one time or another most A.A. groups go on rule-making benders. . . . After a time fear and intolerance subside. [and we realize] We do not wish to deny anyone his chance to recover from alcoholism. We wish to be just as inclusive as we can, never exclusive.
"A.A. TRADITION: HOW IT DEVELOPED," pp. 10, 11, 12
A.A. offered me complete freedom and accepted me into the Fellowship for myself. Membership did not depend on conformity, financial success or education and I am so grateful for that. I often ask myself if I extend the same equality to others or if I deny them the freedom to be different. Today I try to replace my fear and intolerance with faith, patience, love and acceptance. I can bring these strengths to my A.A. group, my home and my office. I make an effort to bring my positive attitude everywhere that I go.
I have neither the right, nor the responsibility, to judge others. Depending on my attitude I can view newcomers to A.A., family members and friends as menaces or as teachers. When I think of some of my past judgments, it is clear how my self-righteousness caused me spiritual harm.
From the book Daily Reflections
© Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
In A.A. we learn that since we are alcoholics we can be uniquely useful people. That is, we can help other alcoholics when perhaps somebody who has not had our experience with drinking could not help them. That makes us uniquely useful. The A.A.s are a unique group of people because they have taken their own greatest defeat and failure and sickness and used it as a means of helping others. We who have been through the same thing are the ones who can best help other alcoholics. Do I believe that I can be uniquely useful?
Meditation for the Day
I should try to practice the presence of God. I can feel that He is with me and near me, protecting and strengthening me always. In spite of every difficulty, every trial, every failure, the presence of God suffices. just to believe that He is near me brings strength and peace. I should try to live as though God were beside me. I cannot see Him because I was not made with the ability to see Him else there were no room for faith. But I can feel His spirit with me.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may try to practice the presence of God. I pray that by doing so I may never feel alone or helpless again.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
As we understand
Page 154
"We examined our lives and discovered who we really are. To be truly humble is to accept and honestly try to be ourselves."
Basic Text, p. 36
As using addicts, the demands of our disease determined our personality. We could be whoever or whatever we needed to be in order to get our "fix." We were survival machines, adapting easily to every circumstance of the using life.
Once we began our recovery, we entered a new and different life. Many of us had no idea what behavior was appropriate for us in any given situation. Some of us didn't know how to talk to people, how to dress, or how to behave in public. We couldn't be ourselves because we didn't know who we were anymore.
The Twelve Steps give us a simple method for finding out who we really are. We uncover our assets and our defects, the things we like about ourselves and the things we're not so thrilled about. Through the healing power of the Twelve Steps, we begin to understand that we are individuals, created to be who we are by the Higher Power of our understanding. The real healing begins when we understand that if our Higher Power created us this way, it must be okay to be who we really are.
Just for Today: By working the steps I can experience the freedom to be myself, the person my Higher Power intended me to be.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
"Don;t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” Dr. Seuss
“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever
state I am in, therein to be content"
--Helen Keller
"Don't count the days; but, make the days count" - Preacher Bob
“It's not what isn't, it's what you wish was that makes unhappiness.” -Janis Joplin
Our needs are always provided for. Our wants are seldom satisfied
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
What is enlightenment?
Coming to understand, coming to realize that you are not the body. you are the light within, not the lamp, but the flame. you are neither body nor mind. Mind belongs to the body, mind is not beyond body, it is part of the body. Minds is also atomic, as body is atomic.
You are neither body nor the mind - then you come to know who you are. And to know who you are is enlightenment.....
Enlightened means you have realized who you are.
Native American
"The land is a sacred trust held in common for the benefit of the future of our nations."
--Haida Gwaii - Traditional Circle of Elders
The Creator made the Earth to support life so that life would continue to reproduce, everything would support one another, and future generations would have the same benefits of supply and beauty as the generations the proceeded them. This cycle will only continue to the degree that we make choices and decisions for the future generations. Today, we are too greedy and selfish. We are cheating our children, grandchildren and the children unborn.
Creator, let me see the consequences of my decisions, and show me how to make healthy corrections.
Keep It Simple
Who dares nothing, need hope for nothing. --- Johann Fredrich von Scholar
As we grow in recovery, we'll need to change our behaviors, values, and beliefs to stay sane. This take courage. Courage is doing what is needed in spite of fear.
Courage means facing what we can't change. We can't change the fact that we have hurt people. We can't change the fact we have an illness. And we can't change the fact that we need help from others.
Courage also means facing those things we can change. We need courage to be honest, to have faith, and to be humble. And we need courage to let people know how important they are.
Prayer for the Day: Courage is more than being tough. Courage means being human. Higher Power, grant me the courage to stay sober and live a spiritual life.
Action for the Day: Today, I'll have an attitude of courage. I'll talk in my meeting. I'll offer help where it is needed. I'll have the courage to say no when needed.
Big Book
Chapter 6 Into Action (pg 80 & top 81)
Before taking drastic action which might implicate other people we secure their consent. If we have obtained permission, have consulted with others, asked God to help and the drastic step is indicated we must not shrink.
This brings to mind a story about one of our friends. While drinking, he accepted a sum of money from a bitterly-hated business rival, giving him no receipt for it. He subsequently denied having received the money and used the incident as a basis for discrediting the man. He thus used his own wrong-doing as a means of destroying the reputation of another. In fact, his rival was ruined.
He felt that he had done a wrong he could not possibly make right. If he opened that old affair, he was afraid it would destroy the reputation of his partner, disgrace his family and take away his means of livelihood. What right had he to involve those dependent upon him? How could he possibly make a public statement exonerating his rival?
After consulting with his wife and partner he came to the conclusion that it was better to take those risks than to stand before his Creator guilty of such ruinous slander. He saw that he had to place the outcome in God’s hands or he would soon start drinking again, and all would be lost anyhow. He attended church for the first time in many years. After the sermon, he quietly got up and made an explanation. His action met widespread approval, and today he is one of the most trusted citizens of his town. This all happened years ago.
The chances are that we have domestic troubles. Perhaps we are mixed up with women in a fashion we wouldn’t care to have advertised. We doubt if, in this respect, alcoholics are fundamentally much worse that other people. But drinking does complicate sex relations in the home. After a few years with an alcoholic, a wife gets worn out, resentful and uncommunicative. How could she be anything else? The husband begins to feel lonely, sorry for himself. He commences to look around in the night clubs, or their equivalent, for something besides liquor.
Perhaps he is having a secret and exciting affair with “the girl who understands.” In fairness we must say that she may understand, but what are we going to do about a thing like that? A man so involved often feels very remorseful at times, especially if he is married to a loyal and courageous girl who has literally gone through hell for him.
12 steps in reverse - Road to Relapse
12. Having detached ourselves spiritually as a result of ignoring these steps,
we let our fellow alcoholics fend for themselves and practiced these principles sporadically.
11. Let our conscious contact with God as we understood him lapse
by praying only in emergencies for our will to be carried out.
10. Slacked off on personal inventory and when we were wrong, denied or hid it.
9. Reasoned that no one had been hurt by us more than we had been hurt by them and called it even.
8. Made a game of rationalizing the harm we had done others.
7. Sang "I've Gotta Be Me".
6. Decided that our defects of character were too much fun to give up.
5. Denied to ourselves, to God and to everybody else that we had ever done anything harmful.
4. Quickly cast a weak flashlight over our moral inventory and decided it was more fun to take yours.
3. Made a decision to keep our will and our lives totally in our own control.
2. Came to believe that since our troubles were of our own making,
we would have to solve them without outside help.
1. We decided that we could control alcohol, that our lives were manageable after all.
Anonymous
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