DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
DAILY INVENTORY
. . . and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 59
I was beginning to approach my new life of sobriety with unaccustomed enthusiasm. New friends were cropping up and some of my battered friendships had begun to be repaired. Life was exciting, and I even began to enjoy my work, becoming so bold as to issue a report on the lack of proper care for some of our clients. One day a co-worker informed me that my boss was really sore because a complaint, submitted over his head, had caused him much discomfort at the hands of his superiors. I knew that my report had created the problem, and began to feel responsible for my boss's difficulty. In discussing the affair, my co-worker tried to reassure me that an apology was not necessary, but I soon became convinced that I had to do something, regardless of how it might turn out. When I approached my boss and owned up to my hand in his difficulties, he was surprised. But unexpected things came out of our encounter, and my boss and I were able to agree to interact more directly and effectively in the future.
From the book Daily Reflections
© Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
There is such a thing as being too loyal to any one group. Do I feel put out when another group starts and some members of my group leave it and branch out into new territory? Or do I send them out with my blessing? Do I visit that new offshoot group and help it along? Or do I sulk in my own tent? A.A. grows by the starting of new groups all the time. I must realize that it's a good thing for a large group to split up into smaller ones, even if it means that the large group―my own group—becomes smaller. Am I always ready to help new groups?
Meditation for the Day
Pray―and keep praying until it brings peace and serenity and a feeling of communion with One who is near and ready to help. The thought of God is balm for our hates and fears. In praying to God, we find healing for hurt feelings and resentments. In thinking of God, doubts and fears leave us. Instead of those doubts and fears, there will flow into our hearts such faith and love as is beyond the power of material things to give, and such peace as the world can neither give nor take away. And with God, we can have the tolerance to live and let live.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may have true tolerance and understanding. I pray that I may keep striving for these difficult things.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
A New Pattern Of Living
"We suspect that if we do not use what we have, we will lose what we have."
Basic Text p. 75
Addiction gave a pattern to our lives, and with it a meaning - a dark, diseased meaning, to be sure, but a meaning nonetheless. The Narcotics Anonymous recovery program gives us a new pattern of living to replace our old routines. And with that new pattern comes a new meaning to our lives, one of light and hope.
What is this new pattern of living? Instead of isolation, we find fellowship. Instead of living blindly, repeating the same mistakes again and again, we regularly examine ourselves, free to keep what helps us grow and discard what doesn't. Rather than constantly trying to get by on our own limited power, we develop a conscious contact with a loving Power greater than ourselves.
Our life must have a pattern. To maintain our recovery, we must maintain the new patterns our program has taught us. By giving regular attention to these patterns, we will maintain the freedom we've found from the deadly disease of addiction, and keep hold of the meaning recovery has brought to our lives.
Just for today: I will begin a new pattern in my life: the regular maintenance of my recovery.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
"Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness."
--Jean Vanier.
We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
~Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Perseverance is falling 19 times and succeeding the 20th.
~Julie Andrews
“The measure of my sobriety isn’t the distance between now and the last drink -- the measure of my sobriety is the distance between now and the next drink.”
“Life -- It Happens,” White Rock, British Columbia, AA Grapevine May 2005, No Matter What: Dealing with Adversity in Sobriety
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
"I think there was a big mistake made (when) people separated religion and the government. That was one of the big mistakes that was made, because when they did that, then they removed the Creator from their life - or at least from half to three-quarters of their life."
--Tom Porter, MOHAWK
The Elders tell us that every thing the Creator made is interconnected. Nothing can be separated. The Elders say we should pray before we do anything. We should ask the Creator, what do You want us to do? We are put on the Earth to do the will of God. If we run our governments, communities, families or ourselves without the spiritual we are doomed to failure.
My Creator, guide my life to include the spiritual in everything I do.
Keep It Simple
Just Say No.
--- Nancy Reagan
We addicts were great at saying no. Our spouse asked us to help around the house and we said no and went drinking. Friends tried to care, but we said, “No, mind your own business!” Our parents or our kids begged us to stop drinking, but we said no.
We were also ask to say yes. We always said yes when asked if we wanted to have a drink or get high. Addiction really mixed us up. When we said no, we should have said yes. And when we said yes we should have said no.
In recovery, we do things better. We say yes when others ask for help. We say yes when somebody wants to give us love. We say no to alcohol and other drugs. We finally answer yes and no the right way---the right way and at the right time for us.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to always say yes to You, even when I’m tired or angry.
Action for the Day: In today’s inventory, I’ll ask myself if there are any ways I’m still saying no to my program and Higher Power.
TWELVESTEPS
and
TWELVE TRADITIONS
Step Twelve (pgs 113-114)
Then perhaps life, as it has a way of doing, suddenly hands us a great big lump that we can’t begin to swallow, let alone digest. We fail to get a worked-for promotion. We lose that good job. Maybe there are serious domestic or romantic difficulties, or perhaps that boy we thought God was looking after becomes a military casualty.
What then? Have we alcoholics in A.A. got, or can we get, the resources to meet these calamities which come to so many? These were problems of life which we could never face up to. Can we now, with the help of God as we understand Him, handle them as well and as bravely as our nonalcoholic friends often do? Can we transform these calamities into assets, sources of growth and comfort to ourselves and those about us? Well, we surely have a chance if we switch from “two-stepping” to “twelve-stepping,” if we are willing to receive that grace of God which can sustain and strengthen us in any catastrophe.
Our basic troubles are the same as everyone else’s, but when an honest effort is made “to practice these principles in all our affairs,” well-grounded A.A.’s seem to have the ability, by God’s grace, to take these troubles in stride and turn them into demonstrations of faith. We have seen A.A.’s suffer lingering and fatal illness with little complaint, and often in good cheer. We have sometimes seen families broken apart by misunderstanding, tensions, or actual infidelity, who are reunited by the A.A. way of life.
Though the earning power of most A.A.’s is relatively high, we have some members who never seem to get on their feet moneywise, and still others who encounter heavy financial reverses. Ordinarily we see these situations met with fortitude and fa
Like most people, we have found that we can take our big lumps as they come. But also like others, we often discover a greater challenge in the lesser and more continuous problems of life. Our answer is in still more spiritual development. Only by this means can we improve our chances for really happy and useful living. And as we grow spiritually, we find that our old attitudes toward our instincts need to undergo drastic revisions. Our desires for emotional security and wealth, for personal prestige and power, for romance, and for family satisfactions—all these have to be tempered and redirected. We have learned that the satisfaction of instincts cannot be the sole end and aim of our lives. If we place instincts first, we have got the cart before the horse; we shall be pulled backward into disillusionment. But when we are willing to place spiritual growth first—then and only then do we have a real chance.
Big Book
"Alcoholics who have derided religious people will be helped by such
contacts. Being possessed of a spiritual experience, the alcoholic
will find he has much in common with these people, though he may
differ with them on many matters. If he does not argue about
religion, he will make new friends and is sure to find new avenues of
usefulness and pleasure. He and his family can be a bright spot in
such congregations. He may bring new hope and new courage to many a
priest, minister, or rabbi, who gives his all to minister to our
troubled world. We intend the foregoing as a helpful suggestion
only. So far as we are concerned, there is nothing obligatory about
it. As non-denominational people, we cannot make up others' minds
for them. Each individual should consult his own conscience."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, The Family Afterward, pg. 131~
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