DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
RECOVERY BY PROXY?
They [the Promises] will always materialize if we work for them.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 84
Sometimes I think: "Making these amends is going too far! No one should have to humble himself like that!" However, it is this very humbling of myself that brings me that much closer to the sunlight of the spirit. A.A. is the only hope I have if I am to continue healing and gain a life of happiness, friendship and harmony.
From the book Daily Reflections
© Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
Here are answers to the question of how a person can live without liquor and be happy "The things we put in place of drinking are more than substitutes for it. One is the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. In this company, you find release from care, boredom, and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Among other A.A.'s you win make lifelong friends. You will be bound to them with new and wonderful ties." Does life mean something to me now?
Meditation for the Day
Do you want the full and complete satisfaction that you find in serving God and all the satisfactions of the world also? It is not easy to serve both God and the world. It is difficult to claim the rewards of both. If you work for God, you will still have great rewards in the world. But you must be prepared to sometimes stand apart from the world. You cannot always turn to the world and expect all the rewards that life has to offer. If you are trying sincerely to serve God, you will have other and greater rewards than the world has to offer.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may not expect too much from the world. I pray that I may also be content with the rewards that come from serving God.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
More powerful than words
Page 264
"We learn that a simple, loving hug can make all the difference in the world."
Basic Text, p.91
Perhaps there have been times in our recovery when we were close to someone who was in great pain. We struggled with the question, "What can I do to make them feel better?" We felt anxious and inadequate to relieve their suffering. We wished we had more experience to share. We didn't know what to say.
But sometimes life deals wounds that can't be eased by even the most heartfelt words. Words can never express all we mean when our deepest feelings of compassion are involved. Language is inadequate to reach a wounded soul, as only the touch of a loving Higher Power can heal an injury to the spirit.
When those we love are grieving, simply being present is perhaps the most compassionate contribution we can offer. We can rest assured that a loving Higher Power is working hard at healing the spirit; our only responsibility is to be there. Our presence, a loving hug, and a sympathetic ear will surely express the depth of our feelings, and do more to reach the heart of a human being in pain than mere words ever could.
Just for Today: I will offer my presence, a hug, and a sympathetic ear to someone I love.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
"What you keep to yourself you lose, what
you give away, you keep forever."
Get off the "get" and get on the "give" - Music City Roundup
"The AA Hotel California" by James Patrick M.
When I walked into The Rooms the first time,
I did not see a “Welcome Sign”
Too nervous, too anxious, too afraid to see.
Asking myself ... Why am I here?
Maybe I have “The Alcoholic Disease”?
In my mind, I saw a sign.
WELCOME to "The A A Hotel California"
I heard voices down the corridor.
My committee in my head, telling me…
I can check out anytime I like ... But I can never leave.
It is such a lovely place. Hope and Love fills the space.
I am a resident here of my own disease.
We gather here to feast on strength and courage to kill the Alcohol Beast.
I don’t want to run for the door and go back where I was before.
“Easy Does It “said the Night Man and reminded me
“I can never leave
Just keep coming back . . .
Your Darkness will turn to Light
And… that is a Promise we keep!”
James Patrick M.
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
"It seems as though the rivers of craving are running in every direction," said Ajita, "How can we dam them and hold them back? What can we use to close the floodgates?"
The Buddha said: "Any river can be stopped with the dam of mindfulness. Caring and thoughtfulness are the flood stoppers. With wisdom you can close the floodgate."
-Sutta Nipata
Native American
"One of the first things Seneca children learned was that they might create their own world, their own environment, by visualizing actions and desires in prayer. The Senecas believed that everything that made life important came from within. Prayer assisted in developing a guideline toward discipline and self control."
--Twylah Nitcsh, SENECA
All permanent and lasting change starts first on the inside and works its way out. Having constant prayer and Creator directed visions helps us to live in harmony. This is the best way to grow strong and become a Warrior. No matter what is going on outside of ourselves, it is our projection that makes it so. It is our projections that even give it any meaning. Another way is each day to turn our life and our will over to the care of the Great Spirit. Then He will show us His desire for us. When we are in alignment to His desire, we become very joyful and very happy.
Oh Great Spirit, You take care of me today and tell me what I can do for You today. Give me the discipline to talk to You whenever I am in doubt or fear. Let me come to You if I get irritated. You are my solution.
Keep It Simple
If you want a thing done “right,” you have to do it yourself. --- Anonymous
We addicts can be very picky. We think there’s only one way to do things. It’s our way, But we call it the right way. When we think like this, three things happen.
First, we put down other people. Second, we end up doing all the work. Third, everyone feels bad. The other person feels hurt that we don’t respect him or her. And we feel angry because we “had” to do all the work.
We need to know that there are many ways to do things. It’s okay when others don’t do things our way. Their way probably works just fine for them. If they want your advice they’ll ask for it.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me accept other people and their ways.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll watch how other people do things. Maybe I’ll learn a better way to do some things.
TWELVE STEPS
and
TWELVE TRADITIONS
Step Five (pgs 58-59)
How could we be certain that we had made a true catalog of our defects and had really admitted them, even to ourselves? Because we were still bothered by fear, self-pity, and hurt feelings, it was probable we couldn’t appraise ourselves fairly at all. Too much guilt and remorse might cause us to dramatize and exaggerate our shortcomings. Or anger and hurt pride might be the smoke screen under which we were hiding some of our defects while we blamed others for them. Possibly, too, we were still handicapped by many liabilities, great and small, we never knew we had.
Hence it was most evident that a solitary self-appraisal, and the admission of our defects based upon that alone, wouldn’t be nearly enough. We’d have to have outside help if we were surely to know and admit the truth about ourselves—the help of God and another human being. Only by discussing ourselves, holding back nothing, only by being willing to take advice and accept direction could we set foot on the road to straight thinking, solid honesty, and genuine humility.
Yet many of us still hung back. We said, “Why can’t ‘God as we understand Him’ tell us where we are astray? If the Creator gave us our lives in the first place, then He must know in every detail where we have since gone wrong. Why don’t we make our admissions to Him directly? Why do we need to bring anyone else into this?”
At this stage, the difficulties of trying to deal rightly with God by ourselves are twofold. Though we may at first be startled to realize that God knows all about us, we are apt to get used to that quite quickly. Somehow, being alone with God doesn’t seem as embarrassing as facing up to another person. Until we actually sit down and talk aloud about what we have so long hidden, our willingness to clean house is still largely theoretical. When we are honest with another person, it confirms that we have been honest with ourselves and with God.
The second difficulty is this: what comes to us alone may be garbled by our own rationalization and wishful thinking. The benefit of talking to another person is that we can get his direct comment and counsel on our situation, and there can be no doubt in our minds what that advice is. Going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous. How many times have we heard well-intentioned people claim the guidance of God when it was all too plain that they were sorely mistaken. Lacking both practice and humility, they had deluded themselves and were able to justify the most arrant nonsense on the ground that this was what God had told them. It is worth noting that people of very high spiritual development almost always insist on checking with friends or spiritual advisers the guidance they feel they have received from God. Surely, then, a novice ought not lay himself open to the chance of making foolish, perhaps tragic, blunders in this fashion. While the comment or advice of others may be by no means infallible, it is likely to be far more specific than any direct guidance we may receive while we are still so inexperienced in establishing contact with a Power greater than ourselves.
Big Book
"Imagine life without faith! Were nothing left but pure reason, it
wouldn't be life."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, We Agnostics, pg. 54~
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