DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
VIGILANCE
We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic." Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever. If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 33
Today I am an alcoholic. Tomorrow will be no different. My alcoholism lives within me now and forever. I must never forget what I am. Alcohol will surely kill me if I fail to recognize and acknowledge my disease on a daily basis. I am not playing a game in which a loss is a temporary setback. I am dealing with my disease, for which there is no cure, only daily acceptance and vigilance.
From the book Daily Reflections
© Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
Let us continue with Step Twelve. We must practice these principles in all our affairs. This part of the twelfth step must not be overlooked. It is the carrying on of the whole program. We do not just practice these principles in regard to our drinking problem. We practice them in all our affairs. We do not give one compartment of our lives to God and keep the other compartments to ourselves. We give our whole lives to God and we try to do His will in every respect. "Herein lies our growth, herein lies all the promise of the future, an ever-widening horizon." Do I carry the A.A. principles with me wherever I go?
Meditation for the Day
"Lord, to whom shall we go but to Thee? Thou hast the words of eternal life." The words of eternal life are the words from God controlling your true being, controlling the real spiritual you. They are the words from God which are heard by you in your heart and mind when these are wide open to His spirit. These are the words of eternal life which express the true way you are to live. They say to you in the stillness of your heart and mind and soul: "Do this and live."
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may follow the dictates of my conscience. I pray that I may follow the inner urging of my soul.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
A Growing Concept Of God
"The only suggested guidelines are that this Power be loving, caring, and greater than ourselves. We don't have to be religious to accept this idea. The point is that we open our minds to believe."
Basic Text, p.24
In a lifelong process of coming to believe, our understanding of God will change. The understanding we have when new in recovery will not be the same when we have a few months clean, nor will that understanding be the same when we have a few years clean.
Our initial understanding of a Power greater than ourselves will most likely be limited. That Power will keep us clean but, we may think, nothing more. We may hesitate to pray because we have placed conditions on what we will ask our Higher Power to do for us. "Oh, this stuff is so awful, even God couldn't do anything," we might say, or "God's got a lot of people to take care of. There's no time for me!"
But, as we grow in recovery, so will our understanding. We'll begin to see that the only limits to God's love and grace are those we impose by refusing to step out of the way. The loving God we come to believe in is infinite, and the power and love we find in our belief is shared by nearly every recovering addict around the world.
Just for today: The God I am coming to understand has a limitless capacity for love and care. I will trust that my God is bigger than any problem I may have.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
"Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it."
--Joseph Conrad
Recovery is abstinence with change
(thanks David L MOT)
“The AA Gift Horse”
For centuries, horses were a very important means of transportation and other uses in society and business.
Before purchasing a horse, the Buyer would make a physical inspection of the horse, including the horse’s mouth to determine the health of the horse.
If the horse was a gift, then there was no need to look in the horse’s mouth. Just accept the horse “as is”. Thus the statement was created, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”.
The Gift of AA is like the Gift Horse. No need for a trial run or interviewing every AA member to determine their success with AA and if the results are real as advertised.
I just needed to look at the AA Fellows at my first AA meeting, a Men’s Stag, and determined that the men seemed healthy, happy, very sober, and serious about the AA Program and were not a glum lot.
I had never seen anything like that in my life of 74 years. I didn’t know how they solved their drinking problem.
I accepted that the “AA Gift Horse” was there and for me to hop on, without looking in AA’s Mouth, yell “Getty Up” and gallop on the AA Path to sobriety and a better life.
Soon I learned I could not purchase the “AA Gift”, at any price. Action to work the AA Program is the only price. The “AA Gift” was and will always be given without monetary compensation. Only a verbal agreement to “go to any lengths” to achieve sobriety and then to give the opportunity to another suffering alcoholic to work for and receive the “AA Gift” is suggested.
With our Higher Power’s help, we can avoid the dangerous, deadly Bucking Alcohol Bronco.
We can hop on the AA Gift Horse holding our AA Gift and ride to our destiny of Sobriety, and be Happy, Healthy, Sober, Spiritual, Joyous and Free.
James Patrick M.
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
Abandon wrongdoing. It can be done. If there were no likelihood, I would not ask you to do it. But since it is possible and since it brings blessing and happiness, I do ask of you: abandon wrongdoing.
Cultivate doing good. It can be done. If it brought deprivation and sorrow, I would not ask you to do it. But since it brings blessing and happiness, I do ask of you: cultivate doing good.
-Anguttara Nikaya
Native American
"Touch not the poisonous firewater that makes wise men turn to fools and robs the spirit of its vision."
--Tecumseh, SHAWNEE
It's not an accident that firewater is also called spirits. Firewater affects our judgments. The Great Spirit created a set of laws and principles by which we are to live our lives. When we have problems we should pray and ask for the wisdom of these laws. If instead we turn to liquor, our judgment will be affected. It is the decision and choice made under the influence of booze that causes us to be fools. We need to learn to lean on prayer and not on the spirits of alcohol.
Great Spirit, teach me to pray. Let not one drop of liquor touch my lips today.
Keep It Simple
To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. --- Will Durant
Sometimes we say bad things about others. When we do this, it makes us look bad too.
Our friends worry what we might say about them behind their backs. Theyre afraid to trust us. We become known as gossips.
The things we say about other people tell a lot about us. We are kind or unkind. We gossip or we dont. This doesn't mean we have to say everyone is wonderful all the time. As we work our program to see ourselves better, we begin to see other people more clearly too. We see their strong points and their weak points. But we can know these things without gossiping about them.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me see others clearly, and in their best light. Let me bring out the good in others.
Action for the Day: Today, Ill list the people Im closest to at work, school, and home. Ill think of how I talk about them to others. Am I kind?
TWELVE STEPS
and
TWELVE TRADITIONS
Step Nine (pgs 85-87)
After taking this preliminary trial at making amends, we may enjoy such a sense of relief that we conclude our task is finished. We will want to rest on our laurels. The temptation to skip the more humiliating and dreaded meetings that still remain may be great. We will often manufacture plausible excuses for dodging these issues entirely. Or we may just procrastinate, telling ourselves the time is not yet, when in reality we have already passed up many a fine chance to right a serious wrong. Let’s not talk prudence while practicing evasion.
As soon as we begin to feel confident in our new way of life and have begun, by our behavior and example, to convince those about us that we are indeed changing for the better, it is usually safe to talk in complete frankness with those who have been seriously affected, even those who may be only a little or not at all aware of what we have done to them. The only exceptions we will make will be cases where our disclosure would cause actual harm. These conversations can begin in a casual or natural way. But if no such opportunity presents itself, at some point we will want to summon all our courage, head straight for the person concerned, and lay our cards on the table. We needn’t wallow in excessive remorse before those we have harmed, but amends at this level should always be forthright and generous.
There can only be one consideration which should qualify our desire for a complete disclosure of the damage we have done. That will arise in the occasional situation where to make a full revelation would seriously harm the one to whom we are making amends. Or—quite as important—other people. We cannot, for example, unload a detailed account of extramarital adventuring upon the shoulders of our unsuspecting wife or husband. And even in those cases where such a matter must be discussed, let’s try to avoid harming third parties, whoever they may be. It does not lighten our burden when we recklessly make the crosses of others heavier.
Many a razor-edged question can arise in other departments of life where this same principle is involved. Suppose, for instance, that we have drunk up a good chunk of our firm’s money, whether by “borrowing” or on a heavily padded expense account. Suppose that this may continue to go undetected, if we say nothing. Do we instantly confess our irregularities to the firm, in the practical certainty that we will be fired and become unemployable? Are we going to be so rigidly righteous about making amends that we don’t care what happens to the family and home? Or do we first consult those who are to be gravely affected? Do we lay the matter before our sponsor or spiritual adviser, earnestly asking God’s help and guidance—meanwhile resolving to do the right thing when it becomes clear, cost what it may? Of course, there is no pat answer which can fit all such dilemmas. But all of them do require a complete willingness to make amends as fast and as far as may be possible in a given set of conditions.
Above all, we should try to be absolutely sure that we are not delaying because we are afraid. For the readiness to take the full consequences of our past acts, and to take responsibility for the well-being of others at the same time, is the very spirit of Step Nine.
Big Book
"Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow
toward it. We must be willing to make amends where we have done
harm, provided that we do not bring about still more harm in so
doing."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, How It Works, pg. 69~
To subscribe click the link below:
http://www.getresponse.com/site/dailyponderables/webform.html?wid=108246