DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
LOVE WITHOUT STRINGS
Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 89
Sponsorship held two surprises for me. First, that my sponsees cared about me. What I had thought was gratitude was more like love. They wanted me to be happy, to grow and remain sober. Knowing how they felt kept me from drinking more than once. Second, I discovered that I was able to love someone else responsibly, with respectful and genuine concern for that person's growth. Before that time, I had thought that my ability to care sincerely about another's well-being had atrophied from lack of use. To learn that I can love, without greed or anxiety, has been one of the deepest gifts the program has given me. Gratitude for that gift has kept me sober many times.
From the book Daily Reflections
© Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
For the past two months we have been studying passages and steps from the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. Now why not read the book itself again? It is essential that the A.A. program become part of us. We must have its essentials at our fingertips. We cannot study the Big Book too much or too often. The more we read it and study it, the better equipped we are to think A.A., act A.A., and live A.A. We cannot know too much about the program. The chances are that we will never know enough. But we can make as much of it our own as possible. How much of the Big Book have I thoroughly mastered?
Meditation for the Day
We need to accept the difficulties and disciplines of life so as to fully share the common life of other people. Many things that we must accept in life are not to be taken so much as being necessary for us personally, as to be experienced in order that we may share in the sufferings and problems of humanity. We need sympathy and understanding. We must share many of the experiences of life, in order to understand and sympathize with others. Unless we have been through the same experiences, we cannot understand other people or their makeup well enough to be able to help them.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may accept everything that comes my way as a part of life. I pray that I may make use of it in helping other people.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Hope
"Gradually as we become more God-centered than self centered, our despair turns to hope."
Basic Text, p.92
As using addicts, despair was our relentless companion. It colored our every waking moment. Despair was born of our experience in active addiction: No matter what measures we tried to make our lives better, we slid ever deeper into misery. Attempts we made to control our lives frequently met with failure. In a sense, our First Step admission of powerlessness was an acknowledgment of despair.
Steps Two and Three lead us gradually out of that despair and into new hope, the companion of the recovering addict. Having accepted that so many of our efforts to change have failed, we come to believe that there is a Power greater than ourselves. We believe this Power can - and will - help us. We practice the Second and Third Steps as an affirmation of our hope for a better life, turning to this Power for guidance. As we come to rely more and more on a Higher Power for the management of our day - to - day life, the despair arising from our long experiment with self-sufficiency disappears.
Just for today: I will reaffirm my Third Step decision. I know that, with a Higher Power in my life, there is hope.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
"If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your
envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fear.
-Glenn Clark
In prosperity our friends know us;
in adversity we know our friends.
~John Churton Collins
Happiness is a direction, not a place.
~Sydney J. Harris (thanks Gene H.)
I thirst
Enter the cool stream where the thirsty come.
Parched, bedeviled, defiled we crawl
to that crack in the stone
where restorative power
springs from on high
What first appears as droplets
a trickle really;
suddenly a thin rivulet
burns as it soothes
the fractured soul
of the one who seeks
For all being made from same
we merge at the stream
that flows from eternal source.
Angela M.
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
A person of wisdom should be truthful, without arrogance, without deceit, not slanderous and not hateful. The wise person should go beyond the evil of greed and miserliness.
Do not get excited by what is old, do not be contented with what is new. Do not grieve for what is lost or be controlled by desire.
-Sutta-nipata, translated by H. Saddhatissa
Native American
"Love is something that you can leave behind you when you die. It's that powerful."
--John (Fire) Lame Deer, ROSEBUD LAKOTA
The Old Ones say, love is all anyone needs. Love doesn't go away nor can love be divided. Once you commit an act of love, you'll find it continues. Love is like setting up dominoes one behind the other. Once you hit the first domino, it will touch the second one which will touch the third one and so on. Every love act or love thought has an affect on each person as well as touching the whole world. If you live a life filled with love, the results will affect your friends, relatives and other people, even after you go to the other side. So... Love.
My Creator, let me love. Let me put into action the love dominoes
Walk in Dry Places
The Role of self-sufficiency
Success
When AA was first launched, the ideal of the self made person was often exalted. Certain outstanding individuals seem to have achieved amazing success entirely by their own efforts. In the drive to be such a self made person, AA co-founder Bill W. was swept away in a torrent of alcoholic grandeur.
We know today that there's no such thing as a self-made person. We all need each other, and at various times we would have been lost without assistance that was generously and freely given. Everyone has had such assistance at one time or another. WE are not entirely self-sufficient.
The true role of self-sufficiency is to use our talent and opportunities wisely and beneficially in cooperation with others. Our own success in whatever we do will be enhanced as we continue to acknowledge our need for others.
Throughout the day, there will be many times when I need the help of others, and many times when others will need my help. I will give and receive help gratefully.
TWELVESTEPS
and
TWELVE TRADITIONS
Step Ten (pgs 93-95)
When evening comes, perhaps just before going to sleep, many of us draw up a balance sheet for the day. This is a good place to remember that inventory-taking is not always done in red ink. It’s a poor day indeed when we haven’t done something right. As a matter of fact, the waking hours are usually well filled with things that are constructive. Good intentions, good thoughts, and good acts are there for us to see. Even when we have tried hard and failed, we may chalk that up as one of the greatest credits of all. Under these conditions, the pains of failure are converted into assets. Out of them we receive the stimulation we need to go forward. Someone who knew what he was talking about once remarked that pain was the touchstone of all spiritual progress. How heartily we A.A.’s can agree with him, for we know that the pains of drinking had to come before sobriety, and emotional turmoil before serenity.
As we glance down the debit side of the day’s ledger, we should carefully examine our motives in each thought or act that appears to be wrong. In most cases our motives won’t be hard to see and understand. When prideful, angry, jealous, anxious, or fearful, we acted accordingly, and that was that. Here we need only recognize that we did act or think badly, try to visualize how we might have done better, and resolve with God’s help to carry these lessons over into tomorrow, making, of course, any amends still neglected.
But in other instances only the closest scrutiny will reveal what our true motives were. There are cases where our ancient enemy, rationalization, has stepped in and has justified conduct which was really wrong. The temptation here is to imagine that we had good motives and reasons when we really didn’t.
We “constructively criticized” someone who needed it, when our real motive was to win a useless argument. Or, the person concerned not being present, we thought we were helping others to understand him, when in actuality our true motive was to feel superior by pulling him down. We sometimes hurt those we love because they need to be “taught a lesson,” when we really want to punish. We were depressed and complained we felt bad, when in fact we were mainly asking for sympathy and attention. This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom. This subtle and elusive kind of self-righteousness can underlie the smallest act or thought.
Learning daily to spot, admit, and correct these flaws is the essence of character-building and good living. An honest regret for harms done, a genuine gratitude for blessings received, and a willingness to try for better things tomorrow will be the permanent assets we shall seek.
Having so considered our day, not omitting to take due note of things well done, and having searched our hearts with neither fear nor favor, we can truly thank God for the blessings we have received and sleep in good conscience.
Big Book
"Yes, there is a long period of reconstruction ahead. We must take
the lead. A remorseful mumbling that we are sorry won't fill the bill
at all. We ought to sit down with the family and frankly analyze the
past as we now see it, being very careful not to criticize them.
Their defects may be glaring, but the chances are that our own
actions are partly responsible. So we clean house with the family,
asking each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of
patience, tolerance, kindliness and love."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Into Action, pg. 83~
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