Daily Recovery Readings - October 29

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God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
and Wisdom to know the difference.
Thy will, not mine, be done.

October 29

Daily Reflections

OUR SURVIVAL

Since recovery from alcoholism is life itself to us, it is imperative that we preserve in full
strength our means of survival.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 177

The honesty expressed by the members of A.A. in meetings has the power to open my
mind. Nothing can block the flow of energy that honesty carries with it. The only obstacle
to this flow of energy is inebriation, but even then, no one will find a closed door if he or
she has left and chooses to return. Once he or she has received the gift of sobriety,
each A.A. member is challenged on a daily basis to accept a program of honesty. My
Higher Power created me for a purpose in life. I ask him to accept my honest efforts to
continue on my journey in the spiritual way of life. I call on Him for strength to know and
seek His will.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

My relationships with my children have greatly improved. Those children who saw me
drunk and were ashamed, those children who turned away in fear and even loathing have
seen me sober and like me, have turned to me in confidence and trust and have forgotten
the past as best they could. They have given me a chance for companionship that I had
completely missed. I am their father or their mother now. Not just "that person the Mom
or Dad married and God knows why." I am a part of my home now. Have I found
something that I had lost?

Meditation For The Day

Our true measure of success in life is the measure of spiritual progress that we have
revealed in our lives. Others should be able to see a demonstration of God's will in our
lives. The measure of His will that those around us have seen worked out in our daily
living is the measure of our true success. We can do our best to be a demonstration each
day of the power of God in human lives, and example of the working out of the grace of
God in the hearts of men and women.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may so live that others will see in me something of the working out of the will
of God. I pray that my life may be a demonstration of what the grace of God can do.

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As Bill Sees It

People Of Faith, p. 300

We who have traveled a path through agnosticism or atheism beg you
to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion. We have
learned that, whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be,
those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions. People of
faith have a rational idea of what life is all about.

Actually, we used to have no reasonable conception whatever. We
used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and
practices, when we might have seen that many spiritually-minded
persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree
of stability, happiness, and usefulness that we should have sought for
ourselves.

Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 49

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Walk In Dry Places

Diminishing returns are still beneficial
Getting better.
There's a "Cloud nine" effect that some of us had when we first found sobriety. Some call it the honeymoon stage. It includes a feeling of great joy and relief over having found, at last, an answer to drinking.
This gradually fades away, as it should under normal conditions. We then feel as though we're in stages of diminishing returns, where the benefits The experience we have in getting sober is like that of people who recovery from a terrible physical illness. At first, they feel remarkably better for the first time. But then their recovery becomes taken for granted, and "feeling better" isn't as remarkable as it was when they first recovered.
We should not expect it to be. Instead, we can focus on the contentment and well-being that living sober and steady improvement give us.
I may not have anything today like the excitement that accompanied early recovery. I'll be satisfied with the normal blessings of good living.

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Keep It Simple

Each morning puts a man on trail and each evening passes judgment. Ray L. Smith
In many ways, the Tenth Step is very natural. We continue to take a personal inventory.
And when we’re wrong, we promptly admit it.
At the end of each day we ask ourselves, “How did my day go?” As we think about our day, we bring order to our life. The Tenth Step teaches us about order. It also teaches us how to correct mistakes. We do this by admitting our wrongs. This way, we have no backlog of guilt. It’s good to start each day fresh, free from quilt. Admitting our wrongs is a loving thing to do. It’s another way the program teaches us to love ourselves.
Prayer for the Day: Today, I’ll face many choices. Higher Power, be with me as I choose. When the day is done, remind me to think about how I lived today. This will help me learn.
Action for the Day: Tonight, I’ll list three choices I made today. Would I make the same choices again?

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Each Day a New Beginning

Let your tears come. Let them water your soul. --Eileen Mayhew
Letting down our guard, releasing the tension that keeps us taut, often invites our tears, tears that soften us, melt our resistance, reveal our vulnerability, which reminds us that we are only human. So often we need reminding that we are only human.
Perfectionism may be our bane, as it is for so many of us in this program. We've learned to push, push harder, and even harder yet, not only ourselves but also those around us. We must be better, we think, and we tighten our hold on life. The program can teach us to loosen our grip, if we'll let it. The magic is that when we loosen our grip on this day, this activity, this person, we get carried gently along and find that which we struggled to control happening smoothly and naturally. Life is a series of ironies.
We should not hide from our tears. We can trust their need to be present. Perhaps they need to be present for someone else, as well as ourselves. Tears encourage compassion; maybe our assignment in life, today, is to help someone else experience compassion.
My tears will heal. And the wounded are everywhere.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

WE AGNOSTICS

The Wright brothers’ almost childish faith that they could build a machine which would fly was the mainspring of their accomplishment. Without that, nothing could have happened. We agnostics and atheists were sticking to the idea that self-sufficiency would solve our problems. When others showed us that “God-sufficiency" worked with them, we began to feel like those who had insisted the Wrights would never fly.

pp. 52-53

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

Doctor Bob's Nightmare

A co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. The birth of our Society dates from his first day of permanent sobriety, June 10, 1935.
To 1950, the year of his death, he carried the A.A. message to more than 5,000 alcoholics men and women, and to all these he gave his medical services without thought of charge.
In this prodigy of service, he was well assisted by Sister Ignatia at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio, one of the greatest friends our Fellowship will ever know.

If you think you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book, I feel sorry for you. If you still think you are strong enough to beat the game alone, that is your affair. But if you really and truly want to quit drinking liquor for good and all, and sincerely feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you. It never fails if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when getting another drink.
Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!

p. 181

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Two - "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

To clergymen, doctors, friends, and families, the alcoholic who means well and tries hard is a heartbreaking riddle. To most A.A.'s, he is not. There are too many of us who have been just like him, and have found the riddle's answer. This answer has to do with the quality of faith rather than its quantity. This has been our blind spot. We supposed we had humility when really we hadn't. We supposed we had been serious about religious practices when, upon honest appraisal, we found we had been only superficial. Or, going to the other extreme, we had wallowed in emotionalism and had mistaken it for true religious feeling. In both cases, we had been asking something for nothing. The fact was we really hadn't cleaned house so that the grace of God could enter us and expel the obsession. In no deep or meaningful sense had we ever taken stock of ourselves, made amends to those we had harmed, or freely given to any other human being without any demand for reward. We had not even prayed rightly. We had always said, "Grant me my wishes" instead of "Thy will be done." The love of God and man we understood not at all. Therefore we remained self-deceived, and so incapable of receiving enough grace to restore us to sanity.

p. 32

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"Living just for today relieves the burden of the past and the fear of the future."
--unknown

You can be your best friend or your worst enemy. This is all determined by how you treat
yourself. Do you harshly judge yourself, or do you find yourself without any conviction?
--unknown

Perhaps the reason a person gets upset over a situation is simply because they have
preordained things in their own mind.
--unknown

"Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill
them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves."
--Pierre T. De Chardin

"Your past is always going to be the way it was. Stop trying to change it."
--Anonymous

"When thinking won't cure fear, action will."
--W. Clement Stone

A B C = Acceptance, Belief, Change.

AA is not something you join, it's a way of life.

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

RACISM

"I want to be the white man's
brother not his brother-in-law."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Addiction is always about separation, ego, isolation and prejudice. The disease
makes us feel different, "less than" and we cover those feelings with false humility
or we assume an arrogant and bombastic manner. Pride and feelings of inferiority put
us on the defensive. It is not unusual for us to seek a scapegoat for our anger.
Drinking alcoholics can be vindictive and prejudicial in their attitude towards
minorities: Blacks, gays and Jews. It is a strange quirk of circumstance when a minority
seeks to victimize another minority --- because alcoholics are a minority group!

Sobriety is about a change in attitude and behavior. The spiritual acceptance of self
must lead inevitably to the acceptance of others. The false pride and arrogance of our
drinking days must give way to the vulnerable strength of sobriety. Now we are able
to embrace our brother, regardless of color, class or creed.

Lord, teach me to seek You in my fellow man and greet You in the stranger.

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"As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who
trust in Him."
2 Samuel 22:31

"But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: "We ought to obey God rather
than men."
Acts 5:29

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Daily Inspiration

Make more room for love in your life. Lord, may I love myself and what I do, may I love others, and how they better my life, and above all, may I love You more each day.

Peace comes not from having no problems, but from being able to deal with them. Lord, bless me with the confidence and wisdom to grow from life's challenges.

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NA Just For Today

Living In The Now

"Living just for today relieves the burden of the past and the fear of the future."

Basic Text, pp. 90-91

Thoughts of how bad it was - or could be - can consume our hopes for recovery. Fantasies of how wonderful it was - or could be - can divert us from taking action in the real world. That's why, in Narcotics Anonymous, we talk about living and recovering "just for today."

In NA, we know that we can change. We've come to believe that our Higher Power can restore the soundness of our minds and hearts. The wreckage of our past can be dealt with through the steps. By maintaining our recovery, just for today, we can avoid creating problems in the future.

Life in recovery is no fantasy. Daydreams of how great using was or how we can use successfully in the future, delusions of how great things could be, overblown expectations that set us up for disappointment and relapse - all are stripped of their power by the program. We seek God's will, not our own. WE seek to serve others, not ourselves. Our self-centeredness and the importance of how great things could or should be for us disappears. In the light of recovery, we perceive the difference between fantasy and reality.

Just for today: I am grateful for the principles of recovery and the new reality they've given me.

pg. 315

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You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
There is nothing so moving--not even acts of love or hate--as the discovery that one is not alone. --Robert Ardrey
Our fears are normal. Some of us fear going to a new school and making new friends. Taking an important test causes jitters in the bravest looking person. Maybe staying alone in the house for the first time has you looking under beds and in closets every time you hear a strange noise. Our fears are merely reminders that we've forgotten to let God help us out.
So often we think we're alone, but we never are. We each have a Higher Power just waiting to be relied on. Nothing is too difficult or fearful for us to handle with the help of our Higher Power. When we develop the habit of letting God ease our way, our fears are gone.
Today, which fear can I replace with trust in my Higher Power?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
It is senseless to speak of optimism or pessimism. The only important thing to remember is that if one works well in a potato field, the potatoes will grow. If one works well among men, they will grow. That's reality. The rest is smoke. --Danilo Dolci
We can get so mired in our pessimism and negativity! What is the point in it? We even get committed to our pessimism, and we challenge the world - or God - to give us reason for hope. In our pessimism, we don't notice we have chosen a negative place to stand. Recovery means loosening our grip on negativism. We are then free to do the work we need to do. We can slowly take the risk of believing that positive things will happen too.
Any man can see the results in his own life. When we work well at this program, when we are faithful to it, we do grow. We see this truth in one another's lives. The work is not always easy. We sometimes wish to avoid it or find a reason to not even try. But there is no doubt, when we look around us, that the effort is rewarded with fulfilling lives.
God, please remove pessimism from me so I may continue my work.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
Let your tears come. Let them water your soul. --Eileen Mayhew
Letting down our guard, releasing the tension that keeps us taut, often invites our tears, tears that soften us, melt our resistance, reveal our vulnerability, which reminds us that we are only human. So often we need reminding that we are only human.
Perfectionism may be our bane, as it is for so many of us in this program. We've learned to push, push harder, and even harder yet, not only ourselves but also those around us. We must be better, we think, and we tighten our hold on life. The program can teach us to loosen our grip, if we'll let it. The magic is that when we loosen our grip on this day, this activity, this person, we get carried gently along and find that which we struggled to control happening smoothly and naturally. Life is a series of ironies.
We should not hide from our tears. We can trust their need to be present. Perhaps they need to be present for someone else, as well as ourselves. Tears encourage compassion; maybe our assignment in life, today, is to help someone else experience compassion.
My tears will heal. And the wounded are everywhere.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Acceptance
A magical potion is available to us today. That potion is called acceptance.
We are asked to accept many things: ourselves, as we are; our feelings, needs, desires, choices, and current status of being. Other people, as they are. The status of our relationships with them. Problems. Blessings. Financial status. Where we live. Our work, our tasks, our level of performance at these tasks.
Resistance will not move us forward, nor will it eliminate the undesirable. But even our resistance may need to be accepted. Even resistance yields to and is changed by acceptance.
Acceptance is the magic that makes change possible. It is not forever; it is for the present moment.
Acceptance is the magic that makes our present circumstances good. It brings peace and contentment and opens the door to growth, change, and moving forward.
It shines the light of positive energy on all that we have and are. Within the framework of acceptance, we figure out what we need to do to take care of ourselves.
Acceptance empowers the positive and tells God we have surrendered to the Plan. We have mastered today's lesson, and are ready to move on.
Today, I will accept. I will relinquish my need to be in resistance to my environment and myself. I will surrender. I will cultivate contentment and gratitude. I will move forward in joy by accepting where I am today.


I am becoming open to loving others and letting myself FEEL the love other people have for me. --Ruth Fishel

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Journey To The Heart
October 29
The Best Is Yet to Come

Set yourself free from limitations, limitations you have placed on yourself. Sometimes in life we may begin thinking the best part is over. I’ve done my best work, had my best times. We don’t have to limit ourselves, life or the universe.

You’ve had many great times, visited many interesting places, done excellent work, and had truly memorable experiences. You’ve experienced a lifetime of love– with friends, family members, loved ones. But the best isn’t over. Whether you’re at the end of a particular relationship, task, or part of your journey, the best is not over. It is still to come.

Memories of excellent times are to be cherished. Clinging to them in a way that limits our lives is a different issue. Often, it keeps us from cherishing the present moment and creatively participating in our future.

All endings are inexorably tied to new beginnings. That’s the nature of the journey. It continues to unfold. It builds on itself. It can’t help itself from doing that. Cherish the moments, all of them. You have seen and felt much in life so far. But still, the best is yet to come.

Open to all the journey holds. The universe is abundant. You are ready to be healed, calmed, empowered. You are ready to partake of the banquet of life, again and again. You are ready to take your place in new, creative experiences. There are many places still to see, soul mates yet to meet, lessons to be learned, joys to be experienced.

Transcend your limitations. Open your mind and heart to all that lies ahead. Call it to you often in the quietness of your heart by believing what is true.

The best is yet to come.

*****

more language of letting go
Ask to see what you're being shown

I was in a small shopping center dropping off film to be developed. When I returned to me car, I realized I had locked my keys inside it. Disbelief shortly turned to acceptance. I walked down to the police station, a few doors down. I had locked my purse in the car,too. I didn't have a quarter on me to use the phone.

The police called the automobile club for me. They told me help was on the way. I went outside and sat on the curb. Then I began staring at a small kitchen furnishings store across the street. I stared and stared. Then I decided to go browse for a while, even though I didn't have my purse.

For months I'd been searching all over Southern California looking for a particular brand of pots and pans. I'd almost given up. Although this was a small store, I decided to inquire if they carried that brand.

"Oh, yes," the clerk said. "We sure do."

Sometimes an inconvenient incident is just that-- inconvenient. Sometimes we just need to slow down, come back to earth, and be aware. Sometimes there's something our Higher Power would like us to see. And once in a while that unexpected problem is really a blessing in disguise.

Take interruptions and inconveniences in stride. Instead of being angry, try to be quietly present in your life. Be aware. See if something's being pointed out to you.

God, help me open my eyes to see what you want me to see.

*****

Life’s Scales
Balance by Madisyn Taylor

A balanced lifestyle is simply a state of being in which one has time and energy for obligations and pleasures.

Like pieces of a puzzle, the many different aspects of your being come together to form the person that you are. You work and play, rest and expend energy, commune with your body and soul, exalt in joy, and feel sorrow. Balance is the state that you achieve when all of the aspects of your life and self are in harmony. Your life force flows in a state of equilibrium because nothing feels out of sync. While balance is necessary to have a satisfying, energetic, and joyful life, only you can determine what balance means to you.

Achieving balance requires that you assess what is important to you. The many demands of modern life can push us to make choices that can put us off balance and have a detrimental effect on our habits, relationships, health, and career. In creating a balanced lifestyle, you must ascertain how much time and energy you are willing to devote to the different areas of your life. To do so, imagine that your life is a house made up of many rooms. Draw this house, give each part of your life its own room, and size each room according to the amount of importance you assign to that aspect of your life. You can include family, solitude, activities that benefit others, healthy eating, indulgences, exercise and working on self. You may discover that certain elements of your life take up an inordinate amount of time, energy, or effort and leave you with few resources to nurture the other aspects of your life. You may want to spend less time on these activities and more on the ones that! fulfill you.

A balanced lifestyle is simply a state of being in which one has time and energy for obligations and pleasures, as well as time to live well and in a gratifying way. With its many nuances, balance can be a difficult concept to integrate into your life. Living a balanced existence, however, can help you attain a greater sense of happiness, health, and fulfillment. Published with permission from Daily OM

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

Virtually all of us suffered the defect of pride when we sought help through The Program, the Twelve Steps, and the fellowship of those who truly understood what we felt and where we had been. We learned about our shortcomings — and of pride in particular — and began to replace self-satisfaction with gratitude for the miracle of our recovery, gratitude for the privilege of working with others, and gratitude for God’s gift — which enabled us to turn catastrophe into good fortune. Have I begun to realize that “pride is to character like the attic to the house — the highest part, and generally the most empty…”?

Today I Pray

God, please tell me if I am hanging my shins on my own pride. Luckily for me, The Program has its own built-in check for flaws like this — the clear-eyed vision of the group, which sees in me what I sometimes cannot see myself. May I know that any kind of success has always gone straight to my head, and be watching for it as I begin to reconstruct my confidence.

Today I Will Remember

“Success” can be a setback.

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One More Day

You may talk on all subjects save one, namely, your maladies.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Casual conversations have an unspoken rule: never, never tell about our pain, our misery, our difficulties. Ironically, the stars of social gatherings are often the ones who have just suffered an accident or injury. We show interest and concern for new and obvious problems; we often ignore ongoing ones. A leg cast has glamor; a wheelchair has none.

We can understand this. Human nature finds adventure in broken bones or neck braces. It also finds reassurance because these injuries are temporary and the victim will be as good as new in a matter of weeks. Many people can’t identify with the permanence of chronic illness, but we can educate them about our social concerns without provoking pity.

My life becomes more balanced when I enjoy social activities as social — not medical — events.

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Food For Thought

Truth

Overeating covered up the truth. We fed our illusions with food, which harmed our bodies. The illusions grew bigger and stronger until our minds were fog bound by the illusions instead of illuminated by truth.

Giving up our illusions is frightening and painful, but in the long run it is less difficult than trying to live with them and by them. It is impossible to get rid of our illusions by ourselves. The Higher Power leads us to truth by means of the Twelve Steps and the OA program. Abstinence from compulsive overeating is necessary in order to stop feeding our illusions and let the truth come through.

Knowing the truth sets us free. We no longer have to cling to old dependencies and self-defeating habits. Our Higher Power gives us as much truth as we are willing to work for and accept. We are not overwhelmed, but are gradually able to assimilate the reality of our situation. By accepting reality and refraining from using food as an escape, we are able to live with truth instead of illusions.

Lead me by the Power of truth.

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One Day At A Time

Trial and Error
“Anything worth doing at all is worth doing poorly.”
Joachim de Posada

Imagine my shock the first time I heard this statement, which happened to be in a Twelve Step (OA) meeting. I had been reared in an environment in which anything worth doing at all was worth doing well. In fact, in my world this concept was practiced as if it had religious authority. It was perfectionism given flesh and bones.

Perhaps the idea that “anything worth doing at all is worth doing well” worked for some folks. For me, it was paralyzing. There were many things that I needed to do that I simply could not do well. These included things like trimming the hedge, praying, and making good investment choices. So how did my sick, obsessive-compulsive self respond? Predictably, of course: I just didn't do those things I felt I couldn’t do well. I was rarely willing to take the chance of acting and being wrong, so I did not act at all. Soon I was living a very restricted life -- a life hemmed in by the fear of messing up. I needed to be perfect or just not be at all.

Then I found the program. There I learned that I am human and that making mistakes is part of being human. I even learned that making mistakes is a good thing, because in doing so I have acted. This is a program of action. I learn by acting and by making mistakes. How liberating! How freeing. I can't tell you how much my constricted, warped life began to open up. I acted and did things poorly, and people responded warmly and in a helpful manner. I took their advice and I joined the human race. I now consider this simple concept -- act, even if it means doing a thing poorly -- as one of the greatest gifts of the program. My life is really my life now. Perfectionism occasionally rears its ugly head, but when it does, I simply remember where I came from and then I go ahead and make a mistake and set myself free again.

One day at a time...
Today I will do what I need to do, and I will do it as well as I can. When I make a mistake I will not conclude that I am a mistake. I will accept that I am human and I will ask for help. Perfection has never been a goal of this program and it is not a goal for my life.
~ Pete M.

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

Hence, we saw that reason isn't everything. Neither is reason, as most of us use it, entirely dependable, though it emanate from our best minds. What about people who proved that man could never fly? - Pgs. - 54-55 - We Agnostics

Hour To Hour - Book - Quote

The most important thing to know about Step Three, turning our will over to a Higher Power, is that all we can do is DECIDE to do it. There is no'will' we can wrap and send. Once we make the decision to do this, our Higher Power will work for us through the rest of the Steps.

I decide to align my will with that of the Source of my Spirit.

Truth

Today, I accept that without truth there is nothing. Truth is the soil out of which sustenance grows and nourishment comes, so that we can move in healthy directions. Lies have no food value and starve my spirit; but truth though it can hurt, has a way of hoeing and tilling the soil so that some new growth can occur. Even though knowing the truth may seem unnecessary somewhere inside, I know it anyway. Bringing truth out into the open gives me a chance to lift the veil of secrecy that has made a wound feel like a dark hole. It allows angst to transform and break into a thousand little somethings that each contain usable and illuminating information that can again nurture health and life.

I am willing to live with truth.
- Tian Dayton PhD

Pocket Sponsor - Book - Quote

Treat your family like you would a newcomer. Give them the same latitude for mistakes, give them the same love, the same gentleness, the same priority and care. This makes for a well-nourished family.

When I ask 'How can I be of service?' my family is at the head of the line.

"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

The Power behind us is much greater than the problems in front of us.

Time for Joy - Book - Quote

I am becoming open to loving others and letting myself FEEEL the love other people have for me.

Alkiespeak - Book - Quote

Worrying is like being in a rocking chair; it gives me something to do but it doesn't get me anywhere. - Anon.

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AA Thought for the Day

October 29

Choice
Before I learned of the AA program, I was a slave to the behavior patterns of alcoholism.
I was chained to negativity, with no hope of cutting loose. . .
The Steps assured me I was not alone.
My Higher Power led me to this door and gave me the gift of choice.
- Daily Reflections, p. 114

Thought to Ponder . . .
When I choose the behavior, I choose the consequences.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
G I F T S = Getting It From The Steps.

~*~A.A. Thoughts For The Day~*~

Touchstones
"All AA progress can be reckoned in terms of just two words:
humility and responsibility.
Our whole spiritual development can be accurately
measured by our degree of adherence to these
magnificent standards.
Ever deepening humility,
accompanied by an ever greater willingness
to accept and act upon clear-cut obligations --
these are truly our touchstones
for all growth in the life of the spirit.
They hold up to us the very essence
of right being and right doing.
It is by them that we are enabled to find and to do God's will."
Bill W., Talk, 1965
c.1967AAWS, As Bill Sees It, p. 271

Thought to Consider . . .
The solution is simple.
The solution is spiritual.

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
S O B E R = Simply Observe Bill's Exemplary Recovery

*~*~*~*~*^Just For Today!^*~*~*~*~*

Focus
From: "Acceptance Was the Answer"
I can do the same thing with an AA meeting. The more I focus my mind on its defects - late start, long drunkalogs, cigarette smoke - the worse the meeting becomes. But when I try to see what I can add to the meeting, rather than what I can get out of it, and when I focus my mind on what's good about it, rather than what's wrong with it, the meeting keeps getting better and better. When I focus on what's good today, I have a good day, and when I focus on what's bad, I have a bad day. If I focus on a problem, the problem increases; if I focus on the answer, the answer increases.
2001, AAWS, Inc., Alcoholics Anonymous, page 419

*~*~*~*~*^ Grapevine Quote ^*~*~*~*~*

"No one at the gym, at work, in my neighborhood, or even in church had ever put their hand out to me. In AA, it happened every day."
Trenton, N.J., April 2005
"Falling Apart on the Inside,"
No Matter What: Dealing with Adversity in Sobriety

*~*~*~*~*^ Big Book & Twelve N' Twelve Quotes of the Day ^*~*~*~*~*

"Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to
Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give
freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the
Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you
trudge the Road of Happy Destiny."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, A Vision For You, pg. 164~

There is action and more action. Faith without works is dead.
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Into Action, pg. 88~

Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?
-Alcoholics Anonymous p.62

The most common symptoms of emotional insecurity are worry, anger, self-pity, and depression.
-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p.52

Misc. AA Literature - Quote

We A.A.'s are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck, when camaraderie, joyousness, and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to captain's table.
Unlike the feelings of the ship's passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of sharing in a common peril - relapse into alcoholism - continues to be an important element in the powerful cement which binds us of A.A. together.
Our first woman alcoholic had been a patient of Dr. Harry Tiebout's, and he had handed her a prepublication manuscript copy of the Big Book. The first reading made her rebellious, but the second convinced her. Presently she came to a meeting held in our living room, and from there she returned to the sanitarium carrying this classic message to a fellow patient: 'We aren't alone any more.'

Prayer for the Day: The Twelve Rewards -
Spirit of the Universe, I humbly ask for Your help so I may continue to realize the rewards of recovery:
1. Hope instead of desperation.
2. Faith instead of despair.
3. Courage instead of fear.
4. Peace of mind instead of confusion.
5. Self-respect instead of self-contempt.
6. Self-confidence instead of helplessness.
7. The respect of others instead of pity and contempt.
8. A clean conscience instead of a sense of guilt.
9. Real friendship instead of loneliness.
10. A clean pattern of life instead of a purposeless existence.
11. The love and understanding of my family instead of their doubts and fears.
12. The freedom of a happy life instead of the bondage of addiction.

Ask and you shall receive,
Seek and ye shall find,
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Matthew 7:7