AA Thought For Today - July

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AA Thought for the Day

July 1

Challenges
There is no easier, softer way.
To bring the great escape act into sobriety is to travel with a companion that led me to despair long ago.
The teaching I receive in Alcoholics Anonymous about courage and love
helps me to continue to grapple with the challenges of life as they are given to me, one day at a time.
- The Best of the Grapevine [Vol. 3], p. 320

Thought to Ponder . . .
The peaks and valleys of my life have become gentle rolling hills.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
A R T = Always Remain Teachable.

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

Puzzle
"By nature touchy and suspicious,
the alcoholic likes to be left alone to work out his puzzle,
and he has a convenient way of ignoring the tragedy
which he inflicts meanwhile upon those
who are close to him.
He holds desperately to a conviction that,
although he has not been able to handle alcohol in the past,
he will ultimately succeed in becoming a controlled drinker.
One of medicine's queerest animals,
he is, as often as not, an acutely intelligent person.
He fences with professional men and relatives
who attempt to aid him and he gets a perverse satisfaction
out of tripping them up in argument."
The Jack Alexander Article
>From the March 1941 issue of The Saturday Evening Post

Thought to Consider . . .
There is no such thing as being 'a little bit alcoholic.'

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
D E N I A L = Don't Even Notice I Am Lying.

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

Blindness
Step Seven: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
"This lack of anchorage to any permanent values, this blindness to the true purpose of our lives, produced another bad result. For just so long as we were convinced that we could live exclusively by our own individual strength and intelligence, for just that long was a working faith in a Higher Power impossible."
1952, AAWS, Inc.; Printed 2005; Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pg. 72

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

"As devastatingly difficult as they have been, the last two years have been a giant Seventh Tradition workshop. Never in my married life or in any time before it had I truly understood what being self-supporting meant. I had relied on others to take care of me, not just financially, but emotionally and spiritually, too, and I let my life go to hell if they didn't."
Los Angeles, California, July 2007
"Self-Support,"
No Matter What: Dealing with Adversity in Sobriety

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

"The greatest enemies of us alcoholics are resentment, jealousy,
envy, frustration, and fear."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, To Employers, pg. 145~

"Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more
alcoholics than anything else."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, How It Works, pg. 64~

"Opinions vary considerably as to why the alcoholic reacts
differently from normal people. We are not sure why, once a certain
point is reached, little can be done for him. We cannot answer the
riddle."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, There Is A Solution, pg. 22~

“You will awaken to a new sense of responsibility for others.”
-Alcoholics Anonymous p.120 (To Wives)

“When by devoted service to family, friends, business, or community we attract widespread affection and are sometimes singled out for posts of greater responsibility and trust, we try to be humbly grateful and exert ourselves the more in a spirit of love and service.”
-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p.124 (Step Twelve)

Misc. AA Literature - Quote

Perhaps you raise the question of hallucination verses the divine imagery of a genuine spiritual experience. I doubt if anyone has authoritatively defined what an hallucination really is. However, it is certain that all recipients of spiritual experiences declare for their reality. The best evidence of that reality is in the subsequent fruits. Those who receive these gifts of grace are very much changed people, almost invariably for the better. This can scarcely be said of those who hallucinate.
'Some might think me presumptuous when I say that my own experience is real. Nevertheless, I can surely report that in my own life and in the lives of countless others, the fruits of that experience have been real, and the benefactions beyond reckoning.

Prayer for the Day: My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good & bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character Which stands in the way of my usefulness to you & my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here to do your bidding.