January 4
Daily Reflections
BEGIN WHERE YOU ARE
We feel that elimination of our drinking is but a
beginning. A much more important demonstration of our
principles lies before us in our respective homes,
occupations and affairs.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p.19
It's usually pretty easy for me to be pleasant to the
people in an A.A. setting. While I'm working to stay
sober, I'm celebrating with my fellow A.A.s our common
release from the hell of drinking. It's often not so
hard to spread glad tidings to my old and new friends
in the program. At home or at work, though, it can be
a difference story. It is in situations arising in
both of those areas that the little day-to-day
frustrations are most evident, and where it can be
tough to smile or reach out with a kind word or an
attentive ear. It's outside of the A.A. rooms that
I face the real test of the effectiveness of my walk
through A.A.'s Twelve Steps.
************************************************** *********
As Bill Sees It
Can We Choose?, p. 4
We must never be blinded by the futile philosophy that we are just the
hapless victims of our inheritance, of our life experience, and of our
surroundings--that these are the sole forces that make our decisions for
us. This is not the road to freedom. We have to believe that we can
really choose.
<< << << >> >> >>
"As active alcoholics, we lost our ability to choose whether we would
drink. We were the victims of a compulsion which seemed to decree
that we must go on with our own destruction.
"Yet we finally did make choices that brought about our recovery. We
came to believe that alone we were powerless over alcohol. This was
surely a choice, and a most difficult one. We came to believe that a
Higher Power could restore us to sanity when we became willing to
practice A.A.'s Twelve Steps.
"In short, we chose to 'become willing,' and no better choice did we ever
make."
1. Grapevine, November 1960
2. Letter, 1966
************************************************** *********
Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition
Usually the family should not try to tell your story. When possible, avoid meeting a man through his family. Approach through a doctor or an institution is a better bet. If your man needs hospitalization, he should have it, but not forcibly unless he is violent. Let the doctor, if he will, tell him he has something in the way of a solution.
p. 91
************************************************** *********
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Tradition Five - "Each group has but one primary purpose - to carry it's message to the alcoholic who still suffers."
"Then, hesitantly, I ventured to talk about the spiritual side of our program. What a freeze that drunk gave me! I'd no sooner got the word `spiritual' out of my mouth than he pounced. `Oh!' he said. `Now I get it! You're proselytizing for some **** religious sect or other. Where do you get that "no angle" stuff? I belong to a great church that means everything to me. You've got a nerve to come in here talking religion!"
pp. 152-153
************************************************** *********
Situations I fear are rarely as bad as the fear itself. --unknown
"Growl all day and you'll feel dog tired at night." --Anonymous
"Laughter is as good as jogging for our heart, lungs, and brain." --Gail Grenier Sweet
If you touch, you feel. If you ask, you learn. If you look, you see. If you love, you live. --unknown
People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering. --St. Augustine of Hippo
The heart of AA is the act of one person giving to another.
************************************************** *********
Father Leo's Daily Meditation
FREEDOM
"A hungry man is not a free man."
-- Adlai Stevenson
For years I craved food. It was my escape from reality. It stopped the pain, loneliness
and anger --- for a moment. It felt good. Eventually I began to feel bad --- but I could
not stop. I was addicted to sugar and sodium. My freedom was being exchanged for
doughnuts!
I heard a man talk about his compulsion around cocaine and gambling. I asked how he
managed to abstain and he replied: "Talk about it, a day at a time!"
Today I am compulsive about getting well, and I talk about my disease every day. The
price of freedom is vulnerability. God is in the risk. I have taken it.
God, let me experience freedom in the choices I make today.
************************************************** *********
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
John 3:16
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures through all generations. The Lord is faithful to all His promises and loving towards all He has made. Psalm 145:13
************************************************** *********
Daily Inspiration
It is you, not where you are or what you have, that makes the difference. Lord, may I always blossom where I am planted.
Kindness can accomplish that which force won't. Lord, may I pause when I am about to react to irritations and respond as though it is You to whom I speak.
************************************************** *********
Each Day a New Beginning (Women)
Food for Thought
Language of Letting Go
Today's Gift
Touchstones (Men)
Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Walk In Dry Places