Thoughts For The Day~*~Willingness ^*^*^ September 24
TransitionsDaily
( \(AA)/ )
(_ /AA\ _)
/AA\
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Willingness
"My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, 'Why don't you choose your own conception of God?' That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning."
c. 1976 AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 12
Thought to Consider . . .
The peaks and valleys of my life have become gentle rolling hills.
*~*AACRONYMS*~*
B A T H
Behavior, Attitude, Thinking, and Habits
*~*^Just For Today!^*~*
The Twelve Steps worked like a crowbar,
prying into my dishonesty and fear. I didn't like the things I learned about
myself, but I didn't want to go back where I had come from. I found out that
there was no substance on the planet that could help me get honest. I would do
just about anything to avoid working on myself.
2001 AAWS Inc.
Alcoholics Anonymous, pages
467-468
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.
Copyright 1990
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS WORLD SERVICES, INC.
*~*^As Bill Sees It^*~*
Behind Our Excuses
"As excuse-makers and rationalizers, we drunks are champions. It is the business of the psychiatrist to find the deeper causes for our conduct. Though uninstructed in psychiatry, we can, after a little time in A.A., see that our motives have not been what we thought they were, and that we have been motivated by forces previously unknown to us. Therefore we ought to look, with the deepest respect, interest, and profit, upon the example set us by psychiatry."
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"Spiritual growth through the practice of A.A.'s Twelve Steps, plus the aid of a good sponsor, can usually reveal most of the deeper reasons for our character defects, at least to a degree that meets our practical needs. Nevertheless, we should be grateful that our friends in psychiatry have so strongly emphasized the necessity to search for false and often unconscious motivations."
1. A.A. COMES OF AGE, p. 236
2. LETTER, 1966
*~*^Big Book Quote^*~*
"We usually conclude the period of
meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next
step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such
problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to
make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however,
if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish
ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't
work."
Alcoholics Anonymous,
4th Edition
Into Action, pg. 87
*^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.
Hazelden
Foundation PO Box 176 Center City, MN 55012
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