Your Daily Reprieve

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Sunday August 3, 2025    from Waynesville, NC         The fountain of contentment must spring up in the mind, and they who have so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but their own disposition, will waste their lives in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief they propose to remove.       -Samuel Johnson     The most important work you ever do will be within the walls of your own home. ~Harold B. Lee   "In the buffet of life, friends are the dessert." -- Author Unknown      If you are feeling hurt you are allowing yourself to be hurt by other people’s unskilled behavior.  Very few people choose to be mean, or even thoughtless.  Many have so much going on in their own mind they don't realize in the moment how they are coming across, and most likely later they may feel as unskilled as you have at times like these.  Doesn't this call for a great deal of empathy and compassion for everyone concerned?       -unattributed     Please Use This Link If You'd Like To Sign Up ADD A Friend , A Sponsee, A Sponsor or a Newcomer To Your Daily Reprieve Email List  https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/EA6cC5s           BIG BOOK QUOTE      Outline the program of action, explaining how you made a self-appraisal, how you straightened out your past and why you are now endeavoring to be helpful to him. It is important for him to realize that your attempt to pass this on to him plays a vital part in your own recovery. Actually, he may be helping you more than you are helping him. Make it plain he is under no obligation to you, that you hope only that he will try to help other alcoholics when he escapes his own difficulties.   P94                 DAILY SHARE   AA Speaker of the Day     CARROL KIKI R South Carolina Biarritz, France 08.20.20   https://bit.ly/4kNiyQC         Celebrate Your Anniversary Here SHOW NEWCOMERS HOW IT WORKS!! Send your sober date and location to : so...@yourdailyreprieve.com     I always thought that posting our locations with our anniversaries was a great way to show newcomers that AA is all over the world. So I wish you would send your locations with your anniversary dates. We don't celebrate for our own benefit. We celebrate anniversaries to show the program works. If we add our locations we get to show that AA works EVERYWHERE!     AUGUST2025 Miracles     8/1 Bill H. (Wells, ME/Melbourne Beach, FL)…..16 8/1 David G. (Salem, NH)…..34 8/1 Michael K. …..15 8/1 Janet F. (Myrtle Beach, SC)…..3 8/1 Jessica E. (Sugar Land, TX)..…8 8/2 Garry K. (Kelowna, BC)…..56 8/2 Judy J. …..1 8/4 Dan M. (Nantucket, MA)…..23 8/5 Andre de (Bracknell, UK)…..23 8/5 Mary OO (Marina del Rey, CA)…..45 8/6 Jason J. (Maggie Valley, NC)…..13 8/7 Carrie B. (Orange Park, FL)…..6 8/7 Sherri R. (Panama City, FL)…..1 8/7 Glad (Jacksonville, FL)…..29 8/7 John D. (Natick, MA).….17 8/8/08 Donna F. (Cocoa Beach, FL)…..17 8/8 Steve R. (Port Charlotte, FL)…..1 8/8 Chris G. (Stuart, FL/Stone Harbor, NJ)…..21 8/8 Lisa L. (Canton, NC)…..10 8/8 David T. (Newmarket, NH)…..43 8/8 Leslie N. (New Providence, NJ)…..37 8/9 Jay C. (Waco, TX)…..23 8/9 Vern M. (Basking Ridge, NJ)…..24 8/10 Justin B. (Anderson, SC)…..7 8/10 Susan B. (Tinton Falls, NJ)…..23 8/12 Billy M. (Haymarket, VA)…..25 8/13 Tommy OC. …..40 8/13 Kate P. (Hampton, NH)…..36 8/14 Tim D. (Newburyport, MA)…..32 8/15 Tom W. (Charlotte, NC)…..1 8/15 George Y. …..31 8/15 Ronnie B. (Graham, NC)…..3 8/15 Siobhan (NYC)…..26 8/16 Charlotte C. (New York City)…..16 8/17 Charlie K. (Bay Village, OH/Naples, FL)…..27 8/17 John T. (Sarasota, FL)…..9 8/17 Jon B. (Parsonsburg, MD)…..37 8/18 Paul D. (Hampton, NH)…..5 8/20 Bill W. (Sarasota, FL)…..33 8/21 Yolanda H. (Santa Cruz, CA)…..38 8/22 Jackie Y. (Tustin, CA)…..31 8/22 John K. (Ruskin, FL)…..3 8/22 Stuart W. (Old Tappan, NJ)…..24 8/24 Marilyn R. (Sarasota, FL)…..30 8/28 Delia S. (Savannah, GA)…..35 8/28 John P. (Mallorca, SP)…..6 8/28 Patrick O. (Salt Lake City, UT)…..1 8/28 John D. (Graham, NC)…..7 8/29 Mary O’C. (Maynard, MA)…..13 8/30 Chris B. (Sandwich, NH)…..33 8/30 Holly S. (Montreal, CA)…..28 8/30 Jeff G. (Morristown, NJ)…..12 8/31 Sarah M. …..17   1105 Total Years of Sobriety              Drop a Buck in the Basket? PayPal paypal.me/TomMurphy Venmo @Tom-Murphy-160     The cost to mail Your Daily Reprieve just went up to $195 a month!!       Thank you everyone for your generous contributions.       12&12   Step Seven - "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings." Humility, as a word and as an ideal, has a very bad time of it in our world. Not only is the idea misunderstood; the word itself is often intensely disliked. Many people haven't even a nodding acquaintance with humility as a way of life. Much of the everyday talk we hear, and a great deal of what we read, highlights man's pride in his own achievements. p. 70               TWENTY-FOUR HOURS     A.A. Thought For The Day   We in A.A. must remember that we are offering something intangible. We are offering a psychological and spiritual program. We are not offering a medical program. If people need medical treatment, we call in a doctor. If they need a medical prescription, we let the doctor prescribe for them. If they need hospital treatment, we let the hospital take care of them. Our vital A.A. work begins when a person is physically able to receive it. Am I willing to leave medical care to the doctors?   Meditation For The Day   Each moment of your day which you devote to this new way of life is a gift to God. The gift of the moments. Even when your desire to serve God is sincere, it is not an easy thing to give Him many of these moments: the daily things you had planned to do, given up gladly so that you can perform a good service or say a kind word. If you can see Gods purpose in many situations, it will be easier to give Him many moments of your day. Every situation has two interpretations -- your own and God's. Try to handle each situation in the way you believe God would have it handled.   Prayer For The Day   I pray that I may make my day count somewhat for God. I pray that I may not spend it all selfishly.           DAILY THOUGHT ^*^*^*^*^ (\  ~~  /) (  \(AA)/  ) (_ /AA\ _) / AA \ ^*^*^*^*^ Acceptance   "And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes." Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 417 4th Edition Note: Dr. Paul O., author of these words, passed away 5.12.00.   Thought to Consider . . .  "My serenity is directly proportional to my level of acceptance." Dr. Paul O., Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 417   *~*AACRONYMS*~* A B C  Acceptance, Belief, Change           DAILY REFLECTION   . . . TO BE OF SERVICE Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 77   It is clear that God's plan for me is expressed through love. God loved me enough to take me from alleys and jails so that I could be made a useful participant in His world. My response is to love all of His children through service and by example. I ask God to help me imitate His love for me through my love for others.           POT LU CK   "When I feed the problem, it grows; when I feed the solution, it grows."       In the program, I learned I have a magic-magnifying mind. I discovered that I tend to obsessively think about certain things to the exclusion of all else. Before recovery, I focused my magic-magnifying mind on my problems, and as I did, they tended to get bigger and even multiply. Round and round I went, chasing each problem and imagining the worst. The only solution I could think of was to drink more, and that just led me to even darker places.     In recovery, I discovered some solutions. The first was to put the plug in the jug. Next, I learned to share my problems with others and learn from the solutions they found to similar situations. I also learned to develop a relationship with a Power greater than myself. This took away the burden of solving problems on my own and taught me to be open to God’s will and direction. During this process, I also learned that what I feed grows, and if I want my life to get better, I have to change what I am feeding.     While this sounds easy, it still takes work even today. The good part is that I am much quicker to recognize when I’m feeding a problem, and when I do, I quickly ask myself what I’m afraid of. Once I know that, I can turn my magic-magnifying mind on to the solution. I’ve gotten much better at turning things over, thinking about more positive outcomes, and feeding solutions. And I’m happy to report that my life is much better for it. I’m now open to God’s infinite array of better outcomes, and I choose to focus on those today instead of my problems.                      UPDATED      **NEW** "AA Recovery Interviews" Podcast https://aarecoveryinterviews.com   Blog http://todaysreprieve.blogspot.com/     Wee Willie’s Sobriety First Media AA CD’s Literature and tapes https://www.mediafire.com/sobrietyfirst     AA Membership Survey 2022 Alcoholics Anonymous 2022 Membership Survey | Alcoholics Anonymous     Committee Consideration from the 73rd General Service Conference In response to a Committee Consideration from the 73rd General Service Conference regarding any possible future changes to literature written by A.A.’s founders,  that committee agreed it would be beneficial to gather shared experience from the Fellowship regarding this topic. Questionaire   How Should We Treat A.A. Founders' Writings?  https://bit.ly/3uhEPBK       DR. PAUL O. There is More to Quitting Drinking Than Quitting Drinking (Audio Book) Introduction http://bit.ly/1IlFBbp Part I http://bit.ly/1MPV5Za Part II http://bit.ly/1Ksd9eA Part III http://bit.ly/1GQCGGE Part IV http://bit.ly/1Ip0hn8 AA CDs Literature and tapes https://www.mediafire.com/sobrietyfirst       ZOOM MEETINGS   Loose Garment Group https://us02web.zoom.us/j/238977518 Saturday & Sunday….Pot Luck…0900 ID: 238 977 518 PW: 004 394     ARCHIVES     AA World Service Board Meeting Highlights October 2023  https://bit.ly/3GlcOvE       A New Pair of Glasses in PDF (download) is available at: https://bit.ly/4bUr0Js     Bill Schaberg Writing The Big Book Video Readings https://www.youtube.com/@billschaberg8911/videos   BIG BOOK for DUMMIES https://bigbookfordummies.com/       *Angel Force USA www.AngelForceUSA.com   Angel Force USA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. OUR MISSION STOP SUISILENCE The avoidance of discussion about suicide Our goal is to raise awareness of the military suicide epidemic.       RICHMOND WALKER & THE TWENTY-FOUR HOUR BOOK Glenn C. (South Bend, Indiana) Talk given at the 8th Annual National A.A. Archives Workshop, Fort Lauderdale, Florida Sept. 27, 2003 https://www.prestongroup.org/aa_docs/24_hours_a_day.txt       MEDITATIONS http://www.11thstepmeditation.org/   Loving Kindness Meditations   With Music   http://www.excelatlife.com/mp3/direct_download.php?file=lovingkindnessmusic.mp3     Voice only http://www.excelatlife.com/mp3/direct_download.php?file=lovingkindness.mp3   ***** Free Guided Meditations http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22 Resources   Great Minds Quotes https://twitter.com/GreatestQuotes       MOOJI GUIDED Meditation http://bit.ly/2Ogwe9v     **Podcasts** https://boiledowlaa.org/ https://www.aagrapevine.org/podcast     12 Step Meditations  www.stepmeditation.com   These are 12 meditations, each about 12 minutes long and the content (other than the meditation instructions) are straight from the text of the big book and 12 & 12 (created by Matt H.)     Speaker Recordings   Wee Willie’s Sobriety First Media AA CD’s Literature and tapes https://www.mediafire.com/sobrietyfirst *****   The Lights are On http://xa-speakers.org/     Recovery Speakers http://recoveryspeakers.com/   Miscellaneous Sources Living Life Fully http://www.livinglifefully.com/     Twenty Four Hours a Day Since 1954, Twenty-Four Hours a Day has become a stable force in the recovery of many alcoholics throughout the world. With over nine million copies in print (the original text has been revised), this "little black book" offers daily thoughts, meditations, and prayers for living a clean and sober life. A spiritual resource with practical applications to fit our daily lives. Copyright 1975 Hazeleden Foundation   Tammy’s recovery links http://www.bluidkiti.com/forums/   AA Photo Archives http://www.rewritables.net/cybriety/aa_photos.htm   Heard at A Meeting https://twitter.com/heardinameeting   Breast Cancer Site Take a minute and click to provide free mammograms https://thebreastcancersite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/bcs/home   MEN FIGHTING CANCER TOGETHER America’s largest volunteer men’s cancer support group and advocacy national nonprofit organization. http://malecare.org/     Prayables http://prayables.org/     Daily Thought http://groups.google.com/group/TransitionsDaily   Speaker Recordings Stories of Recovery - A 12-Step Collection https://storiesofrecovery.org/index.html                   SHARE THIS EMAIL WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY

 

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Tuesday August 5, 2025    from Waynesville, NC       Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keeps you from hope and love? ~Leo Buscaglia     "Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow" ~Hellen Keller     Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self. ~May Sarton     “By the fall of 1937 we could count what looked like forty recovered members. One of us had been sober three years, another two and a half, and a fair number had a year or more behind them. As all of us had been hopeless cases, this amount of time elapsed began to be significant. The realization that we ‘had found something’ began to take hold of us. No longer were we a dubious experiment. Alcoholics could stay sober.” ~AA Co-Founder, Bill W., October 1945

Please Use This Link If You'd Like To Sign Up ADD A Friend , A Sponsee, A Sponsor or a Newcomer To Your Daily Reprieve Email List  https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/EA6cC5s

BIG BOOK QUOTE     When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.   P52

DAILY SHARE   AA Speaker of the Day

Darlene G USA Biarritz, France 10.17.20   https://bit.ly/3Ixex5p

Celebrate Your Anniversary Here SHOW NEWCOMERS HOW IT WORKS!! Send your sober date and location to : so...@yourdailyreprieve.com     I always thought that posting our locations with our anniversaries was a great way to show newcomers that AA is all over the world. So I wish you would send your locations with your anniversary dates. We don't celebrate for our own benefit. We celebrate anniversaries to show the program works. If we add our locations we get to show that AA works EVERYWHERE!     AUGUST2025 Miracles     8/1 Bill H. (Wells, ME/Melbourne Beach, FL)…..16 8/1 David G. (Salem, NH)…..34 8/1 Michael K. …..15 8/1 Janet F. (Myrtle Beach, SC)…..3 8/1 Jessica E. (Sugar Land, TX)..…8 8/2 Garry K. (Kelowna, BC)…..56 8/2 Judy J. …..1 8/4 Dan M. (Nantucket, MA)…..23 8/5 Andre de (Bracknell, UK)…..23 8/5 Mary OO (Marina del Rey, CA)…..45 8/6 Jason J. (Maggie Valley, NC)…..13 8/7 Carrie B. (Orange Park, FL)…..6 8/7 Sherri R. (Panama City, FL)…..1

8/7 Glad H. (Atlantic Beach, FL)…..29

8/7 John D. (Natick, MA).….17 8/8/08 Donna F. (Cocoa Beach, FL)…..17 8/8 Steve R. (Port Charlotte, FL)…..1 8/8 Chris G. (Stuart, FL/Stone Harbor, NJ)…..21 8/8 Lisa L. (Canton, NC)…..10 8/8 David T. (Newmarket, NH)…..43 8/8 Leslie N. (New Providence, NJ)…..37 8/9 Jay C. (Waco, TX)…..23 8/9 Vern M. (Basking Ridge, NJ)…..24

8/9 Laura R. (Beaverton, OR)…..37

8/10 Justin B. (Anderson, SC)…..7 8/10 Susan B. (Tinton Falls, NJ)…..23

8/11 Page H. (Amelia Island, FL)…..49

8/12 Billy M. (Haymarket, VA)…..25 8/13 Tommy OC. …..40 8/13 Kate P. (Hampton, NH)…..36 8/14 Tim D. (Newburyport, MA)…..32

8/14 Dottie Lu W. (St. Simons Island, GA)…..40

8/15 Tom W. (Charlotte, NC)…..1

8/15 Brian M. (Bernardsville, NJ)…..37 8/15 Malley H. (Kingston, NY)…..40 8/15 George Y. …..31 8/15 Kurtis E. (Stuart, FL)…..3

8/15 Ronnie B. (Graham, NC)…..3 8/15 Siobhan (NYC)…..26 8/16 Charlotte C. (New York City)…..16

8/16 Jody M. (Laguna Niguel, CA)…..19 8/16 Jeffrey B. (Vancouver, BC, CA)…..22

8/17 Charlie K. (Bay Village, OH/Naples, FL)…..27 8/17 John T. (Sarasota, FL)…..9

8/17 Susan D. (Parsippany, NJ)…..1

8/17 Jon B. (Parsonsburg, MD)…..37 8/18 Paul D. (Hampton, NH)…..5

8/18 Steve C. (Jacksonville, FL)…..7

8/20 Bill W. (Sarasota, FL)…..33 8/21 Yolanda H. (Santa Cruz, CA)…..38

8/21 Kevin J.(Hampton NH …..16

8/22 Jackie Y. (Tustin, CA)…..31 8/22 John K. (Ruskin, FL)…..3

8/24 Marilyn R. (Sarasota, FL)…..30 8/24 Scott W. (Sarasota, FL)…..24 8/25 John P. (Mallorca, Spain)…..6

8/22 Stuart W. (Old Tappan, NJ)…..24

8/28 Delia S. (Savannah, GA)…..35

8/28 John P. (Mallorca, SP)…..6 8/28 Patrick O. (Salt Lake City, UT)…..1 8/28 John D. (Graham, NC)…..7 8/29 Mary O’C. (Maynard, MA)…..13 8/30 Chris B. (Sandwich, NH)…..33 8/30 Holly S. (Montreal, CA)…..28 8/30 Jeff G. (Morristown, NJ)…..12 8/31 Sarah M. …..17

1406 Total Years of Sobriety

Drop a Buck in the Basket? PayPal paypal.me/TomMurphy Venmo @Tom-Murphy-160     The cost to mail Your Daily Reprieve just went up to $195 a month!!       Thank you everyone for your generous contributions.

12&12   Step Seven - "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings."

Certainly no alcoholic, and surely no member of A.A., wants to deprecate material achievement. Nor do we enter into debate with the many who still so passionately cling to the belief that to satisfy our basic natural desires is the main object of life. But we are sure that no class of people in the world ever made a worse mess of trying to live by this formula than alcoholics. For thousands of years we have been demanding more than our share of security, prestige, and romance. When we seemed to be succeeding, we drank to dream still greater dreams. When we were frustrated, even in part, we drank for oblivion. Never was there enough of what we thought we wanted. p. 71

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS     A.A. Thought For The Day

We in A.A. are offering a spiritual program. The fundamental basis of A.A. is belief in some Power greater than ourselves. This belief takes us off the center of the universe and allows us to transfer our problems to some power outside of ourselves. We turn to this Power for the strength we need to get sober and stay sober. We put our drink problem in God's hands and leave it there. We stop trying to run our own life and seek to let God run it for us. Do I do my best to give spiritual help?   Meditation For The Day   God is your healer and your strength. You do not have to ask Him to come to you. He is always with you in spirit. At your moment of need He is there to help you. Could you know God's love and His desire to help you, you would know that He needs no pleading for help. Your need is God's opportunity. You must learn to rely on God's strength whenever you need it. Whenever you feel inadequate to any situation, you should realize that the feeling of inadequacy is disloyalty to God. Just say to yourself: I know that God is with me and will help me to think and say and do the right thing.   Prayer For The Day  I pray that I may never feel inadequate to any situation. I pray that I may be buoyed up by the feeling that God is with me.

DAILY THOUGHT ^*^*^*^*^ (\  ~~  /) (  \(AA)/  ) (_ /AA\ _) / AA \ ^*^*^*^*^

Choices "Our necessities are certainly immense and compelling. Each of us must conform reasonably well to A.A.'s Steps and Traditions, or else we shall go mad or die of alcoholism. Therefore the compulsion among most of us to survive and grow soon becomes far stronger than the temptation to drink or misbehave. Literally, we must 'do or die.' So we make the choice to live. This, in turn, means the choice of A.A. principles, practices, and attitudes. This is our first great and critical choice. Admittedly, this is made under the fearful and immediate lash of John Barleycorn, the killer. Plainly enough, this first choice is far more a necessity than it is an act of virtue." Bill W., May 1960  1988 A.A. Grapevine, The Language of the Heart, pp. 301-302

Thought to Consider . . .

It was either A.A. or amen (so be it).   *~*AACRONYMS*~* A A  Attitude Adjustment           DAILY REFLECTION   LISTENING DEEPLY How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall think and just how we shall act TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 37   If I accept and act upon the advice of those who have made the program work for themselves, I have a chance to outgrow the limits of the past. Some problems will shrink to nothingness, while others may require patient, wellthought- out action. Listening deeply when others share can develop intuition in handling problems which arise unexpectedly. It is usually best for me to avoid impetuous action. Attending a meeting or calling a fellow A.A. member will usually reduce tension enough to bring relief to a desperate sufferer like me. Sharing problems at meetings with other alcoholics to whom I relate, or privately with my sponsor, can change aspects of the positions in which I find myself. Character defects are identified and I begin to see how they work against me. When I put my faith in the spiritual power of the program, when I trust others to teach me what I need to do to have a better life, I find that I can trust myself to do what is necessary.           POT LUCK        Praise and an attitude of gratitude are unbeatable stimulators … we increase whatever we extol. —Sylvia Stitt Edwards     What outlook are we carrying forth into the day ahead? Are we feeling fearful about the circumstances confronting us? Do we dread a planned meeting? Are we worried about the welfare of a friend or lover?     Whatever our present outlook, its power over the outcome of our day is profound. Our attitude in regard to any situation attracting our attention influences the outcome. Sometimes to our favor, often to our disfavor if our attitude is negative.     Thankfulness toward life guarantees the rewards we desire, the rewards we seek too often from an ungrateful stance. The feeling of gratitude is foreign to many of us. We came to this program feeling worthless, sometimes rejected, frequently depressed. It seemed life had heaped problems in our laps, and so it had. The more we lamented what life “gave us,” the more reasons we were given to lament. We got just what we expected. We still get just what we expect.     The difference is that the program has offered us the key to higher expectations. Gratitude for the good in our lives increases the good.    I have the personal power to influence my day; I will make it a good one.

 

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Saturday August 9, 2025    from Waynesville, NC       “My local meetings are big on this spot-check reminder: you get what you get; it’s what you do with it that counts.” ~ York Harbor, Maine, October 2001, Emotional Sobriety     Pay as little attention to discouragement as possible. Plough ahead as a steamer does, rough or smooth—rain or shine.To carry your cargo and make your port is the point. ~Maltbie D. Babcock     Sufficient it is to know that the way we lived our yesterday has determined for us our today. And, again, when the morning with its fresh beginning comes, all tomorrows should be tomorrows, with which we have nothing to do. Sufficient to know that the way we live our today determines our tomorrow. ~Ralph Waldo Trine     Brother- and sisterhood must have a religious basis if it is to have any real significance.  Without faith in the fatherhood of God. . . people have a hard time being brotherly or sisterly.  They drift off into hate societies, or more often, into the society of the indifferent. -Edwin T. Dahlberg

Please Use This Link If You'd Like To Sign Up ADD A Friend , A Sponsee, A Sponsor or a Newcomer To Your Daily Reprieve Email List  https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/EA6cC5s

BIG BOOK QUOTE       Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.   P64

DAILY SHARE   AA Speaker of the Day

ILIR T. Biarritz, France 10.10.20   https://bit.ly/4lJw5K3

Celebrate Your Anniversary Here SHOW NEWCOMERS HOW IT WORKS!! Send your sober date and location to : so...@yourdailyreprieve.com     I always thought that posting our locations with our anniversaries was a great way to show newcomers that AA is all over the world. So I wish you would send your locations with your anniversary dates. We don't celebrate for our own benefit. We celebrate anniversaries to show the program works. If we add our locations we get to show that AA works EVERYWHERE!     AUGUST2025 Miracles     8/1 Bill H. (Wells, ME/Melbourne Beach, FL)…..16 8/1 David G. (Salem, NH)…..34 8/1 Michael K. …..15 8/1 Janet F. (Myrtle Beach, SC)…..3 8/1 Jessica E. (Sugar Land, TX)..…8 8/2 Garry K. (Kelowna, BC)…..56 8/2 Judy J. …..1

8/3 Dan S. (Glen Rock, NJ)…..10

8/4 Dan M. (Nantucket, MA)…..23

8/4 Maureen Q. (Syracuse, NY)…..31

8/5 Andre de (Bracknell, UK)…..23 8/5 Mary OO (Marina del Rey, CA)…..45 8/6 Jason J. (Maggie Valley, NC)…..13 8/7 Carrie B. (Orange Park, FL)…..6 8/7 Sherri R. (Panama City, FL)…..1 8/7 Glad H. (Atlantic Beach, FL)…..29 8/7 John D. (Natick, MA).….17 8/8/08 Donna F. (Cocoa Beach, FL)…..17 8/8 Steve R. (Port Charlotte, FL)…..1 8/8 Chris G. (Stuart, FL/Stone Harbor, NJ)…..21 8/8 Lisa L. (Canton, NC)…..10 8/8 David T. (Newmarket, NH)…..43 8/8 Leslie N. (New Providence, NJ)…..37 8/9 Jay C. (Waco, TX)…..23 8/9 Vern M. (Basking Ridge, NJ)…..24 8/9 Laura R. (Beaverton, OR)…..37 8/10 Justin B. (Anderson, SC)…..7 8/10 Susan B. (Tinton Falls, NJ)…..23 8/11 Page H. (Amelia Island, FL)…..49 8/12 Billy M. (Haymarket, VA)…..25 8/13 Tommy OC. …..40 8/13 Kate P. (Hampton, NH)…..36 8/14 Tim D. (Newburyport, MA)…..32 8/14 Dottie Lu W. (St. Simons Island, GA)…..40

8/14 Wendy R. (WPB, FL)…..8

8/15 Tom W. (Charlotte, NC)…..1 8/15 Brian M. (Bernardsville, NJ)…..37 8/15 Malley H. (Kingston, NY)…..40 8/15 George Y. …..31 8/15 Kurtis E. (Stuart, FL)…..3 8/15 Ronnie B. (Graham, NC)…..3 8/15 Siobhan (NYC)…..26 8/16 Charlotte C. (New York City)…..16 8/16 Jody M. (Laguna Niguel, CA)…..19 8/16 Jeffrey B. (Vancouver, BC, CA)…..22 8/17 Charlie K. (Bay Village, OH/Naples, FL)…..27 8/17 John T. (Sarasota, FL)…..9 8/17 Susan D. (Parsippany, NJ)…..1 8/17 Jon B. (Parsonsburg, MD)…..37

8/18 Billy M. (Austin, TX)…..4

8/18 Paul D. (Hampton, NH)…..5 8/18 Steve C. (Jacksonville, FL)…..7

8/19 Dave C. (Murphy, NC)…..13

8/20 Bill W. (Sarasota, FL)…..33 8/21 Yolanda H. (Santa Cruz, CA)…..38 8/21 Kevin J.(Hampton NH …..16 8/22 Jackie Y. (Tustin, CA)…..31 8/22 John K. (Ruskin, FL)…..3 8/24 Marilyn R. (Sarasota, FL)…..30 8/24 Scott W. (Sarasota, FL)…..24 8/25 John P. (Mallorca, Spain)…..6

8/27 Stuart W. (Old Tappan, NJ)…..24 8/27 Greg R. (NYC)…..18

8/28 Delia S. (Savannah, GA)…..35 8/28 John P. (Mallorca, SP)…..6 8/28 Patrick O. (Salt Lake City, UT)…..1 8/28 John D. (Graham, NC)…..7 8/29 Mary O’C. (Maynard, MA)…..13 8/30 Chris B. (Sandwich, NH)…..33 8/30 Holly S. (Montreal, CA)…..28 8/30 Jeff G. (Morristown, NJ)…..12 8/31 Sarah M. …..17

1490 Total Years of Sobriety

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12&12   Step Seven - "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings."

For us, the process of gaining a new perspective was unbelievably painful. It was only by repeated humiliations that we were forced to learn something about humility. It was only at the end of a long road, marked by successive defeats and humiliations, and the final crushing of our self sufficiency, that we began to feel humility as something more than a condition of groveling despair. Every newcomer in Alcoholics Anonymous is told, and soon realizes for himself, that his humble admission of powerlessness over alcohol is his first step toward liberation from its paralyzing grip. pp. 72-73

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS     A.A. Thought For The Day

"We have an allergy to alcohol. The action of alcohol on chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy. We allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. We cannot be reconciled to a life without alcohol, unless we can experience an entire psychic change. Once this psychic change has occurred, we who seemed doomed, we who had so many problems that we despaired of ever solving them, find ourselves able to control our desire for alcohol." Have I had a psychic change?   Meditation For The Day   Ask God in daily prayer to give you the strength to change. When you ask God to change you, you must at the same time fully trust Him. If you do not fully trust Him, God may answer your prayer as a rescuer does that of a drowning person who is putting up too much of a struggle. The rescuer must first render the person still more helpless, until he or she is wholly at the rescuer's mercy. just so must we be wholly at God's mercy before we can be rescued.   Prayer For The Day   I pray that I may be daily willing to be changed. I pray that I may put myself wholly at the mercy of God.

DAILY THOUGHT    ^*^*^*^*^ (\  ~~  /) (  \(AA)/  ) (_ /AA\ _) / AA \ ^*^*^*^*^

Freedom "So far, upon the total problem of several million actual and potential alcoholics in the world, we have made only a scratch. In all probability, we shall never be able to touch more than a fair fraction of the alcohol problem in all its ramifications. Upon therapy for the alcoholic himself, we surely have no monopoly. Yet it is our great hope that all those who have as yet found no answer may begin to find one in the pages of this book and will presently join us on the highroad to a new freedom." Foreword to Second Edition Alcoholics Anonymous pp. xx-xxi

Thought to Consider . . .

"Within our wonderful new world, we have found freedom from our fatal obsession." Bill W. Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, p. 139    *~*AACRONYMS*~* S O B R I E T Y Stay Off Booze Recovery Is Everything To You          DAILY REFLECTION   ". . . OF ALL PERSONS WE HAD HARMED" . . . and became willing to make amends to them all. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 77     One of the key words in the Eighth Step is the word all. I am not free to select a few names for the list and to disregard others. It is a list of all persons I have harmed. I can see immediately that this Step entails forgiveness because if I'm not willing to forgive someone, there is little chance I will place his name on the list. Before I placed the first name on my list, I said a little prayer: "I forgive anyone and everyone who has ever harmed me at any time and under any circumstances." It is well for me to contemplate a small, but very significant, two-letter word every time the Lord's Prayer is said. The word is as. I ask, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." In this case, as means, "in the same manner." I am asking to be forgiven in the same manner that I forgive others. As I say this portion of the prayer, if I am harboring hatred or resentment, I am inviting more resentment, when I should be calling on the spirit of forgiveness.           POT LUCK        We know nothing about tomorrow; our business is to be good and happy today. ~Sydney Smith     Today's Meditation:   I have plans for tomorrow, and I think I know what I'll be doing. From what I know about life, though, those plans may change--something may happen that will make all my plans come undone. It used to be that I would worry about that, especially if my plans were really positive. I would spend quite a bit of time feeling tense and nervous in fear that my plans would be spoiled. And sometimes my plans actually didn't come through as planned, but I can never recall a time when that actually spelled disaster for me or for anyone else. Things always worked out.   Because of such experiences, I realize that there's no need to worry about tomorrow, today. At this moment, there's work to do, or there are people to talk to, or there's food to eat, or there's someone to keep company, or there's a walk to take, or there's an e-mail to write or something fun to do or somebody who needs help with something. Today calls me to do today's tasks, not to spend time being concerned with tomorrow.   "Good and happy." These are two words that complement each other very well, and if we can focus on accomplishing these two things on a day-to-day basis, then we can start to build a good and happy life. We can start to live our lives during this new day, striving to be both good and happy, and then tomorrow we can start all over again with a brand-new today.  We like to think we know something about tomorrow, simply because we've made some plans. But the truth is that tomorrow may hold its own plans for us, so let's not lose focus on this day in our lives, for this is the only day--of all the days in the history and future of the world--in which we can act. So let's do so, and let's let our actions be good, and let's cherish the happiness that comes of leading good lives on a beautiful planet that's filled with wonderful people.

[aah...@gmail.com]

 

Monday August 18, 2025    from Waynesville, NC         Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.  ~Allen Klein     One filled with joy preaches without preaching.    -Mother Teresa     Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter.  Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe     Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. ~Vaclav Havel

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BIG BOOK QUOTE       We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. "Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself ?   P47

DAILY SHARE   AA Speaker of the Day

CHRIS H. Leesburg, VA Serenity Improvement Group 04.29.25   https://bit.ly/4oldGVI

8/9 Louise M. (Palm Coast, FL)….16 8/9 Vern M. (Basking Ridge, NJ)…..25

8/9 Laura R. (Beaverton, OR)…..37 8/10 Justin B. (Anderson, SC)…..7 8/10 Susan B. (Tinton Falls, NJ)…..23

8/10 Rich M. (Rhinebeck, NY)…..11 8/11 Caroline O. (Selsey Bill, UK)…..16

8/11 Page H. (Amelia Island, FL)…..49 8/12 Billy M. (Haymarket, VA)…..25 8/13 Tommy OC. …..40 8/13 Kate P. (Hampton, NH)…..36 8/14 Tim D. (Newburyport, MA)…..32 8/14 Dottie Lu W. (St. Simons Island, GA)…..40 8/14 Wendy R. (WPB, FL)…..8 8/15 Tom W. (Charlotte, NC)…..1 8/15 Brian M. (Bernardsville, NJ)…..37

8/15 Dave O. (Everett, MA)…..6

8/15 Malley H. (Kingston, NY)…..40 8/15 George Y. …..31 8/15 Kurtis E. (Stuart, FL)…..3 8/15 Ronnie B. (Graham, NC)…..3 8/15 Siobhan (NYC)…..26

8/15 Ann W. (Darien, CT)…..40

8/16 Charlotte C. (New York City)…..16 8/16 Jody M. (Laguna Niguel, CA)…..19 8/16 Jeffrey B. (Vancouver, BC, CA)…..22 8/17 Charlie K. (Bay Village, OH/Naples, FL)…..27 8/17 John T. (Sarasota, FL)…..9 8/17 Susan D. (Parsippany, NJ)…..1 8/17 Jon B. (Parsonsburg, MD)…..37 8/18 Billy M. (Austin, TX)…..4 8/18 Paul D. (Hampton, NH)…..5 8/18 Steve C. (Jacksonville, FL)…..7 8/19 Dave C. (Murphy, NC)…..13 8/20 Bill W. (Sarasota, FL)…..33 8/21 Yolanda H. (Santa Cruz, CA)…..38 8/21 Kevin J.(Hampton NH …..16 8/22 Jackie Y. (Tustin, CA)…..31 8/22 John K. (Ruskin, FL)…..3 8/24 Marilyn R. (Sarasota, FL)…..30 8/24 Scott W. (Sarasota, FL)…..24

8/24 Claire S. (Garnerville, NY)…..38

8/25 John P. (Mallorca, Spain)…..6

8/26 Mike C. (Hilliard, OH)…..27

8/27 Stuart W. (Old Tappan, NJ)…..24 8/27 Greg R. (NYC)…..18

8/27 Kim S. (Port Charlotte, FL)…..30

8/28 Delia S. (Savannah, GA)…..35 8/28 John P. (Mallorca, SP)…..6 8/28 Patrick O. (Salt Lake City, UT)…..1 8/28 John D. (Graham, NC)…..7 8/29 Mary O’C. (Maynard, MA)…..13 8/30 Chris B. (Sandwich, NH)…..33 8/30 Holly S. (Montreal, CA)…..28 8/30 Jeff G. (Morristown, NJ)…..12 8/31 Sarah M. …..17

1675 Total Years of Sobriety

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12&12   Step Seven - "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings."

As we approach the actual taking of Step Seven, it might be well if we A.A.'s inquire once more just what our deeper objectives are. Each of us would like to live at peace with himself and with his fellows. We would like to be assured that the grace of God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We have seen that character defects based upon shortsighted or unworthy desires are the obstacles that block our path toward these objectives. We now clearly see that we have been making unreasonable demands upon ourselves, upon others, and upon God. p. 76

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS     A.A. Thought For The Day

"We of agnostic temperament have found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which we call God. As soon as you can say that you do believe or are willing to believe, you are on your way. Upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built." Am I willing to depend on a Power that I cannot fully define or comprehend?   Meditation For The Day   We seek God's presence and "they who seek shall find." It is not a question of searching so much as an inner consciousness of the Divine spirit in your heart. To realize God's presence you must surrender to His will in the small as well as in the big things of life. This makes God's guidance possible. Some things separate you from God--a false word, a fear-inspired failure, a harsh criticism, a stubborn resentment. These are the things that put a distance between your mind and God. A word of love, a selfless reconciliation, a kind act of helpfulness--these bring God closer.   Prayer For The Day  I pray that I may think and say and do the things that bring God closer to me. I pray that I may find Him in sincere prayer, a kind word, or an unselfish deed.

DAILY THOUGHT   ^*^*^*^*^ (\  ~~  /) (  \(AA)/  ) (_ /AA\ _) / AA \ ^*^*^*^*^

Growing Up  "How many of us would presume to declare, 'Well, I'm sober and I'm happy. What more can I want, or do? I'm fine the way I am.' We know that the price of such self-satisfaction is an inevitable backslide, punctuated at some point by a very rude awakening. We have to grow or else deteriorate. For us, the status quo can only be for today, never for tomorrow. Change we must; we cannot stand still." Bill W., Box 1980: The AA Grapevine, June 1961 As Bill Sees It, p. 25

Thought to Consider . . .

The program has helped me grow up enough to be a kid again.     *~*AACRONYMS*~* W I S D O M  When Into Self, Discover Our Motives         DAILY REFLECTION     GETTING WELL Very deep, sometimes quite forgotten, damaging emotional conflicts persist below the level of consciousness. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, pp. 79-80   Only through positive action can I remove the remains of guilt and shame brought on by alcohol. Throughout my misadventures when I drank, my friends would say, "Why are you doing this? You're only hurting yourself." Little did I know how true were those words. Although I harmed others, some of my behavior caused grave wounds to my soul. Step Eight provides me with a way of forgiving myself. I alleviate much of the hidden damage when I make my list of those I have hurt. In making amends, I free myself of burdens, thus contributing to my healing.         POT LUCK        "I wanted to be famous, but God made me anonymous."     I had some pretty big plans when I entered the program. Even though my sponsor told me it wasn’t about money, property, and prestige, I knew better. I was convinced that, by being sober, I would finally write the books and create the products that would get me the recognition and riches I deserved. I even told my sponsor how good of a circuit speaker I would be and asked what I needed to do that. He smiled and suggested that a year of sobriety might be a good start.       As I began working the program, I made some startling revelations. In doing inventories, I found that there was a time when I had a lot of money, property, and prestige, but I was still miserable. As I did more work, I discovered that the hole I felt inside could never be filled with anything outside me, and the more I chased that, the emptier I felt. It was only when I surrendered the character defect of feeling terminally unique that I began to feel better.      One of the truest things I’ve learned in the program is that I will always feel less than when I compare my insides with someone else’s outsides. It has taken years, but I now understand why character building and my spiritual connection must come before any outside success if I’m to be happy. And I now appreciate the powerful role anonymity has played in helping me develop these essential qualities. Today, I understand the folly of wanting to be famous, and the wisdom of God’s anonymity.

 

[aah...@gmail.com]

 

Friday August 22, 2025    from Waynesville, NC       The principles you live by create the world you live in; if you change the principles you live by, you will change your world.    -Blaine Lee     Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages.  Just because the rains descend, and the winds blow, we cannot afford to build on shifting sands.    -Henry Ward Beecher     A great marriage is not when the "perfect couple" comes together.  It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.     -Dave Meurer     A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.     -Pearl S. Buck

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BIG BOOK QUOTE     But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were short-lived.   P66

DAILY SHARE   AA Speaker of the Day

DAYNA D Los Angeles, CA Serenity Improvement Group 04.26.25   https://bit.ly/4mtdrpM

Celebrate Your Anniversary Here SHOW NEWCOMERS HOW IT WORKS!! Send your sober date and location to : so...@yourdailyreprieve.com     I always thought that posting our locations with our anniversaries was a great way to show newcomers that AA is all over the world. So I wish you would send your locations with your anniversary dates. We don't celebrate for our own benefit. We celebrate anniversaries to show the program works. If we add our locations we get to show that AA works EVERYWHERE!     AUGUST2025 Miracles     8/1 Bill H. (Wells, ME/Melbourne Beach, FL)…..16 8/1 David G. (Salem, NH)…..34 8/1 Michael K. …..15 8/1 Janet F. (Myrtle Beach, SC)…..3 8/1 Jessica E. (Sugar Land, TX)..…8 8/2 Garry K. (Kelowna, BC)…..56 8/2 Judy J. …..1 8/3 Dan S. (Glen Rock, NJ)…..10

8/3 Kurt O. (Sarasota, FL)…..3

8/20 Kurt M. (Jacksonville, FL)…..18 8/20 Larry B. (Kansas City, Kansas)…..24

8/21 Yolanda H. (Santa Cruz, CA)…..38 8/21 Kevin J.(Hampton NH …..16 8/22 Jackie Y. (Tustin, CA)…..31 8/22 John K. (Ruskin, FL)…..3 8/24 Marilyn R. (Sarasota, FL)…..30 8/24 Scott W. (Sarasota, FL)…..24 8/24 Claire S. (Garnerville, NY)…..38 8/25 John P. (Mallorca, Spain)…..6 8/26 Mike C. (Hilliard, OH)…..27 8/27 Stuart W. (Old Tappan, NJ)…..24 8/27 Greg R. (NYC)…..18 8/27 Kim S. (Port Charlotte, FL)…..30

8/28 Chuck M. (Boston, MA)…..40

8/28 Delia S. (Savannah, GA)…..35 8/28 John P. (Mallorca, SP)…..6 8/28 Patrick O. (Salt Lake City, UT)…..1 8/28 John D. (Graham, NC)…..7

8/28 Rick K. (Westport, CT)…..9

8/29 Mary O’C. (Maynard, MA)…..13 8/30 Chris B. (Sandwich, NH)…..33 8/30 Holly S. (Montreal, CA)…..28 8/30 Jeff G. (Morristown, NJ)…..12 8/31 Sarah M. …..17

1767 Total Years of Sobriety

Drop a Buck in the Basket? PayPal paypal.me/TomMurphy Venmo @Tom-Murphy-160     The cost to mail Your Daily Reprieve just went up to $195 a month!!       Thank you everyone for your generous contributions.

12&12   Step Eight - "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all." This is a very large order. It is a task which we may perform with increasing skill, but never really finish. Learning how to live in the greatest peace, partnership, and brotherhood with all men and women, of whatever description, is a moving and fascinating adventure. Every A.A. has found that he can make little headway in this new adventure of living until he first backtracks and really makes an accurate and unsparing survey of the human wreckage he has left in his wake. To a degree, he has already done this when taking moral inventory, but now the time has come when he ought to redouble his efforts to see how many people he has hurt, and in what ways. This reopening of emotional wounds, some old, some perhaps forgotten, and some still painfully festering, will at first look like a purposeless and pointless piece of surgery. But if a willing start is made, then the great advantages of doing this will so quickly reveal themselves that the pain will be lessened as one obstacle after another melts away. pp. 77-78

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS     A.A. Thought For The Day

"Those who do not recover are people who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover, if they have the capacity to be honest." Am I completely honest with myself and with other people?   Meditation For The Day   You can make use of your mistakes, failures, losses, and sufferings. It is not what happens to you so much as what use you make of it. Take your sufferings, difficulties, and hardships and make use of them to help some unfortunate soul who is faced with the same troubles. Then something good will come out of your suffering and the world will be a better place because of it. The good you do each day will live on, after the trouble and distress have gone, after the difficulty and the pain have passed away.   Prayer For The Day I pray that I may make good use of  my mistakes and failures. I pray that some good may result from my painful experiences.

DAILY THOUGHT ^*^*^*^*^ (\   ~~   /) (  \(AA)/    ) (_ /AA\ _) /AA\ ^*^*^*^*^

Anger "Then the miracle happened - to me! It isn't always so sudden with everyone, but I ran into a personal crisis which filled me with a raging and righteous anger. And as I fumed helplessly and planned to get good and drunk and show them, my eye caught a sentence to the book lying open on my bed. 'We cannot live with anger.' The walls crumpled - and the light streamed in. I wasn't trapped. I wasn't helpless. I was free, and I didn't have to drink to 'show them.' This wasn't 'religion' - this was freedom! Freedom from anger and fear, freedom to know happiness and love." 1976 AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 228

Thought to Consider . . .

Anger is the hot wind that extinguishes the light of reason.   *~*AACRONYMS*~* N U T S Not Using The Steps?           DAILY REFLECTION    SEEKING EMOTIONAL STABILITY When we developed still more, we discovered the best possible source of emotional stability to be God Himself. We found that dependence upon His perfect justice, forgiveness, and love was healthy, and that it would work where nothing else would. If we really depended upon God, we couldn't very well play God to our fellows nor would we feel the urge wholly to rely on human protection and care. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 116     All my life I depended on people for my emotional needs and security, but today I cannot live that way anymore. By the grace of God, I have admitted my powerlessness over people, places and things. I had been a real "people addict"; wherever I went there had to be someone who would pay some kind of attention to me. It was the kind of attitude that could only get worse, because the more I depended on others and demanded attention, the less I received. I have given up believing that any human power can relieve me of that empty feeling. Although I remain a fragile human being who needs to work A.A.'s Steps to keep this particular principle before my personality, it is only a loving God who can give me inner peace and emotional stability.           POT LUCK      "Faith is spelled a-c-t-i-o-n."     I did a lot of thinking when I was drinking. I’d think about how bad my life was and how things weren’t going to get any better. As I kept drinking, I thought about all the things I could do, and after a few more drinks, I thought about how good I’d feel if I did them. After a while, I stopped thinking, couldn’t remember where I was, and I entered oblivion. Finally, I had some peace from thinking—until I came to. Then it all started again.     When I got sober, I started to wear my sponsor out with all the things I was thinking. They say early recovery is a roller-coaster ride: first up with newfound hope and possibility, then down with regret and remorse. I took along for the ride anyone who would listen to me. After a while, my sponsor directed me into the Big Book and showed me there was a chapter called “Into Action,” not “Into Thinking.”    What I discovered about my thinking was that the majority of it was based on fear. My sponsor showed me that the way out of fear was through faith in a Higher Power, and the way to cultivate that was by taking action. “Fake it until you make it,” I heard over and over again. “Do the things you would do if you had faith, and suddenly you will find that you do,” was another. So I got into action, and my life changed. Even today, I remember to feel the fear, but to take the action anyway. And every time I do, things get better, opportunities open up, and my Higher Power shows me the way.

[aah...@gmail.com]

 

 

Monday August 24, 2025    from Waynesville, NC         "The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out." —Dee Hock     “Let us of AA ... resolve that we shall always be inclusive and never exclusive, offering all we have to all, save our title. May all barriers be thus leveled.” AA Co-Founder, Bill W., February 1948     Praise is like sunlight to the warm human spirit;  we cannot flower and grow without it.  And yet, while most of us are only too ready to apply to others the cold wind of criticism, we are somehow reluctant to give our fellow the warm sunshine of praise.     -Jess Lair    Smile from inside the center of your soul to its circumference. author unknown

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BIG BOOK QUOTE     The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism.   P17

DAILY SHARE   AA Speaker of the Day

DREW K.

Los Angeles, CA Serenity Improvement Group 04.26.25

https://bit.ly/3J89Xe1

8/21 Kevin J. (Hampton NH …..16

When listing the people we have harmed, most of us hit another solid obstacle. We got a pretty severe shock when we realized that we were preparing to make a face-to-face admission of our wretched conduct to those we had hurt. It had been embarrassing enough when in confidence we had admitted these things to God, to ourselves, and to another human being. But the prospect of actually visiting or even writing the people concerned now overwhelmed us, especially when we remembered in what poor favor we stood with most of them. There were cases, too, where we had damaged others who were still happily unaware of being hurt. Why, we cried, shouldn't bygones be bygones? Why do we have to think of these people at all? These were some of the ways in which fear conspired with pride to hinder our making a list of all the people we had harmed. pp. 78-79

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS   A.A. Thought For The Day

"Unless we discuss our defects with another person, we do not acquire enough humility, fearlessness, and honesty to really get the program. We must be entirely honest with somebody, if we expect to live happily in this world. We must be hard on ourselves, but always considerate of others. We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character and every dark cranny of the past. Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we can look the world in the eyes." Have I discussed all my defects with another person?   Meditation For The Day   Never yield to weariness of the spirit. At times, the world's cares and distractions will intrude and the spirit will become weak. At times like this, carry on and soon the spirit will become strong again. God's spirit is always with you, to replenish and renew. None ever sincerely sought God's help in vain. Physical weariness and exhaustion make a time of rest and communion with God more necessary. When you are overcome by temporary conditions that you cannot control, keep quiet and wait for the power of the spirit to flow back.   Prayer For The Day  I pray that I may not speak or act in the midst of emotional upheaval. I pray that I may wait until the tempest is past.

DAILY THOUGHT ^*^*^*^*^ (\  ~~  /) (  \(AA)/  ) (_ /AA\ _) / AA \ ^*^*^*^*^

Change

"How many of us would presume to declare, 'Well, I'm sober and I'm happy. What more can I want, or do? I'm fine the way I am.' We know that the price of such self-satisfaction is an inevitable backslide, punctuated at some point by a very rude awakening. We have to grow or else deteriorate. For us, the status quo can only be for today, never for tomorrow. Change we must; we cannot stand still."

Bill W., Grapevine, February 1961 1967 AAWS, As Bill Sees It, p. 25

Thought to Consider . . .

There are only two things an alcoholic doesn't like - the way things are, and change.   *~*AACRONYMS*~* C H A N G E Choosing Honesty Allows New Growth Every day            DAILY REFLECTION     THE GIFT OF BONDING Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 63   Many times in my alcoholic state, I drank to establish a bond between myself and others, but I succeeded only in establishing the bondage of alcoholic loneliness. Through the A.A. way of life, I have received the gift of bonding— with those who were there before me, with those who are there now, and with those yet to come. For this gracious gift from God, I am forever grateful.         POT LUCK        GOD-PLAYING     "I determine who is a Jew." --Herman Goring     Playing God. How well I remember this attitude in my drinking days when, because I had said it, it must be so! Arrogance and pride kept me lonely and isolated.     Today my spiritual program teaches me to "play" God in a different way. It requires that I seek to discover the values I associate with Godand live them out in my own life. Because I believe that God is loving and accepting, I seek to reveal these qualities in my daily associations. It makes no sense to worship a God of truth if I continue the life of "the liar". Belief must determine change.     As a recovering alcoholic I seek to "play" God in the joy, acceptance and love I show to myself and other people. However, I know (oh how I know!) that I am not God!     Let my statements always be open to the "pure light" of change.

[aah...@gmail.com]

 

Tuesday August 26, 2025    from Waynesville, NC         "You never find yourself until you face the truth." --Pearl Bailey   "There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with." ~Harry Crews     "Balance is not something you find, it's something you create" ~Jana Kingsford     “With each passing year we increasingly realize the immense importance of adequately presenting the program to every new prospect who is in the least inclined to listen. Many of us feel this to be our greatest obligation to him and our failure to do so our greatest dereliction. The difference between a good approach and a bad one can mean life or death to those who seek our help.” ~ Bill W., May 1947

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BIG BOOK QUOTE     As soon as we admitted the possible existence of a Creative Intelligence, a Spirit of the Universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction, provided we took other simple steps.   P46

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HONEY L. Southampton, NY Serenity Improvement Group 06.28.25   https://bit.ly/3JjsAvx

Some of us, though, tripped over a very different snag. We clung to the claim that when drinking we never hurt anybody but ourselves. Our families didn't suffer, because we always paid the bills and seldom drank at home. Our business associates didn't suffer, because we were usually on the job. Our reputations hadn't suffered, because we were certain few knew of our drinking. Those who did would sometimes assure us that, after all, a lively bender was only a good man's fault. What real harm, therefore, had we done? No more, surely, than we could easily mend with a few casual apologies. p. 79

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS   A.A. Thought For The Day

"If we are still clinging to something that we will not let go, we must sincerely ask God to help us to be willing to let even that go, too. We cannot divide our lives into compartments and keep some for ourselves. We must give all the compartments to God. We must say: ‘My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my friends.'" Am I still clinging to something that I will not let go?   Meditation For The Day   The laws of nature cannot be changed and must be obeyed if you are to stay healthy. No exceptions will be made in your case. Submit to the laws of nature or they will finally break you. And in the realm of the spirit, in all human relationships, submit to the moral laws and to the will of God. If you continue to break the laws of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love, you will be broken to some extent yourself. The moral and spiritual laws of God, like the laws of nature, are unbreakable without some disaster. If you are dishonest, impure, selfish, and unloving, you will not be living according to the laws of the spirit and you will suffer the consequences.   Prayer For The Day  I pray that I may submit to the laws of nature and to the laws of God. I pray that I may live in harmony with all the laws of life.

DAILY THOUGHT    ^*^*^*^*^ (\   ~~   /) (  \(AA)/    ) (_ /AA\ _) /AA\ ^*^*^*^*^

Traditions "The Twelve Traditions point straight at many of our individual defects. By implication they ask each of us to lay aside pride and resentments. They ask for personal as well as group sacrifice. They ask us never to use the A.A. name in any quest for personal power or distinction or money. The Traditions guarantee the equality of all members and the independence of all groups. They show how we may best relate ourselves to each other and to the world outside." Bill W., 1967 AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, p. 96

Thought to Consider . . .

If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.    *~*AACRONYMS*~* P U S H Pray Until Something Happens           DAILY REFLECTION   GIVING IT AWAY Though they knew they must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that motive became secondary. It was transcended by the happiness they found in giving themselves to others. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 159   Those words, for me, refer to a transference of power, through which God, as I understand Him, enters my life. Through prayer and meditation, I open channels, then I establish and improve my conscious contact with God. Through action I then receive the power I need to maintain my sobriety each day. By maintaining my spiritual condition, by giving away what has been so freely given to me, I am granted a daily reprieve.           POT LUCK      "I usually want justice only for myself."     When I was new in the program, I was filled with self-pity and resentful at how unfair life was. I pointed fingers at all the people, places, and things that had done me wrong and asked where the justice was. “Why aren’t people making amends to me?” I asked. “What about all the hard times I have endured through the years?” I bemoaned to anyone who would listen. “There is no justice in the world,” I said. “If life were fair, then things would be better.” I truly believed this.     One day an old-timer confronted me and asked me if I really wanted the world to be fair. I indignantly said, “Yes!” He looked at me and told me he was thankful life wasn’t fair, because if it was, then he would be in prison for some of the things he had done. He looked me straight in the eye and asked me where I would be if life were truly fair. That shut me up.     What I’ve come to realize now is that none of us are saints. We’ve all acted the best we could, given our awareness and where we stood at the time. And I’ve learned that there is something more important than justice, and that is forgiveness. It’s much easier to be self-righteous than it is to practice love and tolerance, but that is the path to freedom and serenity. I now recognize the selfishness in wanting justice for myself, and instead I pray for the knowledge of God’s will and the power to carry that out. And what I get is much more than justice. I get serenity.

[aah...@gmail.com]

 

 

Monday September 1, 2025    from Waynesville, NC       You must remember that our God has all knowledge and all wisdom, and that therefore it is very possible he may guide you into paths wherein he knows great blessings are awaiting you, but which, to the shortsighted human eyes around you,  seem sure to result in confusion and loss.      -Hannah Whitall Smith     Everything that exceeds the bounds of moderation  has an unstable foundation.     ~Seneca     Moderate desires constitute a character fitted to acquire all the good which the world can yield.     -Timothy Dwight     For true worship, only God and the human soul are necessary. It does not depend upon times, or seasons, or occasions. Anywhere and at any time God and person in the bush may meet. ~Ralph Waldo Trine

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BIG BOOK QUOTE     Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help.   P62

DAILY SHARE   AA Speaker of the Day

KATHLEEN E. Ashburn, VA Serenity Improvement Group 06.03.25   https://bit.ly/4lwWEBv             SEPTEMBERCelebrate Your Anniversary Here

SHOW NEWCOMERS HOW IT WORKS!! Send your sober date and location to : so...@yourdailyreprieve.com     I always thought that posting our locations with our anniversaries was a great way to show newcomers that AA is all over the world. So I wish you would send your locations with your anniversary dates. We don't celebrate for our own benefit. We celebrate anniversaries to show the program works. If we add our locations we get to show that AA works EVERYWHERE!

SEPTEMBER2025 Miracles      9/1 Billy K. (Vero Beach, FL)…..25 9/2 George B. (Cocoa Beach, FL)…..11 9/2 Leslie Z. (Valley Village, CA)…..44 9/3 Edward H. (Andover, MA)…..42 9/4 Bob B. (North Fort Myers, FL)…..52 9/5 Janet F. (Nantucket, MA)…..32 9/5 James O’K.(Portland, ME) …..12 9/5 Susan L. (Basking Ridge, NJ)…..31 9/6 Rosie M. (Madison, NJ)…..2 9/8 Billy O. (Tequesta, FL)…..45 9/9 Tony S. (Jacksonville, FL)…..3 9/9 Jeanne W. (Jacksonville, FL)…..5 9/19 John A. (Gainesville, GA)…..14 9/19 Wendy H. (California)…..41 9/10 Sue B. (Haiku, HI/Melbourne Beach, FL)…..14 9/11 Amelia G. (Sydney, Australia)…..1 9/11 Deck H. (Westport, CT)…..39 9/15 Fiona H. (Hampshire, UK)…..6 9/15 Sue B. (Montpelier, VT/Gulfport, FL)…..12 9/16 Trish W. (Portsmouth, UK)…..5 9/18 George P. (London, England)…..49 9/20 Patricia W. (Portsmouth GB, UK)…..5 9/20 Paul T. (Hobe Sound, FL)…..14 9/24 Katie S. …..25 9/24 Julia O. (Westhampton Beach, NY)…..7 9/27 Karen R. (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)…..3   0491 Total Years of Sobriety

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12&12    Step Eight - "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all."

Having carefully surveyed this whole area of human relations, and having decided exactly what personality traits in us injured and disturbed others, we can now commence to ransack memory for the people to whom we have given offense. To put a finger on the nearby and most deeply damaged ones shouldn't be hard to do. Then, as year by year we walk back through our lives as far as memory will reach, we shall be bound to construct a long list of people who have, to some extent or other, been affected. We should, of course, ponder and weigh each instance carefully. We shall want to hold ourselves to the course of admitting the things we have done, meanwhile forgiving the wrongs done us, real or fancied. We should avoid extreme judgments, both of ourselves and of others involved. We must not exaggerate our defects or theirs. A quiet, objective view will be our steadfast aim. pp. 81- 82

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS     A.A. Thought For The Day

Be careful not to brand new prospects as alcoholics. Let them draw their own conclusion. But talk to them about the hopelessness of alcoholism. Tell them exactly what happened to you and how you recovered. Stress the spiritual feature freely. If they are agnostics or atheists, make it emphatic that they do not have to agree with your concept of God. They can choose any concept they like, provided it makes sense to them. The main thing is that they be willing to believe in a power greater than themselves and that they live by spiritual principles." Do I hold back too much in speaking of the spiritual principles of the program?   Meditation For The Day   "I will never leave or forsake thee." Down through the centuries, thousands have believed in God's constancy, untiringness, and unfailing love. God has love. Then forever you are sure of His love. God has power. Then forever you are sure, in every difficulty and temptation, of His strength. God has patience. Then always there is One who can never tire. God has understanding. Then always you will understand and be understood. Unless you want Him to go, God will never leave you. He is always ready with power.   Prayer For The Day  I pray that I may feel that God's love will never fail. I pray that I may have confidence in His unfailing power.

DAILY THOUGHT ^*^*^*^*^ (\   ~~  /) (    \(AA)/  ) (_ /AA\ _) /AA\ ^*^*^*^*^

Egomania "Our egomania digs two disastrous pitfalls. Either we insist on dominating the people we know, or we depend upon them far too much. If we lean too heavily on people, they will sooner or later fail us, for they are human, too, and cannot possibly meet our own incessant demands . . . We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society." 1952 AAWS Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 53

Thought to Consider . . .

It is the highest form of self-respect to admit mistakes and to make amends for them.    *~*AACRONYMS*~* E G O Easing God Out           DAILY REFLECTION     WILLINGNESS TO GROW If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go on. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 8   Sobriety fills the painful "hole in the soul" that my alcoholism created. Often I feel so physically well that I believe my work is done. However, joy is not just the absence of pain; it is the gift of continued spiritual awakening. Joy comes from ongoing and active study, as well as application of the principles of recovery in my everyday life, and from sharing that experience with others. My Higher Power presents many opportunities for deeper spiritual awakening. I need only to bring into my recovery the willingness to grow. Today I am ready to grow.         POT LUCK      "Pain is necessary; misery is optional."     For years, I used alcohol to try to avoid the pain in my life. Whether it was emotional pain caused by relationships, financial pain caused by poor job choices, physical pain, or spiritual or even mental anguish, drinking was my way out. The problem was when I came to the next day, my problems were still there, and now I also had misery as well. Not only did I fret and worry about my problems all over again, but I had new ones because of the actions I had taken while loaded.     When I came into the program, I thought the Steps might somehow teach me how to avoid pain in my life. I magically thought that because I was now being good and trying to get spiritual, that somehow my life would be free of pain. Delusional, I know, but we alcoholics are a grandiose lot. Besides dealing with all the pain I had and had caused, I also found that life was still in session. And a part of life includes pain. Somehow this revelation shocked me a bit.     What I also learned, however, is that there is a huge difference between pain and misery. While pain is inevitable, misery—caused by how much I dwell on the pain, what I choose to do about it, how I decide to handle it—is optional. The program and the Steps have given me many ways to release the misery I used to hold on to, and it gave me so much more. It taught me the true purpose of pain: that pain is the touchstone of growth, and that after pain there is recovery. Today, I recognize pain as an opportunity to grow, and that creating misery is optional.

[aah...@gmail.com]

 

Friday September 5, 2025    Hyde & Seek Men’s Retreat Lake Junaluska, NC       We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by. --Will Rogers     “God has continued to send me many miracles since the first one occurred the day he gave me the courage and willingness to go to my first AA meeting.” ~ Oak Park, Illinois, September 1984     If you desire many things, many things will seem but a few. ~Benjamin Franklin     The art of life is a constant readjustment to our surroundings  ~Kakuzo Okakura

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BIG BOOK QUOTE     These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body.   P23

DAILY SHARE   AA Speaker of the Day

LAURA S. Houston, TX Serenity Improvement Group 05.24.25   https://tinyurl.com/4pthb9cc

SEPTEMBERCelebrate Your Anniversary Here SHOW NEWCOMERS HOW IT WORKS!! Send your sober date and location to : so...@yourdailyreprieve.com     I always thought that posting our locations with our anniversaries was a great way to show newcomers that AA is all over the world. So I wish you would send your locations with your anniversary dates. We don't celebrate for our own benefit. We celebrate anniversaries to show the program works. If we add our locations we get to show that AA works EVERYWHERE!     SEPTEMBER2025 Miracles      9/1 Billy K. (Vero Beach, FL)…..25 9/2 George B. (Cocoa Beach, FL)…..11 9/2 Leslie Z. (Valley Village, CA)…..44 9/3 Edward H. (Andover, MA)…..42 9/4 Bob B. (North Fort Myers, FL)…..52

9/4 Cathy LH (Los Angeles, CA)…..41

9/5 Janet F. (Nantucket, MA)…..32 9/5 James O’K.(Portland, ME) …..12 9/5 Susan L. (Basking Ridge, NJ)…..31

9/5 Chris L. (Bristol, RI)…..37 9/6 Jim H. (Fernandina Bech, FL)…..6 9/6 Sean N. (Solihull, UK)…..5 9/6 Karen M. (NY)…..33

9/6 Rosie M. (Madison, NJ)…..2

9/6 Neil B. (Floral Park)…..32 9/8 Carol Ann B. (Bedminster, NJ)…..29

9/8 Billy O. (Tequesta, FL)…..45 9/9 Tony S. (Jacksonville, FL)…..3 9/9 Jeanne W. (Jacksonville, FL)…..5

9/10 Kitty G. (Sarasota, FL)…..10

9/10 Sue B. (Haiku, HI/Melbourne Beach, FL)…..14

9/10 Steve S. (Vero Beach, FL)…..24

9/11 Amelia G. (Sydney, Australia)…..1 9/11 Deck H. (Westport, CT)…..39

9/13 Jim L. (Ludlow, VT)…..13 9/13 Lisa N. (Bergen County, NJ)…..14 9/13 Mark M. (Long Island, NY)…..8 9/14 Mitchell W. …..5

9/15 Fiona H. (Hampshire, UK)…..6

9/15 Hillary M. (New Canaan, CT) …..8

9/15 Sue B. (Montpelier, VT/Gulfport, FL)…..12 9/16 Trish W. (Portsmouth, UK)…..5 9/18 George P. (London, England)…..49

9/18 Jim H. (Houston, TX)…..15

9/19 Wendy H. (California)…..41 9/19 John A. (Gainesville, GA)…..14

9/20 Patricia W. (Portsmouth GB, UK)…..5 9/20 Dawn D. (New York, NY)…..16

9/20 Paul T. (Hobe Sound, FL)…..14

9/20 Ted Z. (Gibsonville, NC)…..37 9/23 Bill G.(Woodstock, VT)…..40 9/23 David A. (NYC)…..24 9/24 Katie S. (East Hampton, NY…..25

9/24 Julia O. (Westhampton Beach, NY)…..7

9/25 Barry A. (Ruskin, FL)…..26

9/27 Karen R. (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)…..3

9/28 Stephanie M. (Fern Park, FL)…..1   0915 Total Years of Sobriety

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12&12   Step Nine - "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." Much the same approach will apply at the office or factory. We shall at once think of a few people who know all about our drinking, and who have been most affected by it. But even in these cases, we may need to use a little more discretion than we did with the family. We may not want to say anything for several weeks, or longer. First we will wish to be reasonably certain that we are on the A.A. beam. Then we are ready to go to these people, to tell them what A.A. is, and what we are trying to do. Against this background we can freely admit the damage we have done and make our apologies. We can pay, or promise to pay, whatever obligations, financial or otherwise, we owe. The generous response of most people to such quiet sincerity will often astonish us. Even our severest and most justified critics will frequently meet us more than halfway on the first trial. p. 84

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS     A.A. Thought For The Day

One of the mottoes of A.A. is "First Things First." This means that we should always keep in mind that alcohol is our number-one problem. We must never let any other problem, whether of family, business, friends, or anything else, take precedence in our minds over our alcoholic problem. As we go along in A.A., we learn to recognize the things that may upset us emotionally. When we find ourselves getting upset over something, we must realize that it's a luxury we alcoholics can't afford. Anything that makes us forget our number-one problem is dangerous to us. Am I keeping sobriety in first place in my mind?   Meditation For The Day   Spiritual progress is the law of your being. Try to see around you more and more of beauty and truth, knowledge and power. Today try to be stronger, braver, more loving as a result of what you did yesterday. This law of spiritual progress gives meaning and purpose to your life. Always expect better things ahead. You can accomplish much good through the strength of God's spirit in you. Never be too discouraged. The world is sure to get better, in spite of setbacks of war, hate, and greed. Be part of the cure of the world's ills, rather than part of the disease.   Prayer For The Day  I pray that I may keep progressing in the better life. I pray that I may be a part of the forces for good in the world.

DAILY THOUGHT   ^*^*^*^*^ (\   ~~  /) (    \(AA)/   ) (_ /AA\ _) /AA\ ^*^*^*^*^

Friendship "Carry this message to other alcoholics! You can help when no one else can. You can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember they are very ill. Life will take on new meaning. To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up around you, to have a host of friends - this is an experience you must not miss. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives." 1976 AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 89

Thought to Consider . . .

I keep my sobriety by giving it away.   *~*AACRONYMS*~*   C A R E Comforting And Reassuring Each other         DAILY REFLECTION   EMOTIONAL BALANCE Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, . . . TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 83   When I survey my drinking days, I recall many people whom my life touched casually, but whose days I troubled through my anger and sarcasm. These people are untraceable, and direct amends to them are not possible. The only amends I can make to those untraceable individuals, the only "changes for the better" I can offer, are indirect amends made to other people, whose paths briefly cross mine. Courtesy and kindness, regularly practiced, help me to live in emotional balance, at peace with myself.           POT LUCK        The Invisible Boat AA (Clancy I.)   Staying sober was all that I wanted when I came to AA. At the time, I thought that removing the alcohol from my life, as well as the other sources of amusement, would allow me to be the great guy I pretended I was and let me look down on those whose only function seemed to be to criticize and make my life hell. Without alcohol I was convinced my “enemies” would have nothing to complain about and their superficiality would be as obvious as my suffering and sacrifice. My ultimate vindication would follow forthwith.   I heard a lot about “surrender” when I came around, but until I became willing to believe a power greater than me could remove the insane ideas expressed in the opening paragraph, surrender, whether to alcohol or life itself, was inconceivable. The paradox is that until I took actions I DID NOT think would work, I had no chance of believing in anything. Only then did I begin to realize that what I thought did not have to be consistent with what I believed.   I bring all this up because lately I’ve been listening to Clancy I’s story of “The Invisible Boat”, one of the most effective allegories I’ve encountered in recovery. I’ve heard about this lesson more than I’ve actually heard it, but it’s included as part of a weekend retreat Clancy led in Toronto in the early 90’s, (a presentation he has described as his favorite recording of the zillions of his tapes available). In the version I heard Clancy used the Invisible Boat as means of distinguishing between good and bad treatment centers, but it can be presented, I suspect, as a basic primer on the first three steps or the early stages of recovery that lead to long term sobriety.   What Clancy talks about is the taking of suggestions that, to the average alcoholic, appear to be ridiculous on their face. He draws a parallel between two groups of people leaving Toronto for Cleveland, each traveling by boat. In Clancy’s tale the Treatment Centers offer a beautiful yacht with clean beds, excellent food and first class accommodations. The AA group’s mode of transportation is a boat that only they can see and which they fully expect you to board and help power. Most of us, given this choice, opt for the Treatment center’s mode of transport, but it is not until we’re halfway across the lake that we learn their boat is going only halfway towards recovery. They get us started, but it is up to us to complete the journey. In Clancy’s metaphor we’re thrown into the lake, where we meet AA groups paddling in a boat we still can’t see. And its only when we’re out of options that we agree to climb into this “boat” that should not float given our view of such matters. In spite of our cynicism we’re told to shut up and row; and if we do so, pretty soon we get our oars in the water, we begin to make progress and little by little the boat gains substance and its means of keeping us afloat becomes more apparent. The longer we keep at it, the bigger our boat becomes. That doesn’t mean we don’t need a sponsor to tell us when we’re rowing with the oars upside down, but it does mean our eyes are gradually opened to a solution that we could not see before. In an interesting sidelight, Clancy alludes to the “old timers” who lose their compass and direction and before they know it their boat begins to take on water as they begin to take on alcohol. The problem is, when the old timer comes back to AA they not only face the problem of staying sober they faces this problem in a little row boat, not the big cabin cruiser to which they’d become accustomed. The disappointment keeps many from coming back to AA.   For this alcoholic, Prayer was my invisible boat; but I did not find my oars until I got down on my knees to look for them. The funny thing is, I still don’t think it will work, even though I believe it has for some time now. My beliefs have “bailed out” my thoughts many times since those early days.   Thank God for that Invisible boat.               UPDATED    BIG BOOK for DUMMIES https://bit.ly/4mDbNCx    (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoYDjgj9FYY9O_Py_HxvToTUS_3B-vBcf&si=00m3zjpik036G1Sn)