We found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the Realm of Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 46
Open-mindedness to concepts of a Higher Power can open doors to the spirit. Often I find the human spirit in various dogmas and faiths. I can be spiritual in the sharing of myself. The sharing of self joins me to the human race and brings me closer to God, as I understand Him.
Having boundaries doesnât complicate life; boundaries simplify life.
âBEYOND CODEPENDENCY
There is a positive aspect to boundary setting. We learn to listen to ourselves and identify what hurts us and what we donât like. But we also learn to identify what feels good.
When we are willing to take some risks and begin actively doing so, we will enhance the quality of our life.
What do we like? What feels good? What brings us pleasure? Whose company do we enjoy? What helps us to feel good in the morning? Whatâs a real treat in our life? What are the small, daily activities that make us feel nurtured and cared for?
What appeals to our emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical self? What actually feels good to us?
We have deprived ourselves too long. There is no need to do that anymore, no need. If it feels good, and the consequences are self-loving and not self-defeating, do it!
Today, I will do for myself those little things that make life more pleasurable. I will not deny myself healthy treats.
On studying the Twelve Steps, many of us exclaimed, âWhat an order! I canât go through with it.â Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints.
The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.
âWe recovered alcoholics are not so much brothers in virtue as we are brothers in our defects, and in our
common strivings to overcome them.â
AA states that resentments is the ânumber one offenderâ among our members, that it puts more alcoholics in the graves than any other thing.âStools and Bottles
We can get high on anger. Thatâs why itâs dangerous. We get a false sense of power from being angry. Our
anger turns into resentments. Resentments turn into hate. Hate eats at our spiritual core.
We can get rid of resentments and hate through prayer and helping others. Thatâs why we weâre to pray for those who have wronged us, so our hearts donât fill with hate. This why, we use our energy in a healthy way. And our serenity will grow as we see that anger no longer has so much power over our actions.
Prayer for the Day
Higher Power, help me stop using anger, resentments and hate for control over other people and advents I donât like.
Action for the Day
Iâll list all the people Iâm angry at. Iâll say a simple prayer for each of them.
We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. . . search diligently within yourself. . . . With this attitude you cannot fail. The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 55
It was out of the depths of loneliness, depression and despair that I sought the help of A.A. As I recovered and began to face the emptiness and ruin of my life, I began to open myself to the possibility of the healing that recovery offers through the A.A. program. By coming to meetings, staying sober, and taking the Steps, I had the opportunity to listen with increasing attentiveness to the depths of my soul. Daily I waited, in hope and gratitude, for that sure belief and steadfast love I had longed for in my life. In this process, I met my God, as I understand Him.
We do not move forward by resisting what is undesirable in our life today. We move forward, we grow, we change by acceptance.
Avoidance is not the key; surrender opens the door.
Listen to this truth: We are each in our present circumstances for a reason. There is a lesson, a valuable lesson, that must be learned before we can move forward.
Something important is being worked out in us, and in those around us. We may not be able to identify it today, but we can know that it is important. We can know it is good.
Overcome not by force, overcome by surrender. The battle is fought, and won, inside ourselves. We must go through it until we learn, until we accept, until we become grateful, until we are set free.
Today, I will be open to the lessons of my present circumstances. I do not have to label, know, or understand what Iâm learning; I will see clearly in time. For today, trust and gratitude are sufficient.
We in A.A. have the privilege of living two lives in one lifetime. One life of drunkenness, failure, and
defeat.
Then, through A.A., another life of sobriety, peace of mind, and usefulness.
We who have recovered our sobriety are modern miracles. And weâre living on borrowed time. Some of us might have been dead long ago. But we have been given another chance to live.
This one really hits me hard today. A cousin of mine who isnât much older than me was just discovered to have cancer this weekend and they are giving her 30-90 days maximum to live. Sheâs a bright light to those in her circle and has always been pretty healthy-but cancer doesnât discrimiate. Just like alcoholism doesnât.
Iâve been given another chance at life. I donât know whatâs coming down the road for me, but I know I would have already been gone had I continued as I was. Today I get to live, because of my recovery and I am truly grateful for that today.
. . . if only men were granted absolute liberty, and were compelled to obey no one, they would then voluntarily associate themselves in the common interest.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 50
When I no longer live under the dictates of another or of alcohol, I live in a new freedom. When I release the past and all the excess baggage I have carried for so very long, I come to know freedom. I have been introduced into a life and a fellowship of freedom. The Steps are a ârecommendedâ way of finding a new life, there are no commands or dictates in A.A. I am free to serve from desire rather than decree. There is the understanding that I will benefit from the growth of other members and I take what I learn and bring it back to the group. The âcommon welfareâ finds room to grow in the society of personal freedom.
Part of recovery means learning to share ourselves with other people. We learn to admit our mistakes and expose our imperfectionsânot so that others can fix us, rescue us, or feel sorry for us, but so we can love and accept ourselves. This sharing is a catalyst in healing and changing.
Many of us are fearful of sharing our imperfections because that makes us vulnerable. Some of us have tried being vulnerable in the past, and people tried to control, manipulate, or exploit us, or they made us feel ashamed.
Some of us in recovery have hurt ourselves by being vulnerable. We may have shared things with people who didnât respect our confidence. Or we may have told the wrong people at an inappropriate time, and scared them away.
We learn from our mistakesâand despite our mistakes, it is still a good thing to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and honest. We can learn to choose safe people with whom to share ourselves. We can learn to share appropriately so we donât scare or push people away. We can also learn to let others be vulnerable with us.
Today, God, help me learn to be appropriately vulnerable. I will not let others exploit or shame me for being vulnerable, and I will not exploit myself.
These readings hit me today too. I loved the daily reflections as I love that I can do things my own way. I can find my own version of a HP. My sponsor gives me suggestions that I very much pay attention to but I also have the freedom to screw up and learn from my mistakes. She loves me anyway. Which allows me to be vulnerable. I still donât like allowing myself to cry often-I know itâs healthy but knowing and doing are two different things. Last night I called her on a video chat and just bawled. I can be messy. I can be authentic. I can let my tears flow and let myself not only sit in that sadness, but share it with someone else. And thatâs freedom on a new level. Iâm so grateful so this gift of sobriety on SO many levels. I continue to heal, learn, expand and grow-one day at a time.
Such is the paradox of A.A. regeneration: strength arising out of complete defeat and weakness, the loss of oneâs old life as a condition for finding a new one.
A.A. COMES OF AGE, p. 46
A thousand beatings by John Barleycorn did not encourage me to admit defeat. I believed it was my moral obligation to conquer my âenemy-friend.â At my first A.A. meeting I was blessed with a feeling that it was all right to admit defeat to a disease which had nothing to do with my âmoral fiber.â I knew instinctively that I was in the presence of a great love when I entered the doors of A.A. With no effort on my part, I became aware that to love myself was good and right, as God had intended. My feelings set me free, where my thoughts had held me in bondage. I am grateful.
Yes, there are times we need to endure, struggle through, and rely on our survival skills. But we donât have to make life, growth, recovery, change, or our day-to-day affairs that hard all the time.
Having life be that hard is a remnant of our martyrdom, a leftover from old ways of thinking, feeling, and believing. We are worthy even when life isnât that hard. Our value and worth are not determined by how hard we struggle.
If weâre making it that hard, we may be making it harder than it needs to be, said one woman. Learn to let things happen easily and naturally. Learn to let events, and our participation in them, fall into place. It can be easy now. Easier than it has been. We can go with the flow, take the world off our shoulders, and let our Higher Power ease us into where we need to be.
Today, I will stop struggling so hard. I will let go of my belief that life and recovery have to be hard. I will replace it with a belief that I can walk this journey in ease and peace. And sometimes, it can actually be fun.
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. --Helen Keller
When a man looks at his life and at the lives of others, it is clear that pain is part of life. We cannot escape this tragic truth; our growth and our wholeness must include it because our recovery stresses honesty. In our old way of living, we may have been bitter. Many of us felt sorry for ourselves. Some of us cursed God and wasted time in our self-centeredness, thinking life was especially unfair to us. Life is not fair; it just is. It is left to us to choose how we will respond.
Peopleâs responses to life inspire us. We not only acknowledge the pain, but we see the heroic lives of
others around us. They met their limitations and went forward with a willing spirit and faith. Today we
can be grateful for the progress we have made in overcoming our suffering. We have friends who give us the joy of human contact. We have choices and possibilities where we never saw them before. We have a growing self-respect as men.
I accept the reality of life, and I will respond with faith in the choices I make today.
The problem of resolving fear has two aspects. We shall have to try for all the freedom from fear that is possible for us to attain. Then we shall need to find both the courage and grace to deal constructively with whatever fears remain.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 61
Most of my decisions were based on fear. Alcohol made life easier to face, but the time came when alcohol was no longer an alternative to fear. One of the greatest gifts in A.A. for me has been the courage to take action, which I can do with Godâs help. After five years of sobriety I had to deal with a heavy dose of fear. God put the people in my life to help me do that and, through my working the Twelve Steps, I am becoming the whole person I wish to be and, for that, I am deeply grateful.
