Quote of the Day: "A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else."
John Burroughs
Before my commitment to the principles of the program, such as honesty and accountability, my insecurities kept me from being able to admit fault or failure. What I learned was that if you’re honest and admit your mistakes, people will respect and trust you more. You lose respect being stubborn and always having to “be right.” This was an incredible life and business lesson that served me well in relationships and my career. Learning from our mistakes can become an opportunity for further emotional growth and spiritual discovery. There is immense freedom in being fallible and human. Thank God the program has taught us to “have the courage to change the things we can.” For many of us, this freedom begins when we face “our part” in resentments identified in our 4th step. As we take this journey, we build the necessary courage to take risks (go back to school, start a business, etc.) to improve our lives. There is much spiritual development in being accountable, and responsible enough to readily admit our missteps as we navigate through life, our hopes and dreams. Today, I know I am 100% accountable for my own actions and reactions.
I just found this thread and spent some time this morning in the early hours reading it when I couldn’t sleep. It’s moved me to tears and I feel soft, tranquil, humble and grateful as a result (with a lot of authors/books to Google later)!
Thank you for these wonderful posts, and all who contribute, I will have a much better day today because of it
Quote of the Day: “There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation for life.”
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Step Eleven) p. 98
When I first time came into the program, I was told to pray to a God I didn’t believe had anything to do with recovery or daily human life. My sponsor said me to, “Pray for 90 days, and if your life doesn’t get better, I’ll gladly refund your misery!” Of course, my life got infinitely better, and I’ve been praying ever since. I no longer pray for “things,” but for the strength and willingness to be of service to others. Let your dialogue with God evolve, and amazing things happen. When the occasional “Why God?” issues arise, I often find the answer when I let my mind quiet down. However, there are occasions we are just not meant to immediately understand, but we can still find comfort in praying for enough faith to get through it. For me, meditation, in whatever form it takes, is the best way for me to quiet the hamster wheel in my head. Epiphanies and enlightenments also come from just listening to others share at meetings. How blessed we are to be able to find such relief in simple prayer and to calm our troubled minds with meditation. Today, I choose a quiet mind and a peaceful heart.
This thread has become part of my sobriety routine in fact if I’m honest I’ve read this more consistently than my morning gratitude list and daily inventory. Mr Ed would probably be far to humble to accept this but he’s made a considerable difference to my life and is a bit of a legend in MY head. Find in & find in .
Quote of the Day: "In every A.A. story, pain has been the price of admission into a new life. But this admission price purchased more than we expected. It led us to a measure of humility, which we soon discovered to be a healer of pain. We began to fear pain less, and desire humility more than ever."
12&12, p. 75
I love the story about the newcomer walking into the rooms for the first time and asking, “What are the dues?” An old timer immediately says, “You’ve already paid your dues!” The price of admission to AA is incredibly high. Our initial club fees usually contain everything of value in our lives, which includes our dignity and an intense amount of emotional pain. But, I thank God for that painfully dark place, because it was absolutely necessary for me to build the willingness necessary to change my selfish mindset. Only from a bottom can we surrender enough to true humility. I now know that all my fears in life are fed by my character defects, and to starve those defects, I need to practice their opposites, such as love, care and kindness. However, by far the greatest detractor of my character defects is a lifetime of practicing humility – setting aside pride and ego, a commitment to service, and remaining teachable to all new things, ideas and perspectives.
Quote of the Day: "The things that count cease being those that can be held in the hand and become only what can be held in the heart."
North Hollywood, California, August 1982, “Savoring Our Sobriety,”, Emotional Sobriety
I have never been permanently satisfied chasing material things, nor do I think anyone really is. Once we get it, we either want more, or we compare ourselves to someone who has more. With materialistic gain, I know the most I could possibly hope for is temporary and fleeting gratification. One thing is certain, money costs too much! Besides, if money can solve the problem, then it really wasn’t a problem. I have come to understand that the true measure of a person is how much they would be worth, “if they lost it all.” I doubt very much when I’m facing the last breaths of my mortality that I will have wanted more stuff rather than having had loving relationships with others. The program has taught me to cherish and appreciate the lasting spiritual aspects of life such as peace, serenity and compassion. Simply being content is enough for me today. I’m content helping others. I’m content sipping coffee in the morning with my wife. I’m content laughing with friends. Today, it’s the simple things in life that bring me contentment. I am so blessed to be free from the need to have things to validate me. Lasting peace is an inside job.
I love this one. It is true that I know far more inspirational people who have lost it all, who I really want to be around, talk to, sit with, and learn from, then my most ‘successful’ acquaintances. Very grateful for this message today as it made me think of someone in particular and I think I will check in on them this eve and see how they are doing
Quote of the Day: "The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole Society has sprung and flowered"
12 & 12, p. 21-22
Practicing alcoholics are egomaniacs with inferiority complexes - acting superior on the outside, but painfully insecure or unsure about ourselves on the inside. So, when we come into the program, admitting defeat is a tall order for the egocentric alcoholic. Guess what newcomer - the war is over, and we lost! Once we admit defeat to our disease, the healing begins. When we ultimately surrender, we finally become willing to take simple direction and our new life commences. We later learn that our first surrender was to be one of many. We soon adopt a practice to make a surrender each and every morning. However, just as significant, as each new life difficulty comes up, we are faced with the necessity of another complete life surrender; with each surrender, we develop a deeper faith in the program and our Higher Power. The program has taught us to adjust and adapt to life rather than throwing tantrums and fighting our way through every little thing that doesn’t go our way. In so doing, life issues diminish into manageable events that we can learn from, process, grow, and move forward.
Quote of the Day: "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”
Melody Beattie
When I came into the program, the concept of “living in gratitude” was an abstract impossibility. Almost immediately, through the program, I was exposed to the virtues of practicing a changed perspective of life, one in which I sought out gratitude. The program taught me that “what we think upon grows,” so a change to a positive attitude would require a daily search for the small blessings in life that unfold so often unnoticed or unappreciated. It became evident that if I focused on “what I wanted” rather than “what I have,” that negative attitude would shroud my entire consciousness. In contrast, if I focused on gratitude, life became more satisfying and enjoyable. Gratitude has become the picture frame of my life, surrounding me with a veil of blessings; I just have to be open to the many gifts that life presents. If I let my life be focused in gratitude, there’s no room for bad days. Feeling gratitude and not showing it is like wrapping a birthday present and not giving it. As we celebrate life, I hope we can all open the most important gift, and that is our heart.
Quote of the Day: "Spiritual Experience, Appendix II - …the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms. …Most of our experiences are what psychologist William James calls the “educational variety” because they develop slowly over a period of time."
In my early sobriety, the thought of having a spiritual experience was inconceivable. For our founder, Bill W., the room filled with a white light, and he had an immediate and breathtaking spiritual upheaval and awakening. Many of us think we to need to have a similar burning bush moment, but our AA book tells us otherwise. Even then, we usually overthink this concept, and we inevitably short change ourselves. A spiritual experience are those things identified in Appendix II, but it is so much more. Just as we get to define our Higher Power, so too do we get to define our own spiritual experiences. To me, they are any moment or event that changes my attitude and perspective about life in a positive way. We all have had at least one profound spiritual experience, and that was when we decided to walk through the doors of our hallowed program and into the arms of this loving fellowship. They are those God shots, extreme moments of gratitude, or times when we can simply say, “I almost missed this!” It’s a spiritual experience, if we allow it to be one, and no one can take that away from us. When we open our hearts and minds to the many blessings in God’s universe, life itself can become a spiritual experience.
Quote of the Day: "To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Someone shared at a meeting recently that, “If they could wave a magic wand and give the gift of sobriety, they wouldn’t, because they would not want to rob anyone of the amazing journey through recovery”. If I heard that when I was new, I would have thought, “That was selfish!” Now, having lived many years of recovery, I completely understand this sentiment. Our ego seeks the destination; our soul seeks the journey. Evolving in this fellowship, with all its ups and downs, has been the best amusement ride ever. It has been exhilarating, scary and thrilling. It takes a lot of courage and perseverance to grow up and be whom you really are and were always meant to be. There are times I’ve had that pit in my gut projecting the next crisis or twist, but mostly, I can’t stop smiling from the amazement of growing emotionally and spiritually into the person I am today. I literally see life differently, where hopes and dreams are now all real possibilities. Don’t go through life, grow through life. The journey through recovery has been better than anything I could have ever imagined. Today, there is nothing better than being rocketed into the 4th dimension, and knowing that the journey has now become the destination.
Quote of the Day: "No one else ‘makes us angry.’ We make ourselves angry when we surrender control of our attitude. What someone else may have done is irrelevant. We choose, not they. They merely put our attitude to a test."
Jim Rohn
The awareness that we have control over our reactions is liberating. Before the program, my Irish temper alienated the people around me, and I got the reputation as a hot head with a short fuse. Even though it was very unsettling for me, I still had no concept of the idea that I could actually control my outbursts or temper. The light bulb went off when I heard in the rooms, “If I let you anger me, you conquer me, because I’m letting you live rent free in my head.” We are not punished for our anger, but by our anger. Quite simply, if I get angry at someone, they win, and more importantly, I lose! The reality is that we don’t have to show up for every fight we’re invited. When in anger, we lose sight of finding reason or the truth; we only want to be “right.” We are 100% responsible for what we do and think, and what we do and think dictates our emotions. If we are honest with ourselves, when we are angry, fear is always laying there in the shadows. Today, “I pause when agitated or doubtful, and ask God for the right thought or action” (p. 87). People still annoy me now and then, but I now know to pray for them, admit my part, make an amends, and forgive them. Today, I don’t let people live rent free in my head.
Quote of the Day: "When outside a room where a group of AA is meeting, the most frequent sound you hear is laughter. Mellow laughter, which can come only from people who have looked destruction and catastrophe in the face, not once, but continuously over long years, and now are free an unafraid. The laughter, in short, of people who hold God’s hand and feel safe.”
Letter to a Woman Alcoholic (A.A. Pamphlet P-14), page 13
You get me. Until I found the rooms of AA, I was a rudderless ship lost at sea. I never truly felt like I belonged in any social situation. Like many of you, I was walking around life three drinks shy of comfortable. A primary attraction of the program to me was the safety I felt in sharing my true emotions. It was perfectly okay to be hurting, to be overwhelmed with gratitude, or just to be uncertain about life issues. No matter what was going on in my life, I knew my friends in AA would be there for me. They say that if you show me someone’s friends, then I’ll show you their future. If that’s the case, our futures are bright and filled with hopes and dreams. I love that when I listen closely, I hear my future being shared at meetings. In our fellowship, people see right through me, and they somehow still appreciate the view. What an amazing gift to have so many people in our lives that share a common history and can relate to the tsunami of emotions that overwhelm us at times. A favorite AA saying of mine is, “Home is not just where you live, but where they understand you.” Today, AA is my sanctuary, my safe haven, my home.
Quote of the Day: "We alcoholics are sensitive people. It takes some of us a long time to outgrow that serious handicap."
Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 125
So many alcoholics wear their emotions on their sleeves. Societal norms portrayed this as a weakness, which we bought into, and this also furthered our insecurities. Most of us, myself included, overcompensated by building impenetrable walls around our emotions. We shut down, usually with alcohol, or with dangerous isolation. “Isolation is the dark room where we develop our negatives.” When we come into the program, feelings (the F-word) erupt within us like a volcano, and we have no idea how to process them. Thank God we are given tools to deal with our sensitivities, like sharing with our sponsor, working the steps, and meditation. I recognize that I am overly sensitive, but this is no longer a liability in life; it is the catalyst to my genuine concern for others. We should never silence or censor our emotions, because this would be burying the truth. The festering lie is suppressing our emotions. Today, I feel so blessed to be able to feel all of life, most of which I now see as blessings and a conduit to further and continued spiritual awakening.
Quote of the Day: "There is action and more action. "Faith without works is dead."
Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 88
I have seen and experienced that the program isn’t necessarily for people that need it or want it; it’s for people that do it. Our alcoholic disease centers in our mind, but recovery centers in our feet. We can’t get sober through “assmosis” - just sitting in meetings expecting change in our lives. We can believe wholeheartedly in the program and God, but if we don’t put the principles we learn into action, our faith will surely fade away. This applies to all areas of our lives. We can easily convince ourselves that we are “fine,” and just rest on our laurels. We rationalize or justify away the necessity of contrary action, which usually consists of doing something inconvenient, like getting off that couch to go to a meeting, or doing some step writing. Procrastination is the 5 syllable version of “lazy.” We are fooling ourselves if we try to think our way into right living; we need to live our way into right thinking. All too often we lose members who test this simple principle. I cherish my faith in God, but I know that only by being of service and taking action will I change my life for the better.
Quote of the Day: "All the faults of our mind – our selfishness, ignorance, anger, attachment, guilt, and other disturbing thoughts – are temporary, not permanent and everlasting. And since the cause of our suffering – our disturbing thoughts and obscurations – is temporary, our suffering is also temporary.”
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, "Ultimate Healing”
I heard someone share at a meeting, “I don’t suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute.” I laughed at first, then I realized that was me too. I’d let my head run wild with a whirlwind of thoughts, and eventually, I’d end up pole vaulting over mouse turds. I don’t know about others, but here is how my “worst case scenario” mind works – “She didn’t acknowledge me when I came into the room, so she is obviously mad at me. She must be mad at me for ‘X’, which is a total overreaction on her part. I can’t possibly interact with someone so irrational. She must think the same about me. Oh my God, she wants a divorce!” My mind can take me to the worst possible scenario within moments, and it’s definitely not my friend. As we say, “Our minds are like a bad neighborhood; you never want to go in there alone”. We aren’t responsible for our first thought, but we are absolutely responsible for our first action (or reaction). Thank God the program has taught us to hit the pause button or make a quick phone call for a second opinion. The program also teaches us that we can redirect negative thoughts by asking God to remove them, accepting our part, or by simply extending ourselves to others. It is reassuring to acknowledge that thoughts are temporary and “This too shall pass.” Today I know that nothing is here to stay, and wherever my path takes me, I know God will be there waiting for me.
Such true words! Thanks for sharing that. I have been struggling with so much anxiety and I’m finally starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. I never imagined I’d be meditating or have a therapist, but thank God I finally opened up to the idea. Only took a few decades to sink in. Your comments helps me to realize I’m not alone with these thoughts and feelings.
Thank you!
Quote of the Day: "Every time a problem arises, the essential thing is to immediately become aware that the problem comes from our selfish mind, that it is created by self-cherishing thoughts. As long as you put the blame outside yourself, there can be no happiness."
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, “Transforming Problems into Happiness”
Nearly every perceived “problem” I have ever had in life stemmed from the fact that I didn’t get my way (what I want), which is another way of saying “self-will run riot.” If I’m upset or angry, there is a very good likelihood I’m the problem. However, there are problems such as health or death of a loved one that aren’t selfish in nature, but most problems fall under the category of unmet selfish wants. Once we recognize the root of an issue comes down to our self centered attitude, we can then move on to a place of acceptance. If self is the problem, then self can’t be the answer! We say in the program, “Don’t pray to get what you want, but to pray to want what you get.” It is also prudent to accept that we probably have a part in not getting what we want, which usually originates from our own actions or inactions. We are only a failure if we blame someone else for our unmet wants. Once we accept that we own some, if not all of the problem, we are well on our way to a path of acceptance.
Quote of Day: "Too often we under estimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around".
-Leo Buscaglia-
Life has endless opportunities to be kind and loving. We have opportunities on a grand scale, but I think it’s the small things that end up mattering the most. Since sobriety, I have been told many times by others that something I said or did made a meaningful impact on them. I often don’t even remember the exact exchange, but I know that my philosophy for a long time has been to “be nice” wherever possible. Random acts of kindness are often the most fulfilling. People don’t expect niceties, so when someone goes out if their way to be kind, it can become a spiritual experience for both. We are all walking examples of our fellowship, and we may be the first and only exposure someone may have of AA; make it count! If we lead with our heart, genuine sincerity is sure to follow. A fellow member once told me about an incident in which giving a homeless person his jacket on a cold day redirected his outlook on life (spiritual experience) and reconfirmed his dedication to the principles of our program. At every meeting, we see or hear small gestures of kindness that can or have made a profound impact on someone’s life. Today, I try to be the best example of AA I can be by openly expressing love, care, and kindness.
in 
& find 
.