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April 14

Daily Reflections

THE "NUMBER ONE OFFENDER"

Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 64

As I look at myself practicing the Fourth Step, it is easy to gloss over the wrong that I have done, because I can easily see it as a question of "getting even" for a wrong done to me. If I continue to relive my old hurt, it is a resentment and resentment bars the sunlight from my soul.
If I continue to relive hurts and hates, I will hurt and hate myself. After years in the dark of resentments, I have found the sunlight. I must let go of resentments; I cannot afford them.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

A police captain once told about certain cases he had come
across in his police work. The cause of the tragedy in each
case was drunkenness. He told his audience about a man who
got into an argument with his wife while he was drunk and beat
her to death. Then he went out and drank some more. The police
captain also told about a woman who got too near the edge of
an old quarry hole when she was drunk and fell one hundred
and fifty feet to her death. When I read or hear these stories,
do I think about our motto: "But for the grace of God"?

Meditation For The Day

I must keep balance by keeping spiritual things at the center
of my life. God will give me this poise and balance if I pray
for it. This poise will give me power in dealing with the lives
of others. This balance will manifest itself more and more in
my own life. I should keep material things in their proper place
and keep spiritual things at the center of my life. Then I will
be at peace amid the distractions of everyday living.

Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may dwell with God at the center of my life.
I pray that I may keep that inner peace at the center of
my being.

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As Bill Sees It

Our New Employer, p. 104

We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we
needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well.

Established on such a footing, we became less and less interested in
ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more we became
interested in seeing what we could contribute to life.

As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we
discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of
His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow, or the
hereafter. We were reborn.

Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 63

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Walk in Dry Places

What causes a binge?
Understanding honesty.
In the foggy world of drinking, we were sometimes confused about cause and effect. A person might think of a binge as having been caused by a fight with his or her spouse. The real truth, however, is that he or she provoked the fight in order to get out of the house to launch a drinking spree. It was really the need to drink that caused the fight, and not the reverse, as the alcoholic believes.
We must always understand that the compulsion to drink is the root cause of every binge. We may blame certain things that seemed to trigger a drunk, but it is always our own compulsion that gives force to such an action. Nonalcoholics have the same human experiences we do, but such things do not cause them to have binges.
Seasoned AA members are trained by their experience to detect and defuse these false causes. "There are excuses but never good reasons for drinking," they say. We always drink because we want to drink, not because another's actions forced us into it.
Once we've established real sobriety, we also learn to identify the excuses and devices that helped us blame our binges on other people and conditions. We learn that we are always responsible for maintaining our own sobriety.
I intend to get along with everybody today and to meet all conditions and circumstances in a mature manner. Nothing can trigger a binge but my own desire to take a drink.

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Keep It Simple

It is enough that I am of value to somebody today.---Hugh Prather
Even in recovery, we addicts often feel we are not enough. Maybe it's leftover shame from our using days. But we are enough. We are of great value. We all need each other to stay sober.
Each of us needs other recovering people to help us remember the hell of addiction. We can forget how bad it was, but telling our stories makes us remember. When you feel you don't want to stay sober for yourself, then stay sober for your brothers and sisters in the program. They need you.
You're their recovery, as they're yours. There may be days you don't feel glad to be sober. But your friends in this fellowship are glad you're sober. They thank-you for your sobriety
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, may Your will, not mine, be done.
Action For the Day: I'll stop and think of all the people I'm glad for. I'll start telling them today.

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Each Day a New Beginning

Only those who dare, truly live. --Ruth P. Freedman
We receive from life, from every experience, from each interaction according to what we have given. When we commit ourselves fully to an experience, it will bless us. When we give ourselves wholly to any moment, our awareness of reality will be heightened. When we risk knowing someone else, truly knowing them, we will find ourselves.
How common, and how unfortunate, that so many of us "escape" life! We escape through hiding, hiding from ourselves and others. We fear self-disclosure, our own and someone else's. Before choosing abstinence, our escape was easier. Now, the Steps make escape hard, fortunately.
Having a sponsor--and being one--helps. Taking a Fifth and working the Twelfth helps. Going to meetings and sharing helps. Our experiences today won't come around again---in just the same way. The people in our lives won't say again just what they'll say today. We must not miss out on what life offers. We can risk feeling it all, hearing it all, seeing it all.
The riches of a full life are so easily mine, and so deservedly mine.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 9 - The Family Afterwards

Now and then the family will be plagued by spectres from the past, for the drinking career of almost every alcoholic has been marked by escapades, funny, humiliating, shameful or tragic. The first impulse will be to bury these skeletons in a dark closet and padlock the door. The family may be possessed by the idea that future happiness can be based only upon forgetfulness of the past. We think that such a view is self-centered and in direct conflict with the new way of living.

pp. 123-124

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Two - "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

The moment they read Step Two, most A.A. newcomers are confronted with a dilemma, sometimes a serious one. How often have we heard them cry out, "Look what you people have done to us! You have convinced us that we are alcoholics and that our lives are unmanageable. Having reduced us to a state of absolute helplessness, you now declare that none but a Higher Power can remove our obsession. Some of us won't believe in God, others can't, and still others
who do believe that God exists have no faith whatever He will perform this miracle. Yes, you've got us over the barrel, all right--but where do we go from here?"

p. 25

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May I sit comfortably in silence, so that I can hear Gods words.
--SweetyZee

Be thankful for each and every morning. Enjoy life and don't worry
about things that won't matter in 10 years anyway.

When the solution is simple, God is answering.
--Albert Einstein

And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in
your years.
--Abraham Lincoln

"One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of
attention." --Jim Rohn

"Put duties aside at least an hour before bed and perform soothing,
quiet activities that will help you relax."
--Dianne Hales

"If you haven't forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive
others?"
--Dolores Huerta

"Minutes are worth more than money. Spend them wisely."
--Thomas P. Murphy

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and
over and over again, but expecting a different result."
--Albert Einstein

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

LIFE

"May you live all the days of your life."
--Jonathan Swift

I heard a story that offers a key to the meaning of spirituality:
Two little fish were huddled together, afraid to move. A large fish
swam by them, confident and strong. The big fish shouted out to the
two little fish, "Why don't you swim out and enjoy the beautiful
ocean?" The two little fish looked at each other and asked, "Where is
the ocean?" They were in it but they didn't know it!

As an alcoholic I existed in life but I didn't live: I missed vacations,
people, friendships, feelings, nature, sunsets and God. Like so many
addicts, I was numbered amongst the "walking dead". Today I
continue to make a spiritual choice that avoids alcohol and I am able to
feel again. Today I am alive.

In You I live to love and love to live.

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"It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man."
Psalms 118:8

"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an
example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in
purity."
I Timothy 4:12

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32

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Daily Inspiration

Start the day with prayer and a commitment to conquer any difficulties that happen and a firmer commitment to not let them conquer you. Lord, bless me with all that I need to make the best of every situation.

Celebrate your creativity. You are a child of the Great Creator, created in His image. Lord, may I touch others because of the gifts with which you have blessed me.