[bluidkiti]

October 29

Daily Reflections

OUR SURVIVAL

Since recovery from alcoholism is life itself to us, it is imperative that we preserve in full
strength our means of survival.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 177

The honesty expressed by the members of A.A. in meetings has the power to open my
mind. Nothing can block the flow of energy that honesty carries with it. The only obstacle
to this flow of energy is inebriation, but even then, no one will find a closed door if he or
she has left and chooses to return. Once he or she has received the gift of sobriety,
each A.A. member is challenged on a daily basis to accept a program of honesty. My
Higher Power created me for a purpose in life. I ask him to accept my honest efforts to
continue on my journey in the spiritual way of life. I call on Him for strength to know and
seek His will.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

My relationships with my children have greatly improved. Those children who saw me
drunk and were ashamed, those children who turned away in fear and even loathing have
seen me sober and like me, have turned to me in confidence and trust and have forgotten
the past as best they could. They have given me a chance for companionship that I had
completely missed. I am their father or their mother now. Not just "that person the Mom
or Dad married and God knows why." I am a part of my home now. Have I found
something that I had lost?

Meditation For The Day

Our true measure of success in life is the measure of spiritual progress that we have
revealed in our lives. Others should be able to see a demonstration of God's will in our
lives. The measure of His will that those around us have seen worked out in our daily
living is the measure of our true success. We can do our best to be a demonstration each
day of the power of God in human lives, and example of the working out of the grace of
God in the hearts of men and women.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may so live that others will see in me something of the working out of the will
of God. I pray that my life may be a demonstration of what the grace of God can do.

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As Bill Sees It

People Of Faith, p. 300

We who have traveled a path through agnosticism or atheism beg you
to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion. We have
learned that, whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be,
those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions. People of
faith have a rational idea of what life is all about.

Actually, we used to have no reasonable conception whatever. We
used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and
practices, when we might have seen that many spiritually-minded
persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree
of stability, happiness, and usefulness that we should have sought for
ourselves.

Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 49

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Walk In Dry Places

Diminishing returns are still beneficial
Getting better.
There's a "Cloud nine" effect that some of us had when we first found sobriety. Some call it the honeymoon stage. It includes a feeling of great joy and relief over having found, at last, an answer to drinking.
This gradually fades away, as it should under normal conditions. We then feel as though we're in stages of diminishing returns, where the benefits The experience we have in getting sober is like that of people who recovery from a terrible physical illness. At first, they feel remarkably better for the first time. But then their recovery becomes taken for granted, and "feeling better" isn't as remarkable as it was when they first recovered.
We should not expect it to be. Instead, we can focus on the contentment and well-being that living sober and steady improvement give us.
I may not have anything today like the excitement that accompanied early recovery. I'll be satisfied with the normal blessings of good living.

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Keep It Simple

Each morning puts a man on trail and each evening passes judgment. Ray L. Smith
In many ways, the Tenth Step is very natural. We continue to take a personal inventory.
And when we’re wrong, we promptly admit it.
At the end of each day we ask ourselves, “How did my day go?” As we think about our day, we bring order to our life. The Tenth Step teaches us about order. It also teaches us how to correct mistakes. We do this by admitting our wrongs. This way, we have no backlog of guilt. It’s good to start each day fresh, free from quilt. Admitting our wrongs is a loving thing to do. It’s another way the program teaches us to love ourselves.
Prayer for the Day: Today, I’ll face many choices. Higher Power, be with me as I choose. When the day is done, remind me to think about how I lived today. This will help me learn.
Action for the Day: Tonight, I’ll list three choices I made today. Would I make the same choices again?

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Each Day a New Beginning

Let your tears come. Let them water your soul. --Eileen Mayhew
Letting down our guard, releasing the tension that keeps us taut, often invites our tears, tears that soften us, melt our resistance, reveal our vulnerability, which reminds us that we are only human. So often we need reminding that we are only human.
Perfectionism may be our bane, as it is for so many of us in this program. We've learned to push, push harder, and even harder yet, not only ourselves but also those around us. We must be better, we think, and we tighten our hold on life. The program can teach us to loosen our grip, if we'll let it. The magic is that when we loosen our grip on this day, this activity, this person, we get carried gently along and find that which we struggled to control happening smoothly and naturally. Life is a series of ironies.
We should not hide from our tears. We can trust their need to be present. Perhaps they need to be present for someone else, as well as ourselves. Tears encourage compassion; maybe our assignment in life, today, is to help someone else experience compassion.
My tears will heal. And the wounded are everywhere.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

The Doctor's Opinion

Though we work out our solution on the spiritual as well as an altruistic plane, we favor hospitalization for the alcoholic who is very jittery or befogged. More often than not, it is imperative that a man’s brain be cleared before he is approached, as he has then a better chance of understanding and accepting what we have to offer.

pp. xxvi-xxvii

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

Women Suffer Too

Despite great opportunities, alcohol nearly ended her life. Early member, she spread the word among women in our pioneering period.

Somehow I got out of there and walked five blocks past brownstone houses. There wasn't a bar in sight, but I found the subway station. The name on it was unfamiliar and I had to ask the way to Grand Central. It took three-quarters of an hour and two changes to get there—back to my starting point. I had been in the remote reaches of Brooklyn.

pp. 201-202

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Twelve - "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

Even the newest of newcomers finds undreamed rewards as he tries to help his brother alcoholic, the one who is even blinder than he. This is indeed the kind of giving that actually demands nothing. He does not expect his brother sufferer to pay him, or even to love him. And then he discovers that by the divine paradox of this kind of giving he has found his own reward, whether his brother has yet received anything or not. His own character may still be gravely defective, but he somehow knows that God has enabled him to make a mighty beginning, and he senses that he stands at the edge of new mysteries, joys, and experiences of which he had never even dreamed.

pp. 109-110

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"Living just for today relieves the burden of the past and the fear of the future."
--unknown

You can be your best friend or your worst enemy. This is all determined by how you treat
yourself. Do you harshly judge yourself, or do you find yourself without any conviction?
--unknown

Perhaps the reason a person gets upset over a situation is simply because they have
preordained things in their own mind.
--unknown

"Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill
them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves."
--Pierre T. De Chardin

"Your past is always going to be the way it was. Stop trying to change it."
--Anonymous

"When thinking won't cure fear, action will."
--W. Clement Stone

A B C = Acceptance, Belief, Change.

AA is not something you join, it's a way of life.

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

RACISM

"I want to be the white man's
brother not his brother-in-law."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Addiction is always about separation, ego, isolation and prejudice. The disease
makes us feel different, "less than" and we cover those feelings with false humility
or we assume an arrogant and bombastic manner. Pride and feelings of inferiority put
us on the defensive. It is not unusual for us to seek a scapegoat for our anger.
Drinking alcoholics can be vindictive and prejudicial in their attitude towards
minorities: Blacks, gays and Jews. It is a strange quirk of circumstance when a minority
seeks to victimize another minority --- because alcoholics are a minority group!

Sobriety is about a change in attitude and behavior. The spiritual acceptance of self
must lead inevitably to the acceptance of others. The false pride and arrogance of our
drinking days must give way to the vulnerable strength of sobriety. Now we are able
to embrace our brother, regardless of color, class or creed.

Lord, teach me to seek You in my fellow man and greet You in the stranger.

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"As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who
trust in Him."
2 Samuel 22:31

"But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: "We ought to obey God rather
than men."
Acts 5:29

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Daily Inspiration

Make more room for love in your life. Lord, may I love myself and what I do, may I love others, and how they better my life, and above all, may I love You more each day.

Peace comes not from having no problems, but from being able to deal with them. Lord, bless me with the confidence and wisdom to grow from life's challenges.