AA Thoughts For Today - April

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AA Thought for the Day

April 17

Relief
Provided you hold back nothing, your sense of relief will mount from
minute to minute. The dammed-up emotions of years break out of their
confinement, and miraculously vanish as soon as they are exposed.
As the pain subsides, a healing tranquility takes its place.
- 12 Steps & 12 Traditions, p. 62

Thought to Ponder . . .
Clear vision for tomorrow comes only after a real look at yesterday.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
F A I T H = Facing An Inner Truth Heals.

~*~A.A. Thoughts For The Day~*~

Rationalization
"We 'constructively criticized' someone who needed it,
when our real motive was to win a useless argument.
We were depressed and complained we felt bad,
when in fact we were mainly asking for
sympathy and attention.
This odd trait of mind and emotion,
this perverse wish to hide a bad motive
underneath a good one,
permeates human affairs from top to bottom.
Learning daily to spot, admit, and correct these flaws
is the essence of character-building
and good living."
Bill W., Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pp. 94-5

Thought to Consider . . .
A victim is a spectator in his life.

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
FEAR
Face Everything And Recover!

*~*~*~*~*^Just For Today!^*~*~*~*~*

Anonymity
>From "The Three Legacies of Alcoholics Anonymous":
"The intense drive that most of us alcoholics have for money, prestige, and power then crashed into the open by way of
broken anonymity at the public level. This development of the 1945-1950 period was made even more dangerous by the
fact that most of the anonymity breakers meant well. Sometimes these folks wanted to use the A.A. name publicly in
order to help other good causes. Sometimes they just wanted their names and pictures in the papers always, of
course, to help A.A. [W]e saw that the risk to A.A. would be appalling if all our power-drivers finally got loose at the
public level. Scores of them were already doing it.
"So A.A. Headquarters got to work. We wrote remonstrances, kind ones, of course, to every breaker. We sent letters to
nearly all press, radio, and publishing outlets, explaining why A.A.'s should not break their anonymity before the general
public. Group feeling, combined with the Headquarters efforts, finally squeezed the anonymity breakers down to a mere
handful within a few years. Had this tendency not been checked, the whole character of our society could have
changed, and its future could have been fearfully compromised."
2001 AAWS, Inc.; Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, pg. 209

*~*~*~*~*^ Grapevine Quote ^*~*~*~*~*

"If we dwell on the past or the future ... we stop changing."
September 1974
"Awareness"
AA Grapevine

~*~*~*~*^ Big Book & Twelve N' Twelve Quotes of the Day ^*~*~*~*~*

"It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on
our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a
subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is
a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Into Action, pg. 85~

"Our hope is that when this chip of a book is launched on the world
tide of alcoholism, defeated drinkers will seize upon it, to follow
its suggestions. Many, we are sure, will rise to their feet and march
on. They will approach still other sick ones and fellowships of
Alcoholics Anonymous may spring up in each city and hamlet, havens
for those who must find a way out."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, A Vision For You, Page 153~

The book ”Alcoholics Anonymous” became the basic text of the Fellowship, and it still is.
-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p. 17

Misc. AA Literature - Quote

Two Kinds of Pride
The prideful righteousness of 'good people' may often be just as destructive as the glaring sins of those who are supposedly not so good.
We loved to shout the damaging fact that millions of the 'good men of religion' were still killing one another off in the
name of God. This all meant, of course, that we had substituted negative for positive thinking.
After we came to A.A., we had to recognize that this trait had been an ego-feeding proposition. In belaboring the sins of
some religious people, we could feel superior to all of them. Moreover, we could avoid looking at some of our own shortcomings.
Self-righteousness, the very thing that we had contemptuously condemned in others, was our own besetting evil. This
phony form of respectability was our undoing, so far as faith was concerned. But finally, driven to A.A., we learned better.
1. GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1961
2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 30

Prayer For The Day: Dear Lord, I ask for your help as I face today. Please help me and guide me so I may do the right things.