AA Thoughts For Today - July

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AA Thought for the Day

July 4

A New Freedom
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development,
we will be amazed before we are half way through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
- Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 83 - 84

Thought to Ponder . . .
Serenity isn't freedom from the storm; it is peace within the storm.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
H J F = Happy, Joyous, Free.

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

Freedom
"Looking back we see that our freedom to choose badly
was not, after all, a very real freedom.
When we chose because we 'must,'
this was not a free choice either.
But it got us started in the right direction.
When we chose because we 'ought to'
we were really doing better.
This time we were earning some freedom,
making ourselves ready for more.
But when, now and then, we could gladly make
right choices without rebellion, holdout, or conflict,
then we had our first view of what
perfect freedom under God's will could be like."
Bill W., May 1960
1988AAGrapevine, The Language of the Heart, p. 302

Thought to Consider . . .
Within our wonderful new world,
we have found freedom from our fatal obsession.

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
F I N E = Free, Independent, New and Energetic

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

Acceptance
>From "Happiness":
"Accept the things you cannot change. So simple. If the problem cannot be solved today why, simply drop it. I grant that this is not always easy; it takes self-discipline, a faculty infrequently found in newly sober alcoholics. " New Hartford, New York, USA"
1973 AAWS, Inc.; Came to Believe, 30th printing 2004, pg. 111

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

"The simple word 'we' stands at the entrance to the Steps, reminding me that my power is limited."
West Henrietta, New York, July 2007
"Food for the Journey,"
Step by Step

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

"Sometimes we hear an alcoholic say that the only thing he needs to
do is to keep sober. Certainly he must keep sober, for there will be
no home if he doesn't. But he is yet a long way from making good to
the wife or parents whom for years he has so shockingly treated."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Into Action, pg. 82~

"These men had found something brand new in life. Though they knew
they must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that
motive became secondary. It was transcended by the happiness they
found in giving themselves for others."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, A Vision For You, pg. 159~

“But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.”
-Alcoholics Anonymous p. 39

“Refusing to place God first, we had deprived ourselves of His help.”
-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p. 75

Misc. AA Literature - Quote

When I was ten, I was tall and gawky, and smaller kids could push me around in quarrels. I remember being very depressed for a year or more, and then I began to develop a fierce resolve to win.
One day, my grandfather came along with a book about Australia and told me, 'This book says that nobody but an Australian bushman knows how to make and throw the boomerang.'
'Here's my chance,' I thought. 'I will be the first man in America to make and throw a boomerang.' Well, any kid could have had a notion like that. It might have lasted two days or two weeks. But mine was a power drive that kept on for six months, till I made a boomerang that swung around the church yard in front of the house and almost hit my grandfather in the head when it came back.
Emotionally, I had begun the fashioning of another sort of boomerang, one that almost killed me later on.

Prayer for the Day: "Higher Power, I've learned to trust your guidance, yet I still have my own ideas about how I want to live my life. Let me share those ideas with you, and then let me clearly understand your will for me. In the end, let your will, not mine, be done."