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As
Bill Sees It
Everyday
Living, p. 233
The A.A. emphasis on personal inventory is heavy because a great
many of us have never really acquired the habit of accurate
self-appraisal.
Once this heavy practice has become a habit, it will prove so
interesting and profitable that the time it takes won't be missed.
For
these minutes and often hours spent in self-examination are bound to
make all the other hours of our day better and happier. At length,
our
inventories become a necessity of everyday living, rather than
something unusual or set apart.
12 & 12, pp. 89-90
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Whose experience is important?
Sharing.
In the Twelve Step movement, we often feature outstanding speakers at
large anniversary meetings. In some ways, this makes celebrities
of them..... their personal stories seem to be deemed more important
that those of others. We should accept such large meetings for what
they
are: Part entertainment, part socialization, and part celebration. The
real work of our fellowship, however, lies in ordinary, continuous
activity in the groups.
The most important experience to be shared is not the dramatic or
humorous account heard at the large meeting. What really works to
keep us sober is the experience we share with each other. This can
survive long after the powerful speech is forgotten.
I'll remember today that I can find help and growth in talking
with different people I meet at regular meetings.
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It’s a rare
person who wants to hear what we doesn’t want to hear.---Dick
Cavett
We want only to hear good thins. That we’re nice people. That our
loved ones are healthy.
That we did a good job. We don’t want to hear that anyone is angry
with us, or that we made a mistake. We don’t want to hear about
illness or troubles.
But life isn’t just happy news. Bad things happen. We can’t
change that. As we live our recovery program, we learn to handle the
addiction. We choose the path of life. We need to know all the news,
good, and bad. Then we can deal with life as it really is.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me listen---even when I
don't want to. Gently help me deal with both the good and bad. All the
help I need is mine for the asking.
Action for the Day: I will ask my sponsor and three friends to
tell me about my blind spots.
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Each Day a New Beginning
We're only as sick as the secrets we keep. --Sue Atchley Ebaugh
Harboring parts of our inner selves, fearing what others would think if
they knew, creates the barriers that keep us separate, feeling
different, certain of our inadequacies.
Secrets are burdens, and they weigh heavily on us, so heavily. Carrying
secrets makes impossible the attainment of serenity--that which we
strive for daily. Abstinence alone is not enough. It must come first,
but it's not enough by itself. It can't guarantee that we'll find the
serenity we seek.
This program of recovery offers self-assurance, happiness, spiritual
well-being, but there's work to be done. Many steps to be taken. And
one
of these is total self-disclosure. It's risky, it's humbling, and it's
necessary.
When we tell others who we really are, it opens the door for them to
share likewise. And when they do, we become bonded. We accept their
imperfections and love them for them. And they love us for ours. Our
struggles to be perfect, our self-denigration because we aren't, only
exaggerates even more the secrets that keep us sick.
Our tarnished selves are lovable; secrets are great equalizers when
shared. We need to feel our oneness, our sameness with other women.
Opportunities to share my secrets will present themselves today. I will
be courageous.
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THERE IS A SOLUTION
Some of our alcoholic readers may think they can do without spiritual
help. Let us tell you the rest of the conversation our friend had with
his doctor.
The doctor said: “You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have
never seen one single case recover, where that state of mind existed to
the extent that it does in you.” Our friend felt as though the gates of
hell had closed on him with a clang.
He said to the doctor, “Is there no exception?”
“Yes,” replied the doctor, “there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours
have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while,
alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me
these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of
huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and
attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men
are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions
and motives begin to dominate them. In fact, I have been trying to
produce some such emotional rearrangement within you. With many
individuals the methods which I employed are successful, but I have
never been successful with an alcoholic of your description.”*
Upon hearing this, our friend was somewhat relieved, for he reflected
that, after all, he was a good church member. This hope, however, was
destroyed by the doctor’s telling him that while his religious
convictions were very good, in his case they did not spell the
necessary vital spiritual experience.
p. 27
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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Tradition
Nine - "A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create
service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve."
Just as the aim of each A.A. member is personal sobriety, the aim of
our services is to bring sobriety within reach of all who want it. If
nobody does the group's chores, if the area's telephone rings
unanswered, if we do not reply to our mail, then A.A. as we know it
would stop. Our communications lines with those who need our help would
be broken.
p. 175
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"Holding resentment is like eating
poison and then
waiting for the
other person to keel over." --Unknown
"Would you rather be right, or happy?"
--A Course in Miracles
"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless
garden,
where the flowers are all dead. The consciousness of loving and being
loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can
bring."
--Oscar Wilde
Ask a question and you're a fool for three minutes; do not ask a
question and you're a fool for the rest of your life.
--Chinese Proverb
Giving is the highest expression of our power.
--Vivian Greene
What lies before us and what lies behind us are tiny matters compared
to what lies within us.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
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