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God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
and Wisdom to know the difference.
Thy will, not mine, be done.

January 27

Daily Reflections


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As Bill Sees It

Daily Reprieve, p. 27

We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve
contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

<< << << >> >> >>

We of A.A. obey spiritual principles, at first because we must, then
because we ought to, and ultimately because we love the kind of life such
obedience brings. Great suffering and great love are A.A.'s
disciplinarians; we need no others.

1. Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 85
2. 12 & 12, p. 174

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Walk In Dry Places
 
Live and let live____Tolerance
For countless reasons, people with drinking problems blunder into conflicts with others. It's not unusual to hear that a person has not spoken to a relative for y ears as a result of some foolish misunderstanding. Some of us, sad to say, cling to old grievances even after we come into AA.
The key to peace in our lives is the slogan  "Live and Let Live."  If we reflect on this slogan a bit, we want to live freely, and we ought to let others choose their lifestyles without interference from us. After all, if there was anything we alcoholics resented, it was the busybody who tried to shape our lives for us.
Nobody has the competence or understanding to tell us how we should live, nor  should we try to control other people. We have a big job to do in overcoming our own problems. We have neither the time nor the wisdom to run other people's lives.
"Live and Let Live," if followed by every person and nation, would bring universal peace.  We can use the slogan wisely to end conflicts in our lives and to terminate new ones before they develop into serious problems.
I'll remember today that nobody appointed me guardian of my neighbors' manners and morals.  I have a full-time job keeping myself straight.

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Keep It Simple

They is no they, only us .--Bumper sticker

For most of us, addiction was full of doubt. We stopped believing  in ourselves. Our thoughts had turned to "stinking thinking." We didn't believe in much of anything. We didn't take risk. We always looked for the easier, softer way. In recovery, we start to believe again. We believe in the program. We believe in a Higher Power. We believe in people. And, over time, we believe in ourselves again. We become better at taking risk. We are able to stay sober because we believe,
because we take risk. As we stay sober, we can face almost anything---with the help of others.
Prayer for the Day:  Higher Power, I have learned to believe in You. Help me believe in myself. I have something to give to this world. Help me give it freely.

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Each Day a New Beginning

Surviving meant being born over and over.  --Erica Jong
We have decided to live. And each day we make the decision anew. Each time we call a friend, work a Step, or go to a meeting, we are renewing our contract with life. We are being reborn. Before coming to this program we died, emotionally and spiritually, many times. Some of us nearly died physically. But here we are, starting a new day, looking for guidance from one another. We are the survivors. And survival is there for the taking.
We will have days when we struggle with our decision to live. We will want to throw in the towel. We will want to give in or give up. But we've learned from one another about choices. And the choice to survive, knowing we never have to do it alone, gets easier with time.
I am one of the survivors. Today is my day for celebration.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 6 - INTO ACTION

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. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities. “How can I best serve Thee--Thy will (not mine) be done.” These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.

p. 85

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

Our Southern Friend

Pioneer A.A., minister's son, and southern farmer, he asked, "Who am I to say there is no God?"

Some men and women come to visit my friend of the night before. He invites me to meet them. They are a joyous crowd. I have never seen people that joyous before. We talk. I tell them of the Peace, and that I believe in God. I think of my wife. I must write her. One girl suggests that I phone her. What a wonderful idea!

pp. 215-216

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Six - "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character."

Let's dispose of what appears to be a hazardous open end we have left. It is suggested that we ought to become entirely willing to aim toward perfection. We note that some delay, however, might be pardoned. That word, in the mind of a rationalizing alcoholic, could certainly be given a long term meaning. He could say, "How very easy! Sure, I'll head toward perfection, but I'm certainly not going to hurry any. Maybe I can postpone dealing with some of my problems indefinitely." Of course, this won't do. Such a bluffing of oneself will have to go the way of many another pleasant rationalization. At the very least, we shall have to come to grips with some of our worst character defects and take action toward their removal as quickly as we can.

p. 69

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Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.  --Ovid

It's not what you were, it's what you are today.  --David Marion

Very little is needed to make a happy life.  --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.  --Wilson Mizne

Times of fellowship with God are the foundation for serving others.  --Doris M. Orr

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

SEX

"Sexual pleasure, wisely used
and not abused, may prove the
stimulus and liberator of our
finest and most exalted
activities."
-- Havelock Ellis

Sex is most beautiful because it enables the human being to
experience and give love at an intimate and personal level. It also
combines all the spiritual senses of body, mind and feeling in one
expression, balancing tenderness with strength, patience with desire,
need with selflessness.

Also the awareness and experience of a beautiful sexuality should be
taken into all other manifestations of life --- work, leisure, friendship,
sports and prayer.

The gift of sex is one of our finest and most creative attributes and
leads to all that is noble in man, therefore, it should not be used
irresponsibly. Today I understand that I have a responsibility to the
gifts that God has shared with me.

May I find in my sexuality an awareness of You.

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"Take good care to observe the commandment, and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul."  Joshua 22:5

Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths.  Psalm 25:4

"Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his presence continually."  1 Chronicles 16:11

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Daily Inspiration

There is no hurt that God cannot heal. Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble and don't know where to go.

It is far wiser to ask God for what He thinks is good for us, than for what we think is good for us. Lord, Your Will not mine be done.

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NA Just For Today

Learning how to live again

" We learn new ways to live. We are no longer limited to our old ideas."
Basic Text p. 54

We may or may not have been taught right from wrong and other basics of life as children. No matter, by the time we found recovery, most of us had only the vaguest idea of how to live. Our isolation from the rest of society had caused us to ignore basic human responsibilities and develop bizarre survival skills to cope with the world we lived in.

Some of us didn't know how to tell the truth; others were so frank we wounded everyone we talked to. Some of us couldn't cope with the simplest of personal problems, while others attempted solving the problems of the whole world. Some of us never got angry, even when receiving unfair treatment; others busily lodged complaints against everyone and everything.

Whatever our problems, no matter how extreme, we all have a chance in Narcotics Anonymous to learn how to live anew. Perhaps we need to learn kindness and how to care about others. Perhaps we need to accept personal responsibilities. Or maybe we need to overcome fear and take some risks. We can be certain of one thing: Each day, simply by living life, we'll learn something new.

Just for today: I know more about how to live than I did yesterday, but not as much as I'll know tomorrow. Today, I'll learn something new.

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You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
When men are rightfully occupied, then their amusement grows out of their work as the color petals out of a fruitful garden.
--John Ruskin
What do we need most in order to be happy? Certainly we all need to be loved. Yet we need even more than that. The spirit also wishes to be needed. When we are needed, no matter what age we are, we serve a purpose for others. When we are needed, we will be loved, as well as respected, imitated, and rewarded with gratitude. Our needs are not great empty pits to be filled any way we can. They are the couplings by which we connect to those we love. Our needs also tell us what others want, and how to enrich their lives--which also enriches ours. How do we become needed? We have only to look at our own needs and give what we need to others--love, respect, kindness, and generosity. When we realize we are needed, we realize we also need others.
What do I need that I can give to another person today?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
When nobody around you seems to measure up, it's time to check your yardstick. --Bill Lemley
Being overcritical and irritable has been common to most of us. Some of us go around with controlled smiles while underneath we are grumbling. Others blast everyone around them. Some of us save our most critical reactions for those we love while staying sweet and friendly with the outside world. In any case, we are caught in a blinding trap. We may know we feel trapped but do not see that our problem is mainly with ourselves.
We need to look at our relationships. Have we been falling into a pattern where no one seems to measure up? Are we also being too critical or demanding of ourselves? Perhaps we don't need to lower our standards so much as to hold them less tightly. If we can be friends to ourselves and give ourselves a little more leeway, we can be more easygoing with others.
I cannot force myself to be less critical, but I can let go of my willfulness so my more easygoing side comes forward. I can be less judgmental of others and myself.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
Surviving meant being born over and over. --Erica Jong
We have decided to live. And each day we make the decision anew. Each time we call a friend, work a Step, or go to a meeting, we are renewing our contract with life. We are being reborn. Before coming to this program we died, emotionally and spiritually, many times. Some of us nearly died physically. But here we are, starting a new day, looking for guidance from one another. We are the survivors. And survival is there for the taking.
We will have days when we struggle with our decision to live. We will want to throw in the towel. We will want to give in or give up. But we've learned from one another about choices. And the choice to survive, knowing we never have to do it alone, gets easier with time.
I am one of the survivors. Today is my day for celebration.


You are reading from the book The Language Of Letting Go.
Needing People
We can find the balance between needing people too much and not letting ourselves need anyone at all.
Many of us have unmet dependency needs lingering from the past. While we want others to fulfill our desire to be loved unconditionally, we may have chosen people who cannot, or will not, be there for us. Some of us are so needy from not being loved that we drive people away by needing them too much.
Some of us go to the other extreme. We may have become used to people not being there for us, so we push them away. We fight off our feelings of neediness by becoming overly independent, not allowing ourselves to need anyone. Some of us won't let people be there for us.
Either way, we are living out unfinished business. We deserve better. When we change, our circumstances will change.
If we are too needy, we respond to that by accepting the needy part of us. We let ourselves heal from the pain of past needs going unmet. We stop telling ourselves we're unlovable because we haven't been loved the way we wanted and needed.
If we have shut off the part of us that needs people, we become willing to open up, be vulnerable, and let ourselves be loved. We let ourselves have needs.
We will get the love we need and desire when we begin to believe we're lovable, and when we allow that to happen.
Today, I will strive for the balance between being too needy and not allowing myself to need people. I will let myself receive the law that is there for me.


As I stop today and take the time to be still, I become in touch with my Higher Power. I feel myself filling with love and with peace as I relax and let go of the stress in my day. --Ruth Fishel

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Journey To The Heart

Open Your Heart As Often As You Need

Opening our hearts is not something we do once or twice. It is a way of life. How quickly life does things that make us want to close off, wall off, shut down, go away. But our commitment to staying open has little to do with what life does to us. It has to do with how we decide we want to live. Open. Loving. Safe. We’re safe because we know our ability and our willingness to love comes from within us. It is the ultimate form of learning to embrace our power.

A long time ago when we were young, you may have told yourself it was risky to love, to trust, to feel. You told yourself that everyone you trusted would in the end betray your trust. Your belief has many times been proven true. But it’s time now to believe something else. It’s time to believe that the opposite is true. It’s time to believe that the opposite is true. It is risky to not love, not trust, not feel.

Your security doesn’t come from trusting others. Your security comes from trusting and cherishing your own heart. Don’t let life shut you down. Open your heart as often as you need.

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More Language Of Letting Go

Find the adventure in your life

He had quit his job eight weeks earlier, a prodigal son off to find his story in the world. He arrived back in town dirty, unshaven, tired, and smiling. He had $4.38 in his pocket, he said. Enough for a burger and fries, if someone would give him a ride– there wasn’t enough gas in his car to get him to the restaurant and back. We were just getting ready to go to dinner and one of the others asked if he wanted to come along. “My treat,” a friend said, “as long as you tell us some stories.”

He did.

And oh, what stories he told from his trip through the west– high mountains, deep canyons, altitude sickness, frigid nights. Story after story poured out as we listened over plates of tacos.

“But what will you do now?” I asked later. “You only have four dollars to your name.”

“It’s okay,” came the reply. “I’ll just go back to work for a while.”

“And then?”

“Take another trip. Next year I’m going to Europe to see what’s over there.”

Take a chance. We don’t have to settle in and live in the first safe, comfortable box that we find. We can live in the moment, pull all that we can from it, then stretch our wings and fly someplace else. I’m not saying to quit your job and go off on a backpacking adventure, unless that’s what you want to do. I’m just saying you might want to follow your heart. Learn to cook. Learn to paint, share what you know by teaching a class. Find the adventure in your life, calculate the risk, then take it.

God, put the adventure back in my life. If I’ve gotten too safe in my little world, help me take a risk. Help me learn to live big.

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

I can attain real dignity, importance and individuality only by a dependence on a Power which is great and good, beyond anything I can imagine or understand. I will try my utmost to use this Power in making all my decisions. Even though my human mind cannot forecast what the outcome will be, I will try to be confident that whatever comes will be for my ultimate good. Just For Today, will I try to live this day only, and not tackle my whole life problem at once?

Today I Pray

May I make no decision, engineer no change in the course of my life stream, without calling upon my Higher Power May I have faith that God’s plan for me is better than any scheme I could devise for myself.

Today I Will Remember

God is the architect. I am the builder.

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One More Day

The ancient sage, who concocted the maxim, “Know Thyself” might have added, “Don’t tell anyone.!” – H. F. Heinriches

All too often people hide from their own feelings and from the reality of chronic illness. We may reason that if we ignore it long enough it will go away. Of course, this does not happen, and slowly we gain the knowledge of what our illness is and how we can best live with the changes it creates.

Perhaps we cannot change the course of a chronic illness or medical condition, but we can , and certainly should, change how we react. Bitterness only encourages the company of those who are also bitter. Acceptance, openness, and serenity will attract others who share our willingness to change and grow.

Today, I will be open and honest with myself as I move back into the path of life with an illness at my side.

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Food For Thought

Enough Is a Feast

The frantic search for more and more has characterized many of our lives. We believed that if only we had more money, more clothes, more sex, more food, and more things - we would be happy and satisfied.

The more we consume, the more miserable we become. No amount of material things will satisfy our emotional and spiritual hunger. We learn to know our Higher Power, and we learn that He satisfies our need, not our greed. He feeds our hearts and our spirits with the abundance of His love, and when we are strengthened spiritually, physical control is possible.

Our measured food plan fills our bodily needs. The measured amount is enough. We accept it and become comfortable with it. More than that, we learn the truth of the ancient Zen saying that "Enough is a feast."

May I be content with enough instead of grasping for more.

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One Day At A Time

~ DECISIONS ~

We can try to avoid making choices by doing nothing ...
but even that is a decision.
Gary Collins, PhD.
Clinical psychologist and well-known author in the field of counseling

I can't recall if I ever learned that I had choices. I think it's something a person learns as they grow up, but in my home, it was pretty much Mom's way or the highway, and she had us all so scared of the highway that even THAT wasn't much of a choice!

Imagine my utter shock when I came into the Twelve Step rooms and heard I had choices! I was a married woman by that time, one who had gone along with what everyone else said about anything and everything, and the only choice I seemed to make was how much I'd binge that day, if I'd purge, or if I'd be anorexic. Even that choice wasn't in my hands, but in the hands of my disease.

In these recovery rooms I slowly learned about making choices and the responsibility that went with them. It's been a freedom. It's also allowed me to feel like an adult. As a young child I was put in the position of doing things only adults should be doing. So on one hand, I knew I had done things way before "my time." Yet I still felt immature and naive. Learning to make my own choices and decisions has helped me to feel more mature and confident.

One Day at a Time . . .
I will not fear making difficult decisions. I will remember I can use the principles of the program to help me make the proper choice.
~ Rhonda ~

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

Whether the family goes on a spiritual basis or not, the alcoholic member has to if he would recover. - Pg. 135 - The Family Afterwards

Hour To Hour - Book - Quote

Whatever is on our mind at this time is probably something we can do nothing about just now. We're fighting a fatal disease here and our recovery is our TOP PRIORITY. Other considerations will simply have to wait.

Help me to prioritize my needs: clean time, sober time, recovery.

I Am Aware

Today, I see that my life is up to me. How I choose to live, what I will accomplish, how I conduct my intimate relationships, how I treat myself, all are in my own hands. They are gifts of awareness that I can give myself. I can process my most frustrating and difficult emotions and bring them into my conscious awareness so that I can put them into proportion. I can reframe and see things in a new and more helpful light. I can stop running from what clouds and confuses my inner being, what obscures my inner light. I am strong in the awareness that I can live as I choose to live. I am willing to walk a path of self discovery that, though difficult, builds a strength in me and a knowledge that I can survive my most difficult feelings. I do not need to be afraid of my life if I am not afraid of my inner world. I am comfortable in my own skin.

I am free to be who I am.

- Tian Dayton PhD

Pocket Sponsor - Book - Quote

Witness the miracle of recovery happening for others, and you come to believe that this miracle can happen for you as well. Look at the miracles around you, one month off drugs, three years, 20 years or more. You are surrounded by living miracles.

I do not believe in miracles, I rely on them.

"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

It's Anonymo-us, not Anonymo-me.

Time for Joy - Book - Quote

As I stop today and take the time to be still, I become in touch with my Higher Power. I feel myself filling with love and with peace as I relax and let go of the stress in my day.

Alkiespeak - Book - Quote

Tolerance: The ability to put up with those you'd like to put down. - Anon.

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AA Thought for the Day

January 27

Housecleaning
Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves
certain facts about their lives.
Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have turned to easier methods.
Almost invariably they got drunk.  Having persevered with the rest of the program,
they wondered why they fell.
We think the reason is that they never completed their housecleaning.
- Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 72-73

Thought to Ponder . . .
I cannot mend if I bend the truth.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
N O W = No Other Way.

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

Ghosts
AA experience has taught us we cannot live alone
with our pressing problems and the character defects
which cause or aggravate them.
If we have swept the searchlight of Step Four
back and forth over our careers,
and it has revealed in stark relief those experiences
we'd rather not remember,
if we have come to know how wrong thinking and action
have hurt us and others,
then the need to quit living by ourselves
with those tormenting ghosts of yesterday
gets more urgent than ever.
We have to talk to somebody about them.
c. 1952 AAWS, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 55

Thought to Consider . . .
Trust God. Clean house. Help others.

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
Y A N A = You Are Not Alone

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

Unity
Tradition One: Our common welfare should come first;
personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
"Most individuals cannot recover unless there IS a group. Realization dawns that he is but a small part of a great whole;
that no personal sacrifice is too great for preservation of the Fellowship. He learns that the clamor of desires and
ambitions within him must be silenced whenever these could damage the group. It becomes plain that the group must
survive or the individual will not."
1981, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 130

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

"I didn't need to learn how to meditate before meditating. It turned out to be one of those learn-as-you-go things -- just as
learning how to stay sober is part of staying sober a day at a time."
Anonymous, November 1991
"Trusting the Silence,"
Beginners' Book:
Getting and Staying Sober in AA

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

"We alcoholics are sensitive people. It takes some of us a long time
to outgrow that serious handicap."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, The Family Afterward, pg. 125~

 "Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction
of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of
Light who presides over us all."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Bill's Story, pg. 14~

Nothing short of continuous action upon these as a way of life can bring the much-desired result.
-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p. 40

Misc. AA Literature - Quote

We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual
condition.
We of A.A. obey spiritual principles, at first because we must, then because we ought to, and ultimately because we
love the kind of life such obedience brings. Great suffering and great love are A.A.'s disciplinarians; we need no others.

Prayer for the Day:  Lord, we ask you to inspire us to encourage others by what we say and do today. Amen.

Ask and you shall receive,
Seek and ye shall find,
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Matthew 7:7

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