Telling the truth

Lying can be like sailing choppy waters. The more we lie, the higher the waves get, and the harder the sailing. When we lie, we feel we've failed ourselves and others. We have to work hard to cover up our lies, and the fear of someone finding out is always with us.

If we ask God for courage to tell the truth, we can be like the sailboat on a clear and calm day. We can enjoy the small waves and the light warm breeze we've given ourselves. Honesty is a good habit, and is easy. With a little faith in our own worth, we can choose the calm waters' honesty and apply our creativity to new, growth-oriented activities instead of covering up old mistakes.

How can I smooth my waters right now?

From Today's Gift

PROBLEM SOLVING

"Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems."

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 42

Through the recovery process described in the Big Book, I have come to realize that the same instructions that work on my alcoholism, work on much more. Whenever I am angry or frustrated, I consider the matter a manifestation of the main problem within me, alcoholism. As I "walk" through the Steps, my difficulty is usually dealt with long before I reach the Twelfth "suggestion," and those difficulties that persist are remedied when I make an effort to carry the message to someone else. These principles do solve my problems! I have not encountered an exception, and I have been brought to a way of living which is satisfying and useful.

Accept every challenge

Thought for the Day

To the extent that I fail in my responsibilities, A.A. fails. To the extent that I succeed, A.A. succeeds. Every failure of mine will set back A.A. work to that extent. Every success of mine will put A.A. ahead to that extent. I shall not wait to be drafted for service to others, but I shall volunteer. I shall accept every opportunity to work for A.A. as a challenge, and I shall do my best to accept every challenge and perform my task as best I can. Will I accept every challenge gladly?

Meditation for the Day

ACCEPTING SUCCESS OR FAILURE

Furthermore, how shall we come to terms with seeming failure or success? Can we now accept and adjust to either without despair or pride? Can we accept poverty, sickness, loneliness, and bereavement with courage and serenity? Can we steadfastly content ourselves with the humbler, yet sometimes more durable, satisfactions when the brighter, more glittering achievements are denied us?
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 112

After I found A.A. and stopped drinking, it took a while before I understood why the First Step contained two parts: my powerlessness over alcohol, and my life's manageability. In the same way, I believed for a long time that, in order to be in tune with the Twelve Steps, it was enough for me "to carry this message to alcoholics." That was rushing things. I was forgetting that there were a total of Twelve Steps and that the Twelfth Step also had more than one part. Eventually I learned that it was necessary for me to "practice these principles" in all areas of my life. In working all the Steps thoroughly, I not only stay sober and help someone else to achieve sobriety, but also I transform my difficulty with living into a joy of living.

Daily Reflections

Thank you

Thank you is one of the most important things we can say to anyone. Thank you packs a lot of meaning into two little words. Thank you says, "I see you. I see what you have done for me. You have been kind to me. I know it takes work to be kind. I feel special that you did the work of being kind to me. I am grateful."
Sometimes it is hard for us to say thank you because we are too busy feeling shame or sadness or anger. So what? No excuses. Those feelings are our own problems, and we know what to do about them now that we have a recovery program. No matter what is going on with us, we can always find help. And we can always be kind to others. Saying thank you is an easy way to start.
Prayer for the Day

Getting Through the Holidays

For some, the sights, signs, and smells of the holidays bring joy and a warm feeling. But, while others are joyously diving into the season, some of us are dipping into conflict, guilt, and a sense of loss.

We read articles on how to enjoy the holidays, we read about the Christmas blues, but many of us still can't figure out how to get through the holiday season. We may not know what a joyous holiday would look and feel like.

Many of us are torn between what we want to do on the holiday, and what we feel we have to do. We may feel guilty because we don't want to be with our families. We may feel a sense of loss because we don't have the kind of family to be with that we want. Many of us, year after year, walk into the same dining room on the same holiday, expecting this year to be different. Then we leave, year after year, feeling let down, disappointed, and confused by it all.

How does God look to me today

God is many things to different people. Some call God "Father," others "Mother," still others "Higher Power," "Inner Light," "Deeper Self," and "Supreme Being."

It doesn't matter what name we use. No one name is ever fully adequate, and each of us has our own private way of trying to understand that which we can't ever understand fully. We give God names, which attempt to express what God means to us personally, what God does for us as individuals, and how we see ourselves in relation to God.

Could it also be true that other people can't be labelled and put into one box?

New Life

Thought for the Day
We have been given a new life just because we happened to become alcoholics. We certainly don't deserve the new life that has been given us. There is little in our past to warrant the life we have now. Many people live good lives from their youth on, not getting into serious trouble, being well adjusted to life, and yet they have not found all that we drunks have found. We had the good fortune to find Alcoholics Anonymous and with it a new life. We are among the lucky few in the world who have learned a new way to live. Am I deeply grateful for the new life that I have learned in A.A.?

Meditation for the Day

Our lives can be like a battle

Our lives can be like a battle between darkness and light. The darkness might be in our moods when we wake in the morning with feelings of despair. Then we can turn to the light of a prayer for openness: "God help me feel your love and acceptance." The darkness is there when we are tempted to take advantage of a clerk who gives us too much change. Perhaps we tell ourselves, "Everyone does it, it won't matter if I do."

Then the light comes as we remember that this program demands rigorous honesty, and each choice for honesty promotes our growth. The darkness may be when someone we care about is hurt or in danger, and we think, "I have to step in to prevent bad things from happening."

Turn away from what's troubling us

Sometimes we need to turn away from what's troubling us. Turn it over, says the Third Step. hanging onto a situation for which no solution is immediately apparent, only exaggerates the situation. It is often said the solution to any problem lies within it. However, turning the problem over and over in our minds keeps our attention on the outer appearance, not the inner solution.

Rest, meditation, quiet attention to other matters, other persons, opens the way for God to reveal the solution. Every problem can be resolved. And no answer is ever withheld for long. We need to be open to it, though.

Good Things Coming

Do not worry about how the good that has been planned for you will come.

It will come.

Do not worry, obsess, and think you have to control it, go out hunting for it, or tangle your mind trying to figure out how and when it will find you.

It will find you.

Surrender to your Higher Power each day. Trust your Higher Power. Then, stay peaceful. Trust and listen to yourself. That is how the good you want will come to you.

Your healing. Your joy. Your relationships. Your solutions. That job. That desired change. That opportunity. It will come to you - naturally, with ease, and in a host of ways.

Distorted

Thought for the Day

As we look back over our drinking careers, we must realize that our lives were a mess because we were a mess inside. The trouble was in us, not in life itself. Life itself was good enough, but we were looking at it the wrong way. We were looking at life through the bottom of a whiskey glass, and it was distorted. We could not see all the beauty and goodness and purpose in the world because our vision was blurred. We were in a house with one-way glass in the windows. People could see us but we could not look out and see them and see what life meant to them and should mean to us. We were blind then, but now we can see. Can I now look at life as it really is?

Meditation for the Day

UNDERSTANDING THE MALADY

When dealing with an alcoholic, there may be a natural annoyance that a man could be so weak, stupid and irresponsible. Even when you understand the malady better, you may feel this feeling rising.ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 139

Having suffered from alcoholism, I should understand the illness, but sometimes I feel annoyance, even contempt, toward a person who cannot make it in A.A. When I feel that way, I am satisfying my false sense of superiority and I must remember, but for the grace of God, there go I.

from the book Daily Reflections

Alternatives

If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives. One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could, and the other, to accept spiritual help. This we did because we honestly wanted to, and were willing to make the effort.
c. 1976 2001 AAWS
Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 25-6

Thought to Consider . . . 

If you always do what you've always done, you will always be where you've always been.

AACRONYMS

A B C
Acceptance, Belief, Change.

Get outside of ourselves

Have we each found an activity that takes us outside of ourselves? An activity that gives us a place to focus our attention? Being self-centered and focused on ourselves accompanies the illness we're struggling to recover from. The decision to quit preoccupying on ourselves, our own struggles with life, is not easy to maintain. But when we have an activity that excites us, on which we periodically concentrate our attention, we are strengthened. And the more we get outside of ourselves, the more aware we become that "all is well."

It seems our struggles are intensified as women(men). So often we face difficult situations at work and with children, alone. The preoccupation with our problems exaggerates them. And the vicious cycle entraps us.

What am I ?....

Thought for the Day

The skeptic and the agnostic say it is impossible for us to find the answer to life. Many have tried and failed. But many more have put aside intellectual pride and have said to themselves: Who am I to say there is no God? Who am I to say there is no purpose in life? The atheist makes a declaration: "The world originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere." Others live for the moment and do not even think about why they are here or where they are going. They might as well be clams on the bottom of the ocean, protected by their hard shells of indifference. They are going nowhere and they do not care. Do I care where I am going?

Meditation for the Day

Accept a compliment

We sometimes find it difficult to accept a compliment. We may feel we don't deserve such attention, and point out reasons why the compliment is untrue. When we act this way, we show a lack of love for ourselves.

God teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Yet, before we can love anyone, we must believe we are worthy of the same love. No creature is undeserving of love, God reminds us of that.

Solution

"There is a solution. Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings, which the process requires for its successful consummation. But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it . . . We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed."
c. 2001 AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous
Fourth Edition p. 25

Thought to Consider . . .

The solution is simple. The solution is spiritual.

AACRONYMS

H O P E
Happy Our Program Exists

Random Quote - Daily Acceptance

"Too much of my life has been spent in dwelling upon the faults of others. This is a most subtle and perverse form of self-satisfaction, which permits us to remain comfortably unaware of our own defects. Too often we are heard to say, 'If it weren't for him (or her), how happy I'd be!'"

"Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are, ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even begin. Again and again, we shall need to return to that unflattering point of departure.

During my drinking years, my one and only concern was to have my fellow man think highly of me. My ambition in everything I did was to have the power to be at the top. My inner self kept telling me something else but I couldn't accept it.
 
I didn't even allow myself to realize that I wore a mask continually. Finally, when the mask came off and I cried out to the only God I could conceive, the Fellowship of A.A., my group and the Twelve Steps were there.

Serenity

"So, here I am, sober. Successful. Serene. Just a few of the gifts of the program for surrendering, suiting up, and showing up for life every day. Good days and bad days, reality is a wild ride, and I wouldn't miss it for the world. I don't question how this program works. I trust in my God, stay involved in A.A. service, go to lots of meetings, work with others, and practice the principles of the Steps to the best of my willingness each day. I don't know which of these keeps me sober, and I'm not about to try to find out. It's worked for quite a few days now, so I think I'll try it again tomorrow."
c. 2001 AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous
Fourth Edition p. 337

Thought to Consider . . .

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

AACRONYMS
L O V E
Living Our Valuable Experiences

Empowerment

You can think. You can make good decisions. You can make choices that are right for you.

Yes, we all make mistakes from time to time. But we are not mistakes.

We can make a new decision that takes new information into account.

We can change our mind from time to time. That's our right too.

We don't have to be intellectuals to make good choices. In recovery, we have a gift and a goal available to each of us. The gift is called wisdom.

God's guidance

Thought for the Day

Our drinking fellowship was a substitute one, for lack of something better. At the time, we did not realize what real fellowship could be. Drinking fellowship has a fatal fault. It is not based on a firm foundation. Most of it is on the surface. It is based mostly on the desire to use your companions for your own pleasure, and using others is a false foundation. Drinking fellowship has been praised in song and story. The "cup that cheers" has become famous as a means of companionship. But we realize that the higher centers of our brains are dulled by alcohol and such fellowship cannot be on the highest plane. It is at best only a substitute. Do I see my drinking fellowship in its proper light?

Meditation for the Day

Valuing Our Needs

Maybe others taught us it wasn't polite or appropriate to speak up for ourselves. The truth is, if we don't, our unmet wants and needs may ultimately come back to haunt our relationships. We may end up feeling angry or resentful, or we may begin to punish someone else for not guessing what we need. We may end the relationship because it doesn't meet our needs.

Intimacy and closeness are only possible in a relationship when both people can say what they want and need. Sustained intimacy demands this.

Sometimes, we may even have to demand what we want. That's called setting a boundary. We do this not to control another person, but to gain control of our life.

Quality Sobriety

Thought for the Day

The length of time of our sobriety is not as important as its quality. A person who has been in A.A. for a number of years may not be in as good mental condition as a person who has only been in a few months. It is a great satisfaction to have been an A.A. member for a long time and we often mention it. It may sometimes help the newer members, because they may say to themselves, "If they can do it, I can do it." And yet the older members must realize that as long as they live, they are only one drink away from a drunk. What is the quality of my sobriety?

Meditation for the Day

Temptation

Thought for the Day

People who have had a slip are ashamed of themselves - sometimes so ashamed that they fear to go back to A.A. They develop the old inferiority complex and tell themselves that they are no good that they have let down their friends in A.A., that they are hopeless, and that they can never make it. This state of mind is perhaps worse than it was originally. They have probably been somewhat weakened by their slip. But their A.A. training cannot ever be entirely lost. They always know they can go back if they want to. They know there is still God's help for them if they will again ask for it. Do I believe that I can never entirely lose what I have learned in A.A.?

Meditation for the Day

Perfectionism

I was so mixed up I tried to be perfect at avoiding perfectionism!
-- Kathryn G.

One woman said she called one of her cats by the other cat's name and as a result spent the next two hours depressed. Most of us don't go that far with perfectionism, but we still make unreasonable demands of ourselves.

The "one year" test is a good one for perfectionism: "If I (fill in the blank), what difference will it make in a year?" Some things will be important in a year. Making meetings, contacting our sponsor, communing with our Higher Power, and being honest with ourselves and others are all important. And we should be concerned when we fail.

Old way of thinking

A.A. Thought for the Day

In spite of all we have learned in A.A., our old way of thinking comes back on us, sometimes with overwhelming force, and occasionally some of us have slips. We forget or refuse to call on the Higher Power for help. We seem to deliberately make our minds a blank so far as A.A. training goes, and we take a drink. We eventually get drunk. We are temporarily right back where we started from. Those who have had slips say unanimously that they were no fun. They say A.A. had taken all the pleasure out of drinking. They knew they were doing the wrong thing. The old mental conflict was back in full force. They were disgusted with themselves. Am I convinced that I can never get anything more out of drinking?
Meditation for the Day

Difficult People

Few things can make us feel crazier than expecting something from someone who has nothing to give. Few things can frustrate us more than trying to make a person someone he or she isn't; we feel crazy when we try to pretend that person is someone he or she is not. We may have spent years negotiating with reality concerning particular people from our past and our present. We may have spent years trying to get someone to love us in a certain way, when that person cannot or will not.

It is time to let it go. It is time to let him or her go. That doesn't mean we can't love that person anymore. It means that we will feel the immense relief that comes when we stop denying reality and begin accepting. We release that person to be who he or she actually is. We stop trying to make that person be someone he or she is not. We deal with our feelings and walk away from the destructive system.

We learn to love and care differently in a way that takes reality into account.

Change thoughts

A.A. Thought for the Day

If we allow an alcoholic thought to lodge in our minds for any length of time, we are in danger of having a slip. Therefore we must dispel such thoughts at once, by refusing their admittance and by immediately putting constructive thoughts in their place. Remember that alcohol is poison to you. Remember that it is impossible for you to drink normally. Remember that one drink will lead to others and you will eventually be drunk. Remember what happened to you in the past as a result of your drinking. Think of every reason you have learned in A.A. for not taking that drink. Fill your mind with constructive thoughts. Am I keeping my thoughts constructive?

Meditation for the Day

Rewards

"The rewards of sobriety are bountiful and as progressive as the disease they counteract. Certainly among these rewards for me are release from the prison of uniqueness, and the realization that participation in the A.A. way of life is a blessing and a privilege beyond estimate - a blessing to live a life free from the pain and degradation of drinking and filled with the joy of useful, sober living, and a privilege to grow in sobriety one day at a time and bring the message of hope as it was brought to me."

From the new Fourth Edition of Alcoholics AnonymousAA Grapevine, December 2001, p. 47

Thought to Consider . . .

Sobriety is a choice and a treasure.

AACRONYMS

G I F T S
Getting It From The Steps

Pain

"Though I still find it difficult to accept today's pain and anxiety with any great degree of serenity - as those more advanced in the spiritual life seem able to do - I can give thanks for present pain nevertheless. I find the willingness to do this by contemplating the lessons learned from past suffering - lessons which have led to the blessings I now enjoy. I can remember how the agonies of alcoholism, the pain of rebellion and thwarted pride, have often led me to God's grace, and so to a new freedom."

Bill W., Grapevine, March 1962
c. 1967 AAWS, As Bill Sees It, p. 266

Thought to Consider . . .

Joy isn't the absence of pain - it's the presence of God.


AACRONYMS
F A I L U R E
Fearful, Arrogant, Insecure, Lonely, Uncertain, Resentful, Empty

Rejoicing

A quality we all share, a very human quality, is to expect perfection from ourselves, to expect the impossible in all tasks done. We must rejoice for the good we do. Each time we pat ourselves on the back for a job well done, our confidence grows a little bit more. Recovery is best measured by our emotional and spiritual health, expressed in our apparent confidence and trust in "the process."

We need to recognize and celebrate our strong points, and they'll gain even more strength. Likewise, we need to practice prayer and listening to guidance first to develop our ties to God, but more importantly to be able to acknowledge when help is at hand. We can do all we need to do with God's help.

Belief

"One of the oldtimers used the electricity metaphor, which I later found in the Big Book. 'A person walking into a dark room does not worry about understanding electricity,' he said. 'He just finds the switch and turns on the light.'
 

 He explained that we can turn on the switch of spirituality by simply asking God each morning for another day of sobriety and thanking Him at night for another beautiful sober day.
 
 He said, 'Do it mechanically if you really don't believe in it. But do it every day. There is probably no one who really understands the wonderful ways of the Higher Power, and we don't need to. He understands us.'"

1973 AAWS Inc.
Came to Believe, 30^th printing 2004, pg. 30
from" He Took Control"

Letting People Be There for Us

Sometimes, we need nurturing. Sometimes, we need people to support us.

Many of us have been deprived of support and nurturing for so long we may not realize it's something we want and need. Many of us have learned to block our stop ourselves from getting what we want and need.

We may not reach out to have our needs met. We may be in relationships with people who cannot or will not be available to meet our needs. Or we may be in relationships with people who would be happy to respond to a direct request from us.

We may have to give up something to do this. We may have to let go of our martyr or victim role. If we ask for what we want and need, and get those needs met, we will not be able to punish people, or push them away later on, for disappointing us.

Awareness

When we first become aware of a problem, a situation, or a feeling, we may react with anxiety or fear. There is no need to fear awareness. No need.

Awareness is the first step toward positive change and growth. It's the first step toward solving the problem, or getting the need met, the first step toward the future. It's how we focus on the next lesson.

Awareness is how life, the Universe, and our Higher Power get our attention and prepare us for change. The process of becoming changed begins with awareness. Awareness, acceptance, and change - that's the cycle.

Learning self-acceptance

Learning self-acceptance, and then loving the selves we are, present perhaps our two biggest hurdles to the attainment of emotional and spiritual health. Fortunately, they are not insurmountable hurdles. The program offers ready assistance.

Women everywhere are making great strides in self-love and self-acceptance. We are learning self-love. And we are changing. The support we can give our sisters, and the support we receive, multiplies many times the healthy energy created - healthy energy that touches us all.

Emotional and spiritual health are gifts promised by the program, when we work it. We must move beyond our perfectionism and relish our humanness.

Vision

"Vision is, I think, the ability to make good estimates, both for the immediate and for the more distant future. Some might feel this sort of striving to be a sort of heresy, because we A.A.'s are constantly telling ourselves, "One day at a time." But that valuable principle really refers to our mental and emotional lives and means chiefly that we are not to foolishly repine over the past nor wishfully day-dream about the future . . . Vision is therefore the very essence of prudence, an essential virtue if ever there was one. Of course we shall often miscalculate the future in whole or in part, but that is better than to refuse to think at all."
Bill W., 1962

c. 1962 AAWS
Twelve Concepts for World Service, 26th printing, p. 40

Gift of freedom

Reflection for the Day

Among the many gifts that we are offered in The Program is the gift of freedom. Paradoxically, however, the gift of freedom is not without a price tag; freedom can only be achieved by paying the price called acceptance. Similarly, if we can surrender to God's guidance, it will cost us our self-will, that "commodity" so precious to those of us who have always thought we could and should run the show. Is my freedom today worth the price tag of acceptance?

Today I Pray

May God teach me acceptance - the ability to accept the things I cannot change. God also grant me courage to change those things I can. God help me to accept the illness of my addiction and give me the courage to change my addictive behavior.

Today I Will Remember

Accept the addiction. Change the behavior.

You are reading from the book:

A Day at a Time (Softcover) by Anonymous

Refuge

From "for A.A.s, a Season of Gratitude" 

The holiday season can be difficult for many A.A.s, especially the newcomer. The pressure to drink may feel overwhelming when it seems all the world is hoisting glasses in one toast after another. At these times, the prospect of the usual round of holiday parties can be as inviting as a stroll in a minefield to the alcoholic struggling to stay away from the first drink.
 

 
The A.A. group, though, can be a refuge. Meeting marathons provide a safe place for recovering alcoholics who are on their own, as well as those looking for a break from family festivities. Some groups schedule dances or potluck dinners, providing a place to congregate and celebrate in sober fellowship. 

Sobriety

Thought for the Day

The way of A.A. is the way of sobriety, fellowship, service, and faith. Let us take up each one of these things and see if our feet are truly on the way. The first and greatest to us is sobriety. The others are built on sobriety as a foundation. We could not have the others if we did not have sobriety. We all come to A.A. to get sober, and we stay to help others get sober. We are looking for sobriety first, last, and all the time. We cannot build any decent kind of a life unless we stay sober. Am I on the A.A. way?

Meditation for the Day

We can Trust Ourselves

"The last mistake I made almost cost me my sanity," said one recovering woman who married a sex addict. "I can't afford to make another mistake like that."

Many of us have trusted people, who went on to deceive, abuse, manipulate, or otherwise exploit us because we trusted them. We may have found these people charming, kind, and decent. There may have been a small voice that said, "No - something's wrong." Or we may have been comfortable with trusting that person and shocked when we found our instincts were wrong.

The issue may then reverberate through our life for years. Our trust in others may have been shaken, but our trust in ourselves may have been shattered worse.