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

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

Start the day over

Some days, for all our good intentions, seem to go sour from the start. Maybe we're tired or feeling ill or preoccupied with a problem that seems insurmountable. Maybe we just got up on the wrong side of the bed.

Living one day at a time means getting the most we can out of today. It also means we know today does not have to doom or dictate tomorrow. If we have a bad day today, that's all it is - a bad day. It does not mean we're bad or that the world is against us or that we might as well give in to our worst attitudes and behaviors since nothing is going right anyway. And it does not mean tomorrow will be a bad day, too.

Happiness is a decision

We came into this program desperate for help and perhaps solace too. We were more painful than most. Seeing all the smiles and hearing the laughter of the women and men at the meetings convinced us we were right! Fortunately, we have stuck around long enough to understand where their smiles and laughter are coming from.

The Twelve Steps are suggestions for living one day at a time. When we let the Steps guide our thinking and our actions, we discover that life doesn't have to be painful.

TOLERANCE

Two of my biggest character defects are arrogance and fear. I used to have a hard time tolerating people who are not like me. When I was driven by fear, anger, and shame, I believed they threatened my social position. A normal day for me was filled with frustration and anger at people I didn’t like. Gossip was my language.

After I decided that I was truly powerless over my addiction and that my life had become really unmanageable, I surrendered. I started writing the suggested Step work and had a great awakening. In the 4th Step inventory, I came to the conclusion that I did not like “different people” because I was afraid to be like them. And what were they like? Just like me. I didn't like myself. That was one of the most revealing acknowledgements that were given to me. I have no reason to pick a fight anymore, nor discuss or judge any person. When I meet people I do not like, I know why.

Some useful tools

Before recovery, anything that went wrong – or didn't go my way – easily became an impending disaster. Toothache? Must be a root canal. Boss not smiling? Probably going to get fired. Left to myself, my incessant negative thinking was quick to add dirt to any mole hill until the mountain of imaginary evidence overwhelmed me.

When I entered recovery, my sponsor was quick to point out a few tools I might find useful for my distorted thinking. The first was, “One day at a time.” “You’re not having a root canal, nor are you being fired today, are you?” he asked. “No,” I grudgingly replied. “Then take it easy,” he suggested. Next, he taught me to “Take the next indicated action.” Calling my dentist was a manageable action, whereas worrying endless about an imagined root canal wasn't. Using these and other tools of recovery helped restore me to sanity.

One day at a time

Once I had about 6 months of recovery, I began to feel as if my addiction was finally beginning to be manageable - I didn't crave it all the time, it didn't drive me as it once had, and I found myself thinking more about the steps, my life and the work ahead. The monkey was off my back.
But that didn't mean the circus of my life had left town. With the monkey gone, and my focus now redirected, I was confronted with the damage, the wreckage and the 'circus' of my life and my affairs. What a mess! I felt as if the different areas of my life were like separate Big Top tents - each with its own wild circus act going on, and all out of control. How was I ever to deal with it all?

I will turn to the program

As we look toward the hours ahead, we can be thankful that we need be concerned with only a single day's worth of hours. No more. What may come tomorrow, a decision that might be necessary next week, a big change in our lives coming next year, all will be handled with ease, when the time is right.

How fortunate we are, those of us who share this program for living! Our worries about the future are over, if we want them to be. We need to take only one step at a time. One day at a time. And always in the care of God. Relief from our lives of worry is immediate when we live the axiom, "Let go and let God."

Letting the Good Stuff Happen

I want the second half of my life to be as good as the first half was miserable. Sometimes, I'm afraid it won't be. Sometimes, I'm frightened it might be.

The good stuff can scare us. Change, even good change, can be frightening. In some ways, good changes can be more frightening than the hard times.

The past, particularly before recovery, may have become comfortably familiar. We knew what to expect in our relationships. They were predictable. They were repeats of the same pattern - the same behaviors, the same pain, over and over again. They may not have been what we wanted, but we knew what was going to happen.

This is not so when we change patterns and begins recovering.

We may have been fairly good at predicting events in most areas of our life. Relationships would be painful. We'd be deprived.

One Day At A Time

A.A. Thought for the Day

Anyone can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burden of those two awful eternities, yesterday and tomorrow, that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives us mad. It is the remorse or bitterness from something that happened yesterday or the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Am I living one day at a time?

Meditation for the Day

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 foolishly to repine over the past nor wishfully to day-dream about the future . . . Vision is therefore the very essence of prudence, an essential virtue if ever there was one."
Bill W., 1962 1962 AAWS  Twelve Concepts for World Service, 26th Printing, p. 40

Thought to Consider . . .

The road to recovery is always under construction.

AACRONYMS

O D A A T
One Day At A Time

One day at a time

Thought for the Day

This leaves only one day-today. Anyone can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burden of those two awful eternities, yesterday and tomorrow that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives us mad. It is the remorse or bitterness for something, which happened yesterday, or the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Let us therefore do our best to live but one day at a time. Am I living one day at a time?

Meditation for the Day

24-hour courage

Reflection for the Day

Now that I know I can't use bottled courage, I seek and pray for 24-hour courage to change the things I can. Obviously, this isn't the kind of courage that will make me a strong and brave person for life, able to handle any and all situations courageously. Rather, what I need is a persistent and intelligent courage, continuing each day into the next one - but doing today only what can be done today and avoiding all fear and worry with regard to the final result. What does courage mean to me today?

Today I Pray

Wants or Needs?

"We are taught to differentiate between our wants (which are never satisfied) and our needs (which are always provided for). We cast off the burdens of the past and the anxieties of the future, as we begin to live in the present, one day at a time. We are granted 'the serenity to accept the things we cannot change' - and thus lose our quickness to anger and our sensitivity to criticism."
1976 AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 560

One day at a time

“A body badly burned by alcohol does not often recover overnight nor do twisted thinking and depression vanish in a twinkling. We are convinced that a spiritual mode of living is a most powerful health restorative.”
– Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Ch 9, p 133.

Today, patience to recover and overcome the years of physical, emotional and spiritual abuse to which I subjected my entire being with alcohol. The promise of a spiritual remedy we need –

Living life in the present

The future you shall know when it has come; before then, forget it.
-- Aeschylus
The Fellowship keeps us grounded in the current moment. We learn to live today. Our planning and scheming and dreaming about tomorrow becomes less time consuming. The idea of living one day at a time makes sense to us. Our Program teaches us that life is not about to happen, it is happening, and each moment is important.

When we concentrated only on the future, we couldn't be happy with today. We thought if we could only get to tomorrow, things would be better.

Keep It Simple

What we don’t live, we cannot teach others. -Day By Day

Remember – we don’t carry the message to others until we get to StepTwelve. We must first learn to live in a sober way. Sobriety takes time.We have to stop using alcohol and other drugs, but this is only the start.Just as it takes time to build a home, it takes time to build a new way of
life.
 
We talk with friends and sponsors about the Steps. We try using them in out lives. Then we talk about how the Steps work for us. We talk about where we get stuck with the Steps.

We simply live in this moment

I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.
  —Albert Camus

We live our program in one-day portions - and our actions today have immediate consequences. For instance, if we listen to a brother or a sister in the program, we may be enriched and the other person strengthened for today's challenge. We don't have to confront every temptation of life on this day - only the portion we can handle. Our old insanity would have us predict the entire story of our future from today's limited viewpoint. But our spiritual orientation guides us to restrain ourselves. We simply live in this moment.

Worry and Stress

"Make plans but don't plan results." This is a simple phrase cautioning us against unnecessary worry and stress.


If our plans involve other people, we would be wise to work joyfully toward realizing our dreams, but we should not expect or worry if others do not want the same goals. Nor should we worry if others are not as enthused about our ideas as we are. We know, by applying the Serenity Prayer, that we can only change ourselves; we cannot force changes in others.

Getting started takes some time

Getting started takes some time

Joining a new spiritual community is always confusing and disturbing at the beginning. If the path is familiar, it's not new.

Everyone feels as if they have come in in the middle of the movie.

For me, the whole idea of a spiritual path was a major change. At first I didn't get it and I didn't want it. I kept coming back though, because at the end of each experience I felt better than at the beginning.