Spiritual Vision

A.A. Thought for the Day

By submitting to God, we are released from the power of liquor. It has no more hold on us. We are also released from the things that were holding us down: pride, selfishness, and fear. And we are free to grow into a new life, which is so much better than the old life that there's no comparison. This release gives us serenity and peace with the world. Have I been released from the power of alcohol?

Meditation for the Day

We know God by spiritual vision. We feel that He is beside us. We feel His presence. Contact with God is not made by the senses. Spirit-consciousness replaces sight. Since we cannot see God, we have to perceive Him by spiritual perception. God has to span the physical and the spiritual with the gift to us of spiritual vision.
 

Expectations

"My serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations. The higher my expectations of other people are, the lower is my serenity. I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations. But then my 'rights' try to move in, and they, too, can force my serenity level down. I have to discard my 'rights,' as well as my expectations, by asking myself, 'How important is it, really? How important is it compared to my serenity, my emotional sobriety?' And when I place more value on my serenity and sobriety than on anything else, I can maintain them at a higher level - at least for the time being."

Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition p. 420

Thought to Consider . . .

Our strength cannot compete with God's weakness.

AACRONYMS

G R A C E
Gently Releasing All Conscious Expectations

Higher Power

A.A. Thought for the Day

Men and women keep coming into A.A., licked by alcohol, often given up by doctors as hopeless cases, they themselves admitting they're helpless to stop drinking. When I see these men and women get sober and stay sober over a period of months and years, I know that A.A. works. The change I see in people who come into A.A., not only convinces me that A.A. works, but it also convinces me that there must be a Power greater than ourselves which helps us to make that change. Am I convinced that a Higher Power can help me to change?

Meditation for the Day

Cooperation with God is the great necessity for our lives. All else follows naturally. Cooperation with God is the result of our consciousness of His presence.

Gratitude

 

"One exercise that I practice is to try for a full inventory of my blessings and then for a right acceptance of the many gifts that are mine - both temporal and spiritual. Here I try to achieve a state of joyful gratitude. When such a brand of gratitude is repeatedly affirmed and pondered, it can finally displace the natural tendency to congratulate myself on whatever progress I may have been enabled to make in certain areas of living. I try hard to hold fast to the truth that a full and thankful heart cannot entertain great conceits. When brimming with gratitude, one's heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love, the finest emotion that we can ever know."

Bill W., Box 1980: The AA Grapevine, March 1962
As Bill Sees It, p. 37


Thought to Consider . . .

It's a pity we can't forget our troubles
the same way we forget our blessings.

AACRONYMS

G I F T S
Getting It From The Steps

Coping With Stress

Inevitably, there are times of stress in our lives, no matter how long we've been in recovery.

Sometimes, the stress is outside or around us. We're feeling balanced, but our circumstances are stressful. Sometimes, the stress is within; we feel out of balance.

When the stress is external and internal, we experience our most difficult times.

During stressful times, we can rely more heavily on our support systems. Our friends and groups can help us feel more balanced and peaceful in spite of our stressful conditions.

Anger

Surges of anger may come to us unbidden, but we don’t have to let anger lead us around by the nose. Allowing anger to color our attitudes and control our behavior is entirely up to us. Many of us are ruled by anger. This is destructive, both physically and spiritually. Not only is anger a corrosive emotion that eats at our stomach lining and our serenity, it also separates us from our Higher Power.

Many of us find relief from anger in our Twelve Step recovery programs. We learn to accept things we can’t change. Our furious reactions to people, places, and things that are not under our control subside when we turn them over to God.

Boundaries

Our boundaries are both inside and outside ourselves. No one can set them for us; only we can set them. When we come into recovery, boundaries are often unfamiliar. We may wonder, what are they? How do we use them? Many of us come from families where, as children, our boundaries were disregarded, creating a pattern we continue to act on as adults.

Starting to set boundaries for ourselves takes time and practice. Because the experience is unfamiliar, we may often find ourselves veering between two extremes—holding back for fear of blurring our boundaries or acting as if we have no boundaries at all.
 

Fear

The trouble with deep feelings is they shout over the soft-spoken voices of our thoughts. When our consciousness is bombarded with the deafening volume of out-of-control emotions, perspective is impossible.

When fear is in control, fight or flight are our only options. More often than not, we choose flight and scurry off to one of our numerous hiding places. There, we can’t hear the dissenting opinions voiced by our own thoughts; in effect, our most responsible self is drowned out.

Old habits are hard to break.

 

Our behavior and beliefs were ingrained by the time we entered the Twelve Step program. Our family of origin had taught us how to interpret our experiences. Our friends had complimented us for our values, or for the absence of them. So we had developed stock responses to many situations. We didn’t think very hard or long about what to do. Unfortunately, we made many mistakes.

We are learning from those mistakes now, and we are slowly developing new responses. We are learning how to listen rather than how to shame or try to control. We are learning how to let other people make their own decisions.

 

On the path we are following, confession is a frequent part of our experience. We admit our powerlessness; we make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and admit our wrongs; we make amends to people we have harmed; and we continue with personal inventory, promptly admitting our wrongs. With each of these Steps, we grow spiritually. By expressing on the outside what we privately know inside, we feel relief and gain self-respect.

A LIFETIME PROCESS

We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people.           ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 52

These words remind me that I have more problems than alcohol, that alcohol is only a symptom of a more pervasive disease. When I stopped drinking I began a lifetime process of recovery from unruly emotions, painful relationships, and unmanageable situations.
 

Intellectualizing

 

Don’t intellectualize, utilize.

~Anonymous

Many times we waste our minds by using them too much. A mind out of control can waste a life. Our mind can tell us we are better or less than another. It can tell us we need things we don’t, and that we should fear situations we needn’t. The power of the mind to intellectualize a life into a mess is amazing.

Our program should be utilized not intellectualized. We do not need to waste time debating points about the program.