I started a Web Site in 1999 when I came back into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Tripod decided to block me a few years ago , so I stopped writing, posting. SO I decided to take the posts I had there and put them here. Plus new ones I found on the net and shares of my own. Take what you need and pass on the rest! Blessings ds♥

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Prayer




We learn that prayer is only a wish away. When we wished for recovery more than anything in the world, we found it. Thus our wishes became our prayers. It was that simple.

We discover in recovery that prayer is best when it is a conversation with a Higher Power. It isn’t just a one-way speech where we tell God what we expect to have happen.

Saturday, May 28, 2022

Priorities

From "He Lived Only to Drink"

"I was also able to realize that this bonfire of resentment and rage was beckoning me to pick up a drink and plunge in to my death. Then I realized that I had to separate my sobriety from everything else that was going on in my life. No matter what happened or didn't happen, I couldn't drink. In fact, none of these things that I was going through had anything to do with my sobriety; the tides of life flow endlessly for better or worse, both good and bad, and I cannot allow my sobriety to become dependent on these ups and downs of living. Sobriety must live a life of its own."

2001 AAWS Inc. Fourth Edition
Alcoholics Anonymous, pgs. 450-451

Thursday, May 26, 2022

TURNING NEGATIVE TO POSITIVE



Our spiritual and emotional growth in A.A. does not depend so deeply upon success as it does upon our failures and setbacks. If you will bear this in mind, I think that your slip will have the effect of kicking you upstairs, instead of down.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 184 

In keeping with the pain and adversity which our founders encountered and overcame in establishing A.A., Bill W. sent us a clear message: a relapse can provide a positive experience toward abstinence and a lifetime of recovery.

Sunday, May 22, 2022

Lifting our self-esteem

 



From early infancy onward we all incorporate into our lives the message we receive concerning our self-worth, or lack of self-worth, and this sense of value is to be found beneath our actions and feelings as a tangled network of self-perception.   ~Christina Baldwin~

Lifting our self-esteem is not a particularly easy task for most of us. It's probable that again and again our confidence wavered before we sought help from the program. It's also probable that our confidence still wanes on occasion. The old fears don't disappear without effort.

Steven Tyler performs "Amazing" at Recovery Unplugged

In the Rooms

Thursday, May 19, 2022

Gifts



Life is full of wonderful gifts. Recovery is life’s greatest gift to us. If we’re not excited about being sober, we need to check on ourselves. Are we keeping something secret? Is there a sadness we need to talk about? Are we stuffing anger? These things eat away at our excitement for life.

Many addicts never get the gift of recovery. Those of us in recovery are special. We’ve been given a new life. There will be hard times. But the joy of getting a second chance will be stronger. Am I grateful that I’ve been given recovery?

Prayer for the Day

Action

When man has brought his higher self into action he will see clearly the relation of spirit, soul, and body, in all phases of their action.
- CHARLES FILLMORE

Is Spiritual "order of operations" important?

Charles Fillmore, in the quote above, promises "clear relation of spirit, soul and body in all phases" of action. To some level or varying degree that is what we all want. That is what we were "designed" for. However, there is a contingency to this promise! It requires bringing "his higher self into action" first. Without that vital first step in the process the chosen ideal cannot be met. The way in which we "bring out" our higher self is entirely personal but the way it is utilized is not. Action!

Saturday, May 7, 2022

Despair



Reflection for the Day

So many of us suffer from despair. Yet we don’t realize that despair is purely the absence of faith. As long as we’re willing to turn to a Higher Power for help in our difficulties, we cannot despair. When we’re troubled and can’t see a way out, it’s only because we imagine that all solutions depend on us. The program teaches us to let go of overwhelming problems and let God handle them for us.

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Roots



A tree’s roots seek water and minerals. Though the roots can’t be easily seen, they are there. The life of the tree depends on them. The stronger a tree’s roots, the higher a tree can grow.

We need to set deep roots into the soil of recovery. The soil of recovery is made up of the Twelve Steps, fellowship, and service to others. We’ll have to get through storms and high winds in our return to health.

Monday, May 2, 2022

New value system



Living the Twelve Step way is a twenty‑four‑hour‑a‑day opportunity.

Twelve Step programs expose us to ideas that seem foreign. It takes time to embrace a new value system we can live by every day. Absorbing and using these principles for every decision and action removes the worry from our lives.

Changing how we’ve thought and acted doesn’t happen overnight. Changing one thing at a time is enough at first. Perhaps we’ll give up our feeling of hopelessness. The Second Step tells us that God can free us from our insanity, our hopelessness. All we need do is ask for help, and hope will come. Maybe we decide the urge to take over someone else’s life must end.

Sunday, May 1, 2022

Rely on a Higher Power

 


Sometimes the things that frighten you the most can turn out to be the biggest sources of strength. ~Iris Timberlake

Not many things would send fear through us if we remembered to rely on our Higher Power at all times. Yet we try to handle circumstances ourselves first. It’s often only when we finally feel hopeless that we turn to our Higher Power for the help that awaited us all along.

We make our lives much more difficult than they need to be. Let’s quit thinking through our problems alone, no matter how foolish they seem. Let’s quit trying to handle tough people alone.