Patcha

Daily Reflections

THE PERILS OF THE LIMELIGHT

In the beginning, the press could not understand our refusal of all personal publicity. They were genuinely baffled by our insistence upon anonymity. Then they got the point. Here was something rare in the world – a society which said it wished to publicize its principles and its work, but not its individual members. The press was delighted with this attitude. Ever since, these friends have reported A.A. with an enthusiasm which the most ardent members would find hard to match.



TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 182

It is essential for my personal survival and that of the Fellowship that I not use A.A. to put myself in the limelight. Anonymity is a way for me to work on my humility. Since pride is one of my most dangerous shortcomings, practicing humility is one of the best ways to overcome it. The Fellowship of A.A. gains worldwide recognition by its various methods of publicizing its principles and its work, not by its individual members advertising themselves. The attraction created by my changing attitudes and my altruism contributes much more to the welfare of A.A. than self-promotion.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. 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 kind of decent life unless we stay sober. Am I on the A.A. way?

Meditation For The Day

To truly desire to do God's will, therein lies happiness for a human being. We start out wanting our own way. We want our wills to be satisfied. We take and we do not give. Gradually we find that we are not happy when we are selfish, so we begin to make allowances for other peoples' wills. But this again does not give us full happiness, and we begin to see that the only way to be truly happy is to try to do God's will. In these times of meditation, we seek to get guidance so that we can find God's will for us.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may subordinate my will to the will of God. I pray that I may be guided today to find His will for me.

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As Bill Sees It

Do It Our Way? p. 329

In praying, our immediate temptation will be to ask for specific solutions to specific problems, and for the ability to help other people as we have already thought they should be helped. In that case, we are asking God to do it our way. Therefore, we ought to consider each request carefully to see what its real merit is.

Even so, when making specific requests, it will be well to add to each one of them this qualification: ". . . if it be Thy will." - 12 & 12, p. 102

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Walk In Dry Places

Nobody "OD's" on AA. - Balance


Do people really need daily AA meetings, perhaps even two or three a day? Frequent meeting attendance is usually considered beneficial in AA, but non-members may frown on the practice, especially if a person is neglecting other responsibilities in the meantime.

One thing to remember is that nobody can really "OD" on AA. The worst that can happen from attending so many meetings would be eventual boredom from too much of the same thing. But no harm can come from too much of what is essentially a good practice.

If a person is attending lots of meetings, this schedule may eventually be cut back to allow time for other activities. It's better, especially in early recovery, to attend too many meetings than too few. We also have to let each person decide how many meetings are required at any stage in his or her recovery.

I know that everyone needs a balanced life, but that cannot happen without secure recovery. Meetings are may best way of staying active in the fellowship.

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Keep It Simple

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost by minute, day by day, in all the thousands, small, uncaring ways.--- Stephen V. Benet

Our Twelve Step program promises us a new way of life. But most of us won’t just wake up one day with a new attitude. We only gain this new way of life if we get involved. The Twelve Step are tools to build a new life. The more we use a tool, the easier it is to use. The same goes for the Twelve Steps, just as carpenters depend on their tools. If we only wait for the new way of life, it’ll never come. The quicker we get involved, the quicker we’ll get fixed.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me get involved. Help me build a new way of life.

Action for the Day: Today, I’ll look for ways to use the Twelve Steps. If I have a problem, I’ll first stop and think of how the Twelve Steps can help me solve it.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 8 - TO WIVES

We have elsewhere remarked how much better life is when lived on a spiritual plane. If God can solve the age-old riddle of alcoholism, He can solve your problems too. We wives found that, like everybody else, we were afflicted with pride, self-pity, vanity and all the things which go to make up the self-centered person; and we were not above selfishness or dishonesty. As our husbands began to apply spiritual principles in their lives, we began to see the desirability of doing so too. - p. 116

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

LISTENING TO THE WIND - It took an "angel" to introduce this Native American woman to A.A. and recovery.

The A.A. woman made sure I had no more alcohol in the house. She was very tough on me for a long time. I went to meetings every day and started taking the steps. The First Step showed me that I was powerless over alcohol and anything else that threatened my sobriety or muddled my thinking. Alcohol was only a symptom of much deeper problems of dishonesty and denial. Now it was a matter of coming to grips with a Power greater than myself. That was very hard for me. How could all these white people even begin to think they could understand me? So they brought a sober Indian woman up to work with me for a day. That was a very powerful day. That Indian woman cut me no slack at all. I will never forget her. She convinced me I was not unique. She said that these white folks were the best thing that ever happened to me. p. 467

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Four - "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."

Therefore, thoroughness ought to be the watchword when taking inventory. In this connection, it is wise to write out our questions and answers. It will be an aid to clear thinking and honest appraisal. It will be the first tangible evidence of our complete willingness to move forward. p. 54

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult, and in much detail is outside the scope of this book. There are, of course, the psychopaths who are emotionally unstable. We are all familiar with this type. They are over-remorseful and make many resolutions, but never a decision. - Pg. xxx - 4th. Edition - The Doctor's Opinion

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Warriors Anonymous Practice of the Day-
BB pg 67-68-
Ch 5- How It Works:

Notice the word “fear” is bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr Brown, Mrs. Jones, the employer, and the wife. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It is an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn’t deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling? Sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble.

We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them. We asked ourselves why we had them. Wasn’t it because self-reliance failed us? Self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it didn’t go far enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn’t fully solve the fear problem, or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse.

Tom: When I reviewed my fears in my 4th step inventory, I saw that I had been afraid my entire life. Some of my fears were legitimate, some were self created circumstances, some just in my head.

I didn’t like feeling afraid, so I turned it into anger and then into violence and then you would be afraid of me. So that was how I addressed fear prior to AA.

I can ask myself “what is my life and decisions driven by today, fear or love?”

If your answer is fear, then put them on paper and review them, through the process of the 4th Step, then Continue all the way to 12.

If your answer is Love, then Continue doing 10,11,12, living in the Solution, and giving freely of what you find.

I pray that today I remember, I may not know what the future holds, but I know Who holds it.