Patcha

Daily Reflections

GOAL: SANITY

"...Step Two gently and very gradually began to
infiltrate my life. I can't say upon what occasion or
on what day I came to believe in a power greater than
myself, but I certainly have that belief now."
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 27

"Came to believe!" I gave lip service to my belief when
I felt like it or when I thought it would look good. I
didn't really trust God. I didn't believe He cared for
me. I kept trying to change things I couldn't change.
Gradually, in disgust, I began to turn it all over,
saying: "You're so omnipotent, you take care of it." He
did. I began to receive answers to my deepest problems,
sometimes at the most unusual times: driving to work,
eating lunch, or when I was sound asleep. I realized
that I hadn't thought of those solutions--a Power greater
than myself had given them to me. I came to believe.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

When we think about having a drink, we're thinking of
the kick we get out of drinking, the pleasure, the escape
from boredom, the feeling of self-importance and the
companionship of other drinkers. What we don't think of
is the letdown, the hangover, the remorse, the waste of
money, and the facing of another day. In other words,
when we think about that first drink, we're thinking of
all the assets of drinking and none of the liabilities.
What has drinking really got that we haven't got
in A.A.? Do I believe that the liabilities of drinking outweigh
the assets?

Meditation For The Day

I will start a new life each day. I will put the old
mistakes away and start anew each day. God always offers
me a fresh start. I will not be burdened or anxious. If
God's forgiveness were only for the righteous and those
who had not sinned, where would be its need? I believe
that God forgives us all our sins, if we are honestly
trying to live today the way He wants us to live. God
forgives us much and we should be very grateful.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that my life may not be spoiled by worry and fear
and selfishness. I pray that I may have a glad, thankful
and humble heart.

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As Bill Sees It

Moral Responsibility, p. 32

"Some strongly object to the A.A. position that alcoholism is an
illness. This concept, they feel, removes moral responsibility from
alcoholics. As any A.A. knows, this is far from true. We do not use
the concept of sickness to absolve our members from responsibility.
On the contrary, we use the fact of fatal illness to clamp the heaviest
kind of moral obligation onto the sufferer, the obligation to use A.A.'s
Twelve Steps to get well.

"In the early days of his drinking, the alcoholic is often guilty of
irresponsibility. But once the time of compulsive drinking has arrived,
he can't very well be held fully accountable for his conduct. He then
has an obsession that condemns him to drink. and a bodily sensitivity to
alcohol that guarantees his final madness and death.

"But when he is made aware of this condition, he is under pressure to
accept A.A.'s program of moral regeneration."

Talk, 1960

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Walk In Dry Places

Garbage in, Garbage Out

Releasing the Past

One thing we don't need in our lives is garbage from the past. Yet many of us say that old thoughts and bitter memories often sneak devilishly back to spoil what should have been a pleasant day. Why do we let garbage from the past befoul our lives a second time?

Computer programmers use a certain expression when their systems turn up errors: "GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT." If you feed erroneous, useless information into a computer, that's what you get back.
We seem to have built-in computers that work the same way. If we waste time and energy talking about past injustices or old mistakes, we are unwittingly calling them back into our lives. We are bringing back garbage that should have been discarded permanently to make room for better things.

There is no benefit in bringing back old garbage. We can't change the past. We can't change our mistakes by brooding about them, and we can't obtain justice by remembering how badly we were treated or by plotting revenge. When we bring back garbage, we allow it to occupy space that should be devoted to constructive and positive things.

If we don't want garbage in our lives, let's not put it there by bringing up matters that should have been released, forgiven, and forgotten.

I will keep my mind on the present, knowing that a positive attitude will help me make the best of the opportunities that come to me.

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Keep It Simple

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.---Step Two

The Second Step directs us to believe there is hope for us. It may take time to believe this. Many of us had given up hope. But look around. Hope fills our meeting rooms. We are surrounded by miracles. This Power greater than ourselves has healed many. Listen as others tell their stories. They speak of how powerful this Power is. At times, we will not believe. This is normal But in recovery ,"coming to believe" means opening ourselves up to healing power found in the program.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, allow me to believe Help me to stay open to recovery.

Action for the Day: I will list three examples of my past insanity. I will share these examples with my group, sponsor, a program friend, or with my Higher Power. I will remember that I'm a miracle.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 10 - To Employers

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.

p. 139

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

ON THE MOVE - Working the A.A. program showed this alcoholic how to get from geographics to gratitude.

I didn't like A.A. and the people in it for a long time. I didn't trust anyone, and I got tired of sitting at meetings listening to other newcomers as they began to talk of finding God, having their families return to them, being treated with respect by society, and finding some peace of mind. It never occurred to me that they had sponsors and were working the Twelve Steps of recovery. I had what I now call "a sponsor of the month." I always had a sponsor but whenever one of them would "lovingly suggest" I do something, I would fire them and move on to someone else. I remained angry, bitter, and isolated, even though I was going to five to six A.A. meetings per week and was not drinking. At seven months sober I was getting a little bored with A.A. and began to wonder if this was all there was to life. The concept of not drinking again seemed a little extreme, and I thought that perhaps it would be different this time.

pp. 489-490

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Eight - "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all."

When listing the people we have harmed, most of us hit another solid obstacle. We got a pretty severe shock when we realized that we were preparing to make a face-to-face admission of our wretched conduct to those we had hurt. It had been embarrassing enough when in confidence we had admitted these things to God, to ourselves, and to another human being. But the prospect of actually visiting or even writing the people concerned now overwhelmed us, especially when we remembered in what poor favor we stood with most of them. There were cases, too, where we had damaged others who were still happily unaware of being hurt. Why, we cried, shouldn't bygones be bygones? Why do we have to think of these people at all? These were some of the ways in which fear conspired with pride to hinder our making a list of all the people we had harmed.

pp. 78-79

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

Did not these feelings, after all, determine the course of our existence? It was impossible to say we had no capacity for faith, or love, or worship. In one form or another we had been living by faith and little else. - Pg. 54 - We Agnostics

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Practice of the Day-
BB pg 52-
Ch 4- We Agnostics:

We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems this same readiness to change our point of view. 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 - was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight? Of course it was.

When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.

-Tom- One of the first fundamental components of sobriety I had to embrace was this:

My sponsor asked me “Did your way work?” The answer was a very obvious “No”.

I had tried to live life my way and that got me to my bottom. Therefore, the best I could do, on my own, crushed me and everyone and everything that I Loved, and I could not stop drinking.

I had to accept that Truth and then that enabled me to be in a position of attempting another way to live my life. And why not, I had nothing to lose.

I can ask myself “am I attempting to live the 12 Steps and be part of the Fellowship? Or, continuing to follow my own ideas on how I can stay sober?

If your answer is following the new way of practicing the 12 Steps and engaging in the Fellowship, then Continue staying sober and learning how to Live Life without drinking and drugging, one day at a time.

If you answer is that you are following your own ideas, well it is only a matter of time before you drink or drug again. No mystery there.

I pray that today I stay on the Planned program of recovery found in the BB and The Fellowship in AA