Patcha

Daily Reflections

IN ALL OUR AFFAIRS

. . . . we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 106

I find that carrying the message of recovery to other alcoholics is easy because it helps me to stay sober and it provides me with a sense of well-being about my own recovery. The hard part is practicing these principles in all my affairs. It is important that I share the benefits I receive from A.A., especially at home. Doesn't my family deserve the same patience, tolerance and understanding I so readily give to the alcoholic? When reviewing my day I try to ask, "Did I have a chance to be a friend today and miss it?" "Did I have a chance to rise above a nasty situation and avoid it?" "Did I have a chance to say 'I'm sorry,' and refuse to?" Just as I ask God for help with my alcoholism each day, I ask for help in extending my recovery to include all situations and all people!

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

There is some alcoholic thought, conscious or unconscious, that comes before every slip. As long as we live, we must be on the lookout for such thoughts and guard against them. In fact, our A.A. training is mostly to prepare us, to make us ready to recognize such thoughts at once and to reject them at once. The slip comes when we allow such thoughts to remain in our minds, even before we go through the motions of lifting the glass to our lips. The A.A. program is largely one of mental training. How well is my mind prepared?

Meditation For The Day

Fret not your mind with puzzles you cannot solve. The solutions may never be shown to you until you have left this life. The loss of dear ones, the inequality of life, the deformed and the maimed, and many other puzzling things may not be known to you until you reach the life beyond. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot hear them now." Only step by step, stage by stage, can you proceed in your journey into greater knowledge and understanding.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may be content that things which I now see darkly will some day be made clear. I pray that I may have faith that someday I will see face to face.

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As Bill Sees It

The "Slipper" Needs Understanding, p. 99

"Slips can often be charged to rebellion; some of us are more rebellious than others. Slips may be due to the illusion that one can be 'cured' of alcoholism. Slips can also be charged to carelessness and complacency. Many of us fail to ride out these periods sober. Things go fine for two or three years--then the member is seen no more. Some of us suffer extreme guilt because of vices or practices that we can't or won't let go of. Too little self-forgiveness and too little prayer--well, this combination adds up to slips.

"Then some of us are far more alcohol-damaged than others. Still others encounter a series of calamities and cannot seem to find the spiritual resources to meet them. There are those of us who are physically ill. Others are subject to more or less continuous exhaustion, anxiety, and depression. These conditions often play a part in slips--sometimes they are utterly controlling."

Talk, 1960

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Walk In Dry Places

Raising the frustration threshold

Achievement

What happens when we hit snags in our lives? In drinking, it was a common practice to chuck everything and just get drunk. This always made things worse, sometimes so much so that we forgot about the problem that triggered our frustrations. Dealing with frustration is another part of growing up emotionally. Self-understanding in sobriety will help us detect surges of anger and irritation when things aren't going as planned. We'll recognize these feelings as being the same emotions that plagued us in our drinking days. In sobriety, however, we are given choices. We actually do have the choice of pausing, letting the anger drain away, and then taking charge of the situation by knowing that God is working along with us. By doing this, we can eventually raise our threshold of frustration.

If some task or issue makes me angry today, I'll back off and place the outcome in God's hands. I'll know this is working when I have a change in feeling about it.

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Keep It Simple

And to practice these principles in all our affairs. Third part of Step Twelve.

This is a statement about us. We are now people of values. These values reflect our spiritual growth. We know how to help others. We know how to admit our wrongs. We know how to look at ourselves and change our defects. We know how to live an honest life. Step Twelve tells us. "Go use these tools for better living. Go be all you can be. Enjoy life and live a life you can be proud of." Step Twelve also tells us about how to have loving relationships. By the time we complete Step Twelve, we make or regain many relationships. The most important one is with our Higher Power. As we grow in the program, we realize all our relationships are spiritual gifts.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, I now have one face instead of many masks. Help me be a person who will stand before You with pride, not shame.

Action for the Day: Today, I'll talk with a friend and talk about my new values. I will talk about how much my life has changed.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 8 - TO WIVES

Your husband knows he owes you more than sobriety. He wants to make good. Yet you must not expect too much. His ways of thinking and doing are the habits of years. Patience, tolerance, understanding and love are the watchwords. Show him these things in yourself and they will be reflected back to you from him. Live and let live is the rule. If you both show a willingness to remedy your own defects, there will be little need to criticize each other. - p. 118

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

TWICE GIFTED - Diagnosed with cirrhosis, this sick alcoholic got sobriety--plus a lifesaving liver transplant.

Today is Sunday, my favorite day of the week. Things are usually peaceful, and I always get that wonderfully humbling, it's amazing to be alive, feeling. I am happy to say that very few days go by without that feeling. - p. 470

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Five - "Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."

This practice of admitting one's defects to another person is, of course, very ancient. It has been validated in every century, and it characterizes the lives of all spiritually centered and truly religious people. But today religion is by no means the sole advocate of this saving principle. Psychiatrists and psychologists point out the deep need every human being has for practical insight and knowledge of his own personality flaws and for a discussion of them with an understanding and trustworthy person. So far as alcoholics are concerned, A.A. would go even further. Most of us would declare that without a fearless admission of our defects to another human being we could not stay sober. It seems plain that the grace of God will not enter to expel our destructive obsessions until we are willing to try this. - pp. 56-57

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. - Pg. 151 - A Vision For You

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Warriors Anonymous Practice For The Day
BB pg 62-63,
Ch 5- How it Works:
(some of the 3rd step promises)

“This is the how and why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn’t work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom.

When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. We were reborn.”

Tom- I can look at these promises and ask myself “are these occurring in my life, right now?” If the answer is yes, then I continue. If the answer is no, then I must stop and re-position myself, do some work on me and my attitude, then continue. Salvation is free, sobriety is not- it must be worked for on a daily basis.

Today I pray for the strength to do my work in AA.