Patcha

Daily Reflections

UNDERSTANDING THE MALADY

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.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 139

Having suffered from alcoholism, I should understand the illness, but sometimes I feel annoyance, even contempt, toward a person who cannot make it in A.A. When I feel that way, I am satisfying my false sense of superiority and I must remember, but for the grace of God, there go I.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

The sceptic and the agnostic say it is impossible for us to find the answer to life. Many have tried and failed. But many have put aside intellectual pride and have said to themselves: Who am I to say there is no God? Who am I to say there is no purpose in life? The atheist makes a declaration: "The world originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere." Others live for the moment and do not even think about why they are here or where they are going. They might as well be clams on the bottom of the ocean, protected by their hard shells of indifference. They do not care. Do I care where I am going?

Meditation For The Day

We may consider the material world as the clay which the artist works with, to make of it something beautiful or ugly. We need not fear material things, which are neither good nor bad in the moral sense. There seems to be no active force for evil--outside of human beings themselves. Humans alone can have either evil intentions--resentments, malevolence, hate and revenge--or good intentions--love and good will. They can make something ugly or something beautiful out of the clay of their lives.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may make something beautiful out of my life. I pray that I may be a good artisan of the materials which I have been given to use.

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As Bill Sees It

Behind Our Excuses, p.267

As excuse-makers and rationalizers, we drunks are champions. It is the business of the psychiatrist to find the deeper causes for our conduct. Though uninstructed in psychiatry, we can, after a little time in A.A., see that our motives have not been what we thought they were, and that we have been motivated by forces previously unknown to us. Therefore we ought to look, with the deepest respect, interest, and profit, upon the example set us by psychiatry.

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"Spiritual growth through the practice of A.A.'s Twelve Steps, plus the aid of a good sponsor, can usually reveal most of the deeper reasons for our character defects, at least to a degree that meets our practical needs. Nevertheless, we should be grateful that our friends in psychiatry have so strongly emphasized the necessity to search for false and often unconscious motivations."

1. A.A. Comes Of Age, p.236
2. Letter, 1966

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Walk In Dry Places

Deadlines

Facing delays

The procrastination of our drinking years caused some of us to become compulsive and fearful about meeting deadlines. We fret and stew if we're unable to get things done when we think they should be completed.

Without being careless or irresponsible, we should remember that we're really living in a spiritual world on a spiritual basis. There are times when a delay even turns out to be beneficial because additional information or assistance turns up later on to ensure the success of a project.

It is part of mature living to keep promises and to meet the proper deadlines. Let's be sure, however, that we're not simply meeting unrealistic deadlines of our own making. We don't have to do this to atone for any failures of the past.

I'll look over my plans today to make sure that I haven't set any unrealistic deadlines for myself. I may be trying too much, too soon.

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Keep It Simple

The truth is more important than the facts. --Frank Lloyd Wright.

Before recovery, we relied on false facts about addiction. We said things like, "I can quit anytime I want." "If you had my family, you'd drink too." The truth is, we were out of control. We couldn't manage our lives. We were sick. We were scared. When others pointed out this truth to us, we denied it. Honesty, the backbone of our program, is about truth. We even start our meetings with the truth about who we are. "Hi, my name is ___________, and I'm an alcoholic," or "Hi, my name is _______________, and I'm a drug addict." The truth frees us from our addiction. The truth heals us and gives us comfort. It's like a blanket on a cold winter night.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me be an honest person. I pray for the strength to face the truth and speak it.

Action for the Day: Today, I'll list 3 ways I have used facts in a dishonest way.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 9 - The Family Afterwards

This painful past may be of infinite value to other families still struggling with their problem. We think each family which has been relieved owes something to those who have not, and when the occasion requires, each member of it should be only too willing to bring former mistakes, no matter how grievous, out of their hiding places. Showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worth while to us now. Cling to the thought that, in God’s hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have—the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them. - p. 124

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

BUILDING A NEW LIFE - Hallucinating and restrained by sheriff's deputies and hospital staff, this once-happy family man received an unexpected gift from God--a firm foundation in sobriety that would hold up through good times and bad.

At thirteen I was tall, strong, and looked older. My aunt and uncle had sent me to live with a family in a larger town to get schooling they hoped would help me. I went around with guys who were eighteen, and they took me to a Halloween party. I almost choked on the first sip of whiskey they were passing around, but by the second sip, I thought it was pretty good stuff. It made me feel like one of the guys. It didn't matter that I was only thirteen; I felt just as old as they were. By the end of the night, I had passed out in the outhouse and had to be carried home by a friend. - p. 477

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Six - "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character."

In A.A. meetings all over the world, statements just like this are heard daily. It is plain for everybody to see that each sober A.A. member has been granted a release from this very obstinate and potentially fatal obsession. So in a very complete and literal way, all A.A.'s have "become entirely ready" to have God remove the mania for alcohol from their lives. And God has proceeded to do exactly that. - p. 64

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

The Program teaches me to work for progress, not perfection. That simple admonition gives me great comfort, for it represents a primary way in which my life today is so different than it used to be. In my former life, perfection — for all its impossibility — was so often my number one goal. Today I can believe that if I sometimes fail, I’m not a failure — and if I sometimes make a mistake, I’m not a mistake. And I can apply those same beliefs to The Program’s Twelve Steps as well as to my entire life. Do I believe that only Step One can be practiced with perfection, and that the remaining Steps represent perfect ideals?

Today I Pray

God, teach me to abandon my erstwhile goal of superhuman perfection in everything I did or said. I know that I was actually bent on failure, because I could never attain those impossible heights I had established for myself. Now that I understand this pattern, may I no longer program my own failures.

Today I Will Remember

I may strive to be a super person, but not a super person.

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AA 'Big Book' – Quote

The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people. There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove. - Pg. 24 - There Is A Solution

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Warriors Anonymous Practice of the Day-
BB pg 43-
Ch-3- more About Alcoholism:

Many doctors and psychiatrists agree with our conclusions. One of these men, staff member of a world-renowned hospital, recently made this statement to some of us: "What you say about the general hopelessness of the average alcoholic's plight is, in my opinion, correct. As to two of you men, whose stories I have heard, there is no doubt in my mind that you were 100% hopeless, apart from divine help. Had you offered yourselves as patients at this hospital, I would not have taken you, if I had been able to avoid it. People like you are too heartbreaking. Though not a religious person, I have profound respect for the spiritual approach in such cases as yours. For most cases, there is virtually no other solution."

Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power.

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-Tom- My body cannot stop bullets. There is nothing in my power that will ever give me the ability for my body to stop bullets. No matter how much I want my body to stop bullets, no matter how much I need my body to stop bullets, my body does not have the ability to stop bullets.

Body armor stops bullets. If I choose to put body armor on my body, the body armor stops bullets.

The exact same principle applies to my alcoholism/addiction. My Higher Power stops my drinking and drugging, not me.

I pray today that I remember where my protection comes from, My Higher Power