[bluidkiti]

April 12

Daily Reflections

GIVING UP INSANITY

. . . where alcohol has been involved, we have been
strangely insane.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 38

Alcoholism required me to drink, whether I wanted to or
not. Insanity dominated my life and was the essence of
my disease. It robbed me of the freedom of choice over
drinking and, therefore, robbed me of all other choices.
When I drank, I was unable to make effective choices in
any part of my life and life became unmanageable. I ask
God to help me understand and accept the full meaning of
the disease of alcoholism.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

This sober world is a pleasant place for an alcoholic to
live in. Once you've gotten out of your alcoholic fog, you
find that the world looks good. You find real friends in
A.A. You get a job. You feel good in the morning. You eat
a good breakfast and you do a good day's work at home or
outside. And your family loves you and welcomes you because
you're sober. Am I convinced that this sober world is a
pleasant place for an alcoholic to live in?

Meditation For The Day

Our need is God's opportunity. First we must recognize our
need. Often this means helplessness before some weakness or
sickness and an admission of our need for help. Next comes
faith in the power of God's spirit, available to us to meet
that need. Before any need can be met, our faith must find
expression. That expression of faith is all God needs to
manifest His power in our lives. Faith is the key that
unlocks the storehouse of God's resources.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may first admit my needs. I pray that then
I may have faith that God will meet those needs, in the
way which is best for me.

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As Bill Sees It

Healing Talk, p. 102

When we consult an A.A. friend, we should not be reluctant to remind
him of our need for full privacy. Intimate communication is normally
so free and easy among us that an A.A. adviser may sometimes forget
when we expect him to remain silent. The protective sanctity of this
most healing of human relations ought never be violated.

Such privileged communications have priceless advantages. We find
in them the perfect opportunity to be as honest as we know how to
be. We do not have to think of the possibility of damage to other
people, nor need we fear ridicule or condemnation. Here, too, we
have the best possible chance of spotting self-deception.

Grapevine, August 1961

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Walk in Dry Places

Beating Depression_____ Emotional Fortitude
If you're seeking a lively meeting discussion topic, bring up depression. It's so closely tied to alcoholism that some people even think alcoholics are attempting to "treat" depression when they drink. Others feel that depression shows they're not "working" the program.
Overcoming depression is a monumental undertaking, but that doesn't mean it cannot be done. The dearly mistake is that believe your circumstances are so hopeless that there's no solution. Sometimes, as AA co-founder Bill Wilson contended (based on personal experience), depression actually corrects itself in time. Stay sober, live rightly, keep physically and mentally active, and in time some depressive mood swings will ease. Even more serious clinical depression can be treated.
It's human to be temporarily depressed about a terrible failure or setback. The Twelve Steps are tools for coping with unpleasant situations, but we still might feel bad about tem for a time. The really good news is that enough fortitude will see us through for the long term. We have much experience to show that this is true.
Whether today's mood is up or down, I'll hold to the view that the Twelve Steps will help me defeat mental depression in time. My Higher Power assures me that joy and peace are my rightful state of mind.


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Keep It Simple

Life I love you, all is groovy.---Paul Simon
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me let go of my fears and enjoy life. I haven't always known how to enjoy life, but Working the Twelve Steps is more than recovery from alcohol or other drug addiction. It's also about how to enjoy life. Our illness pulled us toward death. Our spirits were dying, and maybe our bodies were dying. Now our spirits are coming to life. We feel more alive than ever before. Our feelings are coming alive. We feel hope and faith, love, and joy, and even hurt and fear. We notice the sunshine as well as the clouds. We know life needs both sunshine and rain, both joy and pain. We are alive. You can teach me. All life is from You, so teach me to be free in Your light and love.
Action for the Day: Right now, I can think of at least three things in life that make me feel like sunshine. What are they?

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Each Day a New Beginning

Make yourself a blessing to someone. Your kind smile or pat on the back just might pull someone back from the edge.
--Carmelia Elliott
Someone will be helped today by our kindness. Compassionate attention assures others that they do matter, and every one of us needs that reassurance occasionally. The program has given us the vehicle for giving and seeking the help we need--it's sponsorship.
Not all of the people we encounter share our program, however. Sponsorship as we know it isn't a reality in their lives. Offering words of encouragement to them, or a willing ear, can be unexpected gifts. They will be deeply appreciated.
The real gift, though, is to ourselves. Helping someone in need benefits the helper even more. Our own closeness to God and thus assurance about our own being is strengthened each time we do God's work--each time we do what our hearts direct.
We are healed in our healing of others. God speaks to us through our words to others. Our own well-being is enhanced each time we put someone else's well-being first.
We're all on a trip, following different road maps, but to the same destination. I will be ready to lend a helping hand to a troubled traveler today. It will breathe new life into my own trip.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

WE AGNOSTICS

In this book you will read the experience of a man who thought he was an atheist. His story is so interesting that some of it should be told now. His change of heart was dramatic, convincing, and moving.
Our friend was a minister’s son. He attended church school, where he became rebellious at what he thought an overdose of religious education. For years thereafter he was dogged by trouble and frustration. Business failure, insanity, fatal illness, suicide—these calamities in his immediate family embittered and depressed him. Post-war disillusionment, ever more serious alcoholism, impending mental and physical collapse, brought him to the point to self-destruction.

pp. 55-56

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

The Keys Of The Kingdom

Of course the doctors found nothing. Just an unstable woman, undisciplined, poorly adjusted, and filled with nameless fears. Most of them prescribed sedatives and advised rest and moderation

p. 269

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Foreword

A.A.'s Twelve Traditions apply to the life of the Fellowship itself. They outline the means by which A.A. maintains its unity and relates itself to the world about it, the way it lives and grows.

p. 15

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What matters is what's in our hearts.
"The reason angels can fly is that they take themselves so lightly,"
G. K. Chesterton once wrote:
Once you stop taking yourself so seriously and let go of the gravity of
all that you do, you can learn to fly, too.
God, help me lighten up.
--Melody Beattie

"Humility leads to strength and not to weakness. It is the highest form
of self-respect to admit mistakes and to make amends for them."
--John (Jay) McCloy

Learning is an upward, ever-evolving process. We will never reach the
point where we've learned all we need to know. Every aspect of life
contains lessons. We can choose to discard them or to embrace them.
Lessons embraced lead to wisdom.
--Mary Manin Morrissey

We can stop waiting for others to give us what we need and take
responsibility for ourselves. When we do, the gates to freedom will
swing wide. Walk through.
--Melody Beattie

Believe and the healing will come.
--Gary Barnes

Each of us is a unique expression of God's beauty.
--Jane F. Maxwell

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

SUFFERING

"Every man, on the foundation of
his own sufferings and joys, builds
for all. "
--Albert Camus

In my pain I am able to reach out to others. When I share my pain, I
not only understand but I am understood. It is my pain and suffering
that unites me with others. Other people become a part of my life and
are involved in who I am.

Through my shared feelings, other people begin to share. Trust
develops across this bridge of understanding. Feelings unite the world.

Lord, You created us in ONENESS - help us in our struggle to unite.

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Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1 John 4:7

"And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like
little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
Matthew 18:3

Pleasant words are a honeycomb sweet to the soul and healing to the
bones.
Proverbs 16:24

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Daily Inspiration

Forget the hurts and unkindnesses of all yesterdays so that today you will have room to be joyful and at peace. Lord, bless me with the ability to let go of that which causes me pain so that I may not miss the great joys that today will bring.

Small acts of kindness make lasting memories. Lord, help me to remember that it is a privilege to pause for those moment in which I can really make a difference.

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NA Just For Today

The Big Picture

"All spiritual awakenings have some things in common. Common elements include an end to loneliness and a sense of direction in our lives."
Basic Text p. 48

Some kinds of spiritual experiences take place when we confront something larger than we are. We suspect that forces beyond our understanding are operating. We see a fleeting glimpse of the big picture and find humility in that moment.

Our journey through the Twelve Steps will bring about a spiritual experience of the same nature, only more profound and lasting. We undergo a continual process of ego-deflation, while at the same time we become more conscious of the larger perspective. Our view of the world expands to the point where we no longer possess an exaggerated sense of our own importance.

Through our new awareness, we no longer feel isolated from the rest of the human race. We may not understand why the world is the way it is or why people sometimes treat one another so savagely. But we do understand suffering and, in recovery, we can do our best to alleviate it. When our individual contribution is combined with others, we become an essential part of a grand design. We are connected at last.

Just for today: I am but one person in the entire scheme of things. I humbly accept my place in the big picture.

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You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. --Wendell Berry
Blessed are all birds and animals, the wildest beasts, and, yes, all serpents, too, for they live in nature, in a state of natural grace. They live beyond the rules of evil and good. Their instincts are obedient only to the laws of survival, growth, and health. And as their lives unfurl in obedience to these laws, they suffer no shame, regret, or sin. Nor do they curse their failures, or themselves.
We can learn much from them. They harbor no evil toward one another, and they trust their own inner sense of how to live, and that their Higher Power makes sure everything which befalls them is for the best. Yes, they are blessed, and so are we, the highest animal.
What guilt can I free myself from today, just by letting go?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
Anyone who lives art knows that psychoanalysis has no monopoly on the power to heal.... Art and poetry have always been altering our ways of sensing and feeling - that is to say, altering the human body. --Norman 0. Brown
A man can lead a healing life on many levels. On one level, many of us have turned to healing professionals for help. That may strengthen our program and be very beneficial for many of our problems.
Relationships heal when they are loving, affirming, reliable, committed, and loyal. Nature heals: a tree, a walk through tall grass, a dry seedpod, or a potted plant gives life when we turn in its direction. Beauty heals: music, a poem, a novel, or a picture may move us to another plane and teach us about life. Meditation heals: solitude, quiet relaxation, prayer, and cosmic consciousness bring an inner peace. Laughter heals. Physical activity heals. Doing something for others helps us. At the basic level, accepting ourselves as lovable men, just as we are, is the foundation for all healing.
The forces for renewal and wholeness are varied. May I reach out to them and be healed by them.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
Make yourself a blessing to someone. Your kind smile or pat on the back just might pull someone back from the edge.
--Carmelia Elliott
Someone will be helped today by our kindness. Compassionate attention assures others that they do matter, and every one of us needs that reassurance occasionally. The program has given us the vehicle for giving and seeking the help we need--it's sponsorship.
Not all of the people we encounter share our program, however. Sponsorship as we know it isn't a reality in their lives. Offering words of encouragement to them, or a willing ear, can be unexpected gifts. They will be deeply appreciated.
The real gift, though, is to ourselves. Helping someone in need benefits the helper even more. Our own closeness to God and thus assurance about our own being is strengthened each time we do God's work--each time we do what our hearts direct.
We are healed in our healing of others. God speaks to us through our words to others. Our own well-being is enhanced each time we put someone else's well-being first.
We're all on a trip, following different road maps, but to the same destination. I will be ready to lend a helping hand to a troubled traveler today. It will breathe new life into my own trip.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
Letting Go of Fear
Picture yourself swimming floating - peacefully down a gentle stream. All you need to do is breathe, relax, and go with the flow.
Suddenly, you become conscious of your situation. Frightened, overwhelmed with what ifs? your body tenses. You begin to thrash around, frantically looking for something to grab on to.
You panic so hard you start to go under. Then you remember - you're working too hard at this. You don't need to panic. All you need to do is breathe, relax, and go with the flow. You wont drown.
Panic is our great enemy.
We don't need to become desperate. If overwhelming problems appear in our life, we need to stop struggling. We can tread water for a bit, until our equilibrium returns. Then we can go back to floating peacefully down the gentle stream. It is our stream. It is a safe stream. Our course has been charted. All is well.
Today, I will relax, breathe, and go with the flow.


Today I know that every time I inhale, I am breathing in powerful healing energy. And every time I exhale I am letting go. I am letting go of all anxiety and stress, all negativity that is standing in the way of my feeling good about myself. --Ruth Fishel

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Journey To The Heart

Open Yourself to the Wealth of the Universe

We all have sources we turn to for support. We may turn to special people in our lives– family members, friends, a lover. We may turn to nature– the mountains, trees, oceans, rivers, sun, moon, and stars. But we no longer have to limit ourselves to just one person, one source for love, energy, comfort, and guidance.

Certain people come into our lives for a short while to help us through particular times. Other people come to stay for a longer time. Sometimes we love people and are so deeply committed to them that they will be sources of energy and love for us, and we for them, for most of our lives. That’s good. That’s how it should be.

But while it’s good to have people who are special sources of support for us, allowing one person to be our sole support can mean trouble. We may begin to drain that person. We may become overly dependent. He or she may move away from us. Or we may become angry, as we usually do, at whomever or whatever we are dependent on. For many reasons, we may find ourselves in conflict with the one we have deemed our source. Something may happen that causes our source to no longer be available to us. It’s important to be conscious of what our needs are and to get our needs met. But it’s also important not to make one person responsible for doing that.

Open to a larger, more abundant source. That source is God. And God’s supply is the universe. When we look to God and the universe, we open ourselves to a never-ending supply of what we need– love, energy, teaching, support, information, guidance, and nurturing. Certain people and places may help us along our way, but God is our source for love.

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More Language Of Letting Go

Is it what you really want?

“Are you still in that relationship?” I asked a friend one day.

“If I were really sick, I could be,” my friend said. “But I’ve decided not to do that to myself anymore.”

Sometimes, a door is open. We can walk through it and into that room. We can stay there as long as we want and as long as we can stand being in that room. Many of us have learned to take care of ourselves so well that we can be in extremely uncomfortable situations and still comfortably take care of ourselves.

The question then becomes not “Can I?” but, “Do I want to?”

There are many situations in life where we can insist on having our will and way, sometimes for an extended period of time. Stubbornness and persistence can be good qualities. We can stay with a thing until we learn it well. But we can also take that too far and stick with a thing– a project or relationship– when other weaker and wiser souls might have given up.

Instead of asking yourself if you can, ask yourself something different. If you’ve been hanging in there, trying harder, and diligently taking care of yourself, back off. Stop asking yourself if you’re good enough to handle the situation. Ask yourself if the situation is good for you.

God, help me take the time to ask myself, “Is this what I really want?”

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Creative Cuts
Editing Your Life

by Madisyn Taylor

Cutting out what isn't working in your life is a bold first step to creating the life that does work for you.


Our lives can be compared to an ongoing movie script over which we have complete creative control. Within us lies the power to examine what works or isn’t working in our lives and make “edits” to our life’s script, accordingly. Choosing to actively edit your life can be incredibly empowering. As you evolve, you have the choice to accept the script you’ve written thus far or edit it so you can create a life that fulfills you. You can cut out from your life’s script what is no longer working for you. Acknowledging that you are responsible for the experience you create gives you the ability to create the life you’ve always longed for.

Granted, editing your real life isn’t always as easy as erasing a line of text. If you’ve carried emotional baggage or held on to an unhealthy relationship for a long time, these may be difficult to edit out. But when you do cut out what isn’t working from your life, you’ll feel lighter and more alive. Editing out activities that you find stressful, disassociating yourself from people that drain your energy, and letting go of your emotional baggage are all beneficial cuts you can make. In the empty spaces that are left behind, you can add in anything you like. Just as you have the power to edit out negative situations or beliefs that you no longer wish to have as part of your life, you can now include the kinds of positive experiences, people, and beliefs that you would like to fill your life with. The manifestation of these thoughts and images as realities in your life will inevitably follow. As you make changes to your life, you can also add in the bits where you choose mo! re intimate, healthier relationships, seek out adventure over tedium, and are no longer negatively impacted by old experiences.

To begin editing your life, simply think about your positive and negative experiences. When you determine what parts of your life are no longer serving you, make the commitment to remove them – though, it is important to remember that there is no proper timing or way to do this, and patience and compassion for yourself are always important during this process. Then, ask yourself what has brought you profound bliss and consider how you can make those experiences and beliefs part of your life now. With a little editing, you’ll be able to clear out what is no longer serving you and make room in your life for more happiness, love, and wisdom. Published with permission from Daily OM

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

If we attempt to understand rather than to be understood, we can more quickly assure a newcomer that we have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired. All of us, whatever our race, creed, color or ethnic heritage are the children of a living Creator, which whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms — as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try. Do I know the difference between sympathy and empathy? Can I put myself in the newcomer’s shoes?

Today I Pray

May I try to love all humanity as children of a living God. May I respect the different ways through which they find and worship Him. May I respect the different ways through which they find and worship Him. May I never be so rigid as to discount another’s path to God or so insensitive that I use the fellowship of the group as a preaching ground to extol my religion beliefs as the only way. I can only know what works for me.

Today I Will Remember

We are all children of God.

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One More Day

A crisis event often explodes the illusions that … anchor our lives.
– Robert Veninga

Chronic illness an become so common-place for us that we lull ourselves into thinking we’ve become the best we can be and believing we can handle everything. When another crisis occurs — family problems, financial setbacks, or loss of friends — we may stubbornly try to fix the situation, only to be rewarded with self-pity or anger or sadness.

In time, we usually realize that we don’t have to carry every burden or solve every problem. sometimes there is no answer other than acceptance of a situation as being unchangeable. What can be changed is our reaction to this fact. We can, as we have before, build our lives around the new situation. We can allow ourselves to grow into a greater maturity.

Every day, every experience is an opportunity to grow.

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One Day At A Time

~ Recovery ~
I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Fannie Lou Hamer

I used to get so disgusted with myself. I was sick and tired of trying to lose weight because I always failed. I had lost weight several times but I would still feel ugly, fat and unacceptable to everybody else. The sickness and tiredness remained because I had not changed anything inside my head, just my body size! My past was still there and it continued to haunt me, and I was filled with the guilt and shame of the past.

A friend told me about this great program where I could discover what was really making me sick and how I could recover. She said, "You will have someone with you to help continually 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

"How can this be?" I asked.

She said, "Well, this wonderful program helps you recover by teaching you what really has been bothering you. Maybe it's things you are sorry you did or didn't do in the past, people you've hurt or who have hurt you."

"Do I need to leave home or pay a lot of money?" I asked.

She said, "No. You work it at home, at work and everywhere you go. The cost is nothing, except a desire to stop eating compulsively. Your continual help is your Higher Power and he never goes to sleep, he listens and helps you when you ask for his help."

"Wow, you mean I don't have to be sick and tired any more?"

"That's right and all it takes is Twelve small but important Steps, a lot of love, hugs, acceptance, trust and sincere honesty. It's easy and works as long as you work it."

One Day at a Time . . .
I don't need to be sick and tired of myself any more. I have a wonderful program with a lot of tools, friends and my Higher Power to help me. I can achieve recovery one day at a time ... it's a matter of progress, not perfection.
~ Jeanette ~