AA Thoughts For Today - February

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AA Thought for the Day

February 15

Inventory
When AA suggests a fearless moral inventory,
it must seem to every newcomer that more is being asked of him than he can do.
Both his pride and his fear beat him back every time he tries to look inside himself.
Pride says, "You need not pass this way," and Fear says, "You dare not look!"
But the testimony of AA's who have really tried a moral inventory
is that pride and fear of this sort turn out to be bogeymen, nothing else.
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 48

Thought to Ponder . . .
All of AA's suggestions are free.
The ones I don't take are the ones I end up paying for.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
H O W = Honesty, Open-mindedness, Willingness.

~*~A.A. Thoughts For The Day~*~

Children of Chaos
Over the years, every conceivable deviation
from our Twelve Steps and Traditions has been tried.
That was sure to be,
since we are largely a band of ego-driven individuals.
Children of chaos, we have definitely played
with every brand of fire,
only to emerge unharmed and, we think, wiser.
These very deviations created a vast process
of trial and error which, under the grace of God,
has brought us to where we stand today.
c. 1952 AAWS, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 146

Thought to Consider . . .
Once we clear a hurdle, it doesn't seem so high

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
C H A O S = Can't Handle Another Overwhelming Situation

*~*~*~*~*^Just For Today!^*~*~*~*~*

Accept
>From "'The Belief Will Come'":
"I don't recall any immediate, dramatic change in my life. I began rereading the Big Book and the Twelve Steps, and
now I found in these much that I had never found before. I didn't reject any of it. I accepted it just as it was written. Nor
did I read into it anything that wasn't there.
"Again, nothing changed overnight. But, as time has passed, I have acquired a blind and, yes, childlike faith that, by
accepting a God I don't understand and the program of A.A. just as it is written, I can maintain my sobriety one day at a time."
1973 AAWS, Inc.; Came to Believe, 30th printing 2004, pg. 47

*~*~*~*~*^ Grapevine Quote^*~*~*~*~*

"One night after a Step Two meeting, I decided to find out what those courageous early members who put our Twelve
Steps together really meant by sanity. I was a little surprised to find that my dictionary defined it as the quality of being
sound of mind, sound of judgment, reasonable and rational in one's thoughts ... As I sat there mulling over the definition,
an idea occurred to me: 'This is what I'm to be restored to -- sound, reasonable, rational thinking.'"
Shenandoah, Iowa, February 1982
From: "Sanity Clause"
Step By Step

~*~*~*~*^ Big Book & Twelve N' Twelve Quotes of the Day ^*~*~*~*~*

"Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man,
woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured
by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form
or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and
miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as
old as man himself."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, We Agnostics, pg. 55~

"There is action and more action. 'Faith without works is dead.'"
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Into Action, pg. 88~

It brought a measure of humility, which we soon discovered to be a healer of pain.
-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p. 75

Misc. AA Literature - Quote
We have had a much keener look at ourselves and those about us. We have seen that we were prodded by
unreasonable fears or anxieties into making a life business of winning fame, money, and what we thought was
leadership. So false pride became the reverse side of that ruinous coin marked 'Fear.' We simply had to be Number
One people to cover up our deep-lying inferiorities.
True ambition is not what we thought it was. True ambition is the profound desire to live usefully and walk humbly under
the grace of God.

Prayer for the Day: God, There are many difficulties and challenges in life, and we see or experience more of them
each day we live. Give us the power of your Holy Spirit that we may have courage and determination, and may live in
such a way that we encourage one another. Enable us to transform whatever is negative, and remain positive in attitude
throughout our lives. Lighten our darkness and keep us safe. Amen.