Blog entries - June 2011

Daily Reflections 2011/06/30

Xavier T. — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 01:28:52 +0100

JUNE 30

SACRIFICE = UNITY = SURVIVAL

The unity, the effectiveness, and even the survival of A.A. will always depend upon our continued willingness to give up some of our personal ambitions and desires for the common safety and welfare. Just as sacrifice means survival for the individual alcoholic, so does sacrifice mean unity and survival for the group and for A.A. 's entire Fellowship.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 220

I have learned ...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/29

Xavier T. — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:06:27 +0100

JUNE 29

A RIPPLING EFFECT

Having learned to live so happily, we'd show everyone else how. . . . Yes, we of A.A. did dream those dreams. How natural that was, since most alcoholics are bankrupt idealists. . . . So why shouldn't we share our way of life with everyone?

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 156

The great discovery of sobriety led me to feel the need to spread the "good news" to the world around me. The grandiose...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/28

Xavier T. — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:32:24 +0100

JUNE 28

THE DETERMINATION OF OUR FOUNDERS

A year and six months later these three had succeeded with seven more.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 159

If it had not been for the fierce determination of our founders, A.A. would have quickly faded like so many other so-called good ...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/27

Xavier T. — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 23:23:19 +0100

JUNE 27

CONFORMING TO THE A.A. WAY

We obey A.A. 's Steps and Traditions because we really want them for ourselves. It is no longer a question of good or evil; we conform because we genuinely want to conform Such is our process of growth in unity and function. Such is the evidence of God's grace and love among us.

A.A. COMES OF AGE, p. 106

It is fun to watch myself grow in A.A. I fought conformity to A.A. principles...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/26

Xavier T. — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 23:07:59 +0100

JUNE 26

A GIFT THAT GROWS WITH TIME

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

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 151

The longer I chased these elusive feelings with alcohol, the more out of reach they were. However, by applying this passage to my sobriety, I found that it de...

passing the message along

Kath P — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:10:39 +0100

I had the most amazing thing happen -- and not even to me! See, I love Facebook -- I've been able to reconnect with several people from my past, people who were wonderful friends but we'd lost touch. Now a couple of those people were ones I used to party with. They now live in other parts of the world than I do, but even though our lifestyles are *very* different now (mainly me being sober & them not) we are still good friends.

I got a message from one of these still-partying frien...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/25

Xavier T. — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 02:00:33 +0100

JUNE 25

A TWO-WAY STREET

If we ask, God will certainly forgive our derelictions. But in no case does He render us white as snow and keep us that way without our cooperation.

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 65

When I prayed, I used to omit a lot of things for which I needed to be forgiven. I thought that if I didn't mention these things to God, He would never know about them. I did not know that if I had just forgiven myself...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/24

Xavier T. — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 23:50:34 +0100

JUNE 24

A SPIRITUAL KINDERGARTEN

We are only operating a spiritual kindergarten in which people are enabled to get over drinking and find the grace to go on living to better effect

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 95

When I came to A.A., I was run down by the bottle and wanted to lose the obsession to drink, but I didn't really know how to do that. I decided to stick around long enough to find out from the ones who went before me. All of a sud...

Getting active

Kath P — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 07:41:31 +0100

Last night, I went to my home AA group's open meeting for the first time in several months. I was surprised to see... NO COFFEE!!! Did Hell freeze over? How can an AA meeting exist with no coffee? More importantly... why was no one else surprised?

Over the 4 months of meetings I'd missed, it turned out that there had been a lot of dissension over the coffee issue. It seemed that the same people were volunteering over and over, and no "new blood" was showing up at the business meetings,...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/23

Xavier T. — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 01:28:29 +0100

JUNE 23

TRUSTING OTHERS

But does trust require that we be blind to other people's motives or, indeed, to our own? Not at all; this would be folly. Most certainly, we should assess the capacity for harm as well as the capability for good in every person that we would trust. Such a private inventory can reveal the degree of confidence we should extend in any given situation.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 144

I am not a victim of others, ...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/22

Xavier T. — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 01:13:44 +0100

JUNE 22

TODAY, I'M FREE

This brought me to the good healthy realization that there were plenty of situations left in the world over which I had no personal power—that if I was so ready to admit that to be the case with alcohol, so I must make the same admission with respect to much else. I would have to be still and know that He, not I, was God.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 114

I am learning to practice acceptance in all circums...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/21

Xavier T. — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 23:22:12 +0100

JUNE 21

The achievement of freedom from fear is a lifetime undertaking, one that can never be wholly completed. When under heavy attack, acute illness, or in other conditions of serious insecurity, we shall all act to this emotion—well or badly, as the case may be. Only the self-deceived will claim perfect freedom from fear.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 263

Fear has caused suffering when I could have had more faith. There are times when fear suddenly tears me apa...

First things first...

Kath P — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 18:28:04 +0100

For the last 4 months, I didn't go to so much as one single AA meeting. Nope, not even one! For me, this is not a good thing. I've been in & out of AA since early '95, and I've lost count of the relapses. One thing I know: every single relapse has been when I have stopped attending meetings, stopped contacting my sponsor, stopped working the steps -- you get the picture.

I justified my absence by saying "Well, I was sick for six weeks." I was, too, with a sinus infection that would...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/20

Xavier T. — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 00:16:41 +0100

JUNE 20

RELEASE FROM FEAR

The problem of resolving fear has two aspects. We shall have to try for all the freedom from fear that is possible for us to attain. Then we shall need to find both the courage and grace to deal constructively with whatever fears remain.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 61

Most of my decisions were based on fear. Alcohol made life easier to face, but the time came when alcohol was no longer an alternative...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/19

Xavier T. — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 01:51:48 +0100

JUNE 19

"A.A. REGENERATION"

Such is the paradox of A.A. regeneration: strength arising out of complete defeat and weakness, the loss of one's old life as a condition for finding a new one.

A.A. COMES OF AGE, p. 46

A thousand beatings by John Barleycorn did not encourage me to admit defeat. I believed it was my moral obligation to conquer my "enemy-friend." At my first A.A. meeting I was blessed with a feeling that it was all ...

Hard Decisions

Kat S. — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 20:31:16 +0100

I am back in Georgia.and I have run into a problem. I know I have to deal with it and am trying to think of the best way. One of my Sponsees is having a problem with another person in the program.This person has years of spbriety but to my way of thinking(and hers) they are acting WAY outside of principles.They have caused problems in her family.They have committed multiple acts of charater assasination.They have done this to her family,within the rooms and in private in front of her sponsee....

Daily Reflections 2011/06/18

Xavier T. — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 04:08:36 +0100

JUNE 18

A FELLOWSHIP OF FREEDOM

. . . if only men were granted absolute liberty, and were compelled to obey no one, they would then voluntarily associate themselves in the common interest

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 50

When I no longer live under the dictates of another or of alcohol, I live in a new freedom. When I release the past and all the excess baggage I have carried for so very long, I come to know freedom. I have been i...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/17

Xavier T. — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 01:11:16 +0100

JUNE 17

"DEEP DOWN WITHIN US"

We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. . . . search diligently within yourself. . . . With this attitude you cannot fail. The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 55

It was out of the depths of loneliness, depression and despair that I sought the help of A.A. As I recovered and began to face t...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/16

Xavier T. — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 01:58:15 +0100

JUNE 16

OPEN-MINDEDNESS

We have found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the realm of spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 7

Open-mindedness to concepts of a Higher Power can open doors to the spirit. Often I find the human spirit in various dogmas and faiths. I can be spiritu...

Daily Reflections 2011/06/15

Xavier T. — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:56:44 +0100

JUNE 15

MAKING A.A. YOUR HIGHER POWER

". . . You can . . . make A.A. itself your 'higher power.' Here's a very large group of people who have solved their alcohol problem. . . . many members . . . have crossed the threshold just this way. . . . their faith broadened and deepened. . . . transformed, they came to believe in a Higher Power. ..."

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, pp. 27-28

No one was greater than I, at least in...