Aa Daily Reflections Quotes

Being a little kinder, a little slower to anger, a little more loving makes my life better—day by day.

must keep reminding myself that I am human, that I am doing the best I can, even when that best is sometimes poor.

The essence of all growth is a willingness to make a change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails.

May I always remember that the power within me is far greater than any fear before me. May I always have patience, for I am on the right road.

It is very difficult for me to come to terms with my spiritual illness because of my great pride, disguised by my material successes and my intellectual power. Intelligence is not incompatible with humility, provided I place humility first. To seek prestige and wealth is the ultimate goal for many in the modern world. To be fashionable and to seem better than I really am is a spiritual illness. To recognize and to admit my weaknesses is the beginning of good spiritual health. It is a sign of spiritual health to be able to ask God every day to enlighten me, to recognize His will, and to have the strength to execute it. My spiritual health is excellent when I realize that the better I get, the more I discover how much help I need from others.

Every day I stand at turning points. My thoughts and actions can propel me toward growth or turn me down the road to old habits and to booze. Sometimes turning points are beginnings, as when I decide to start praising, instead of condemning someone. Or when I begin to ask for help instead of going it alone. At other times turning points are endings, such as when I see clearly the need to stop festering resentments or crippling self-seeking. Many shortcomings tempt me daily; therefore, I also have daily opportunities to become aware of them. In one form or another, many of my character defects appear daily: self-condemnation, anger, running away, being prideful, wanting to get even, or acting out of grandiosity. Attempting half measures to eliminate these defects merely paralyzes my efforts to change. It is only when I ask God for help, with complete abandon, that I become willing—and able—to change.

I have found that pain is a friend; it lets me know there is something wrong with my emotions, just as a physical pain lets me know there is something wrong with my body.

In my recovery, I learned that the pain of my defects is the very substance God uses to cleanse my character and to set me free.

I just have to ask whether acceptance—or change—is required.

A New Year: 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes—a

When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. . . . On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. . . . Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.

RIGOROUS HONESTY Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A.A.’s message to the next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn’t care for this prospect—unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 24 I am an alcoholic. If I drink I will die. My, what power, energy, and emotion this simple statement generates in me! But it’s really all I need to know for today. Am I willing to stay alive today? Am I willing to stay sober today? Am I willing to ask for help and am I willing to be a help to another suffering alcoholic today? Have I discovered the fatal nature of my situation? What must I do, today, to stay sober?

To make amends can be viewed two ways: first, that of repairing damage, for if I have damaged my neighbor’s fence, I “make a mend,” and that is a direct amend; the second way is by modifying my behavior, for if my actions have harmed someone, I make a daily effort to cause no further harm. I “mend my ways,” and that is an indirect amend. Which is the best approach? The only right approach, provided that I am causing no further harm in so doing, is to do both. If harm is done, then I simply “mend my ways.” To take action in this manner assures me of making honest amends.

When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn’t. What was our choice to be?

I had been a real “people addict”; wherever I went there had to be someone who would pay some kind of attention to me.

concepts. The glass was put down through this one act of Providence and my journey into sobriety began. My life continues to unfold with divine care and direction. Step One, in which

IMPATIENT? TRY LEVITATING We reacted more strongly to frustrations than normal people. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 111 Impatience with other people is one of my principal failings. Following a slow car in a no-passing lane, or waiting in a restaurant for the check, drives me to distraction. Before I give God a chance to slow me down, I explode, and that’s what I call being quicker than God. That repeated experience gave me an idea. I thought if I could look down on these events from God’s point of view, I might better control my feelings and behavior. I tried it and when I encountered the next slow driver, I levitated and looked down on the other car and upon myself. I saw an elderly couple driving along, happily chatting about their grandchildren. They were followed by me—bug-eyed and red of face—who had no time schedule to meet anyway. I looked so silly that I dropped back into reality and slowed down. Seeing things from God’s angle of vision can be very relaxing.

But I’ve also learned I am not powerless over some things. I am not powerless over my attitudes. I am not powerless over negativity. I am not powerless over assuming responsibility for my own recovery.

Second, I discovered that I was able to love someone else responsibly, with respectful and genuine concern for that person’s growth. Before that time, I had thought that my ability to care sincerely about another’s well-being had atrophied from lack of use.

For the first time in years I opened my box of paints and poured out an honest rage, an explosion of reds and blacks and yellows. As I looked at the drawing, tears of joy and relief flowed down my cheeks. In my disease, I had given up my art, a self-inflicted punishment far greater than any imposed from outside.

Who am I? What am I doing here? Who are these others? This trilogy of spiritual conundrums is as practical as it is philosophical. Mindful inquiry devoted to these three questions is as spiritual as it is material and as obvious as it is unanswerable. Knowledge isn’t to comfort our souls; it is to enhance awareness—that is what some call an awakening. Some things have to be believed to be seen. Feelings articulate truth in ways that our brains cannot. We may have a sense about who we are, what our purpose is and how we relate to the rest of the world even without the vocabulary to articulate it. Recovery is visceral as much as it is intellectual. The Eleventh Step is our spiritual barometer, feeding back sensations, feelings and thoughts as we observe our life.

I have learned through this Step that if I am disturbed, there is something wrong with me. The other person may be wrong too, but I can only deal with my feelings.

I learned that a Higher Power—a faith that works under all conditions—is possible.

For, though this day be dark—as some days must be—the stars will shine even brighter later.

I must look inside myself, to free myself. I must call upon God’s power to face the person I’ve feared the most, the true me, the person God created me to be. Unless I can or until I do, I will always be running, and never be truly free. I ask God daily to show me such a freedom!

The more I learn, the less I know—a humbling fact—but I sincerely want to keep growing.

sincerity, depth and devotion with which I practice the Twelve Steps of A.A.

When we developed still more, we discovered the best possible source of emotional stability to be God Himself. We found that dependence upon His perfect justice, forgiveness, and love was healthy, and that it would work where nothing else would. If we really depended upon God, we couldn’t very well play God to our fellows nor would we feel the urge wholly to rely on human protection and care.

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” - A.A. Milne

do,

I thank God for the wisdom of the early founders who knew so well the alcoholic’s disdain for being manipulated.

that. Today I do not have to struggle or exert my will. If I take those Twelve Steps and let my Higher Power do the real work, my alcohol problem disappears all by itself. My living problems also cease to be struggles. I just have to ask whether acceptance—or change—is required. It is not my will, but His, that needs doing.

Therefore, what else are we to do but bear with one another and treat each other as we would be treated in similar circumstances?

I must surrender—over and over—to the reality of my dependence on God, for then I find peace, gratitude and spiritual security.

Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 77

I need to pray for knowledge of God’s will today, and see how my experience with hope and pain can help other people; if I can do that, I don’t need to search for humility, it has found me.

Wouldn’t it be better if I could find a key to unlock the “magic” of my “good days” for use on the woes of my “bad days?

The joy of life is in the giving. Being freed of my shortcomings, that I may more freely be of service, allows humility to grow in me.

As long as I have the humility to be grateful for what I have, God continues to provide for me.

My stability came out of trying to give, not out of demanding that I receive.

NO MORE STRUGGLE. . . And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone

Fear . . . of economic insecurity will leave us. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 84

My life’s purpose is much clearer when I just work to help, not to possess.

The more we become willing to depend upon a Higher Power, the more independent we actually are.

out of every season of grief or suffering, when the hand of God seemed heavy or even unjust, new lessons for living were learned, new resources of courage were uncovered, and that finally, inescapably, the conviction came that God does “move in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.” TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 105

HAPPY, JOYOUS, AND FREE” We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. We cannot subscribe to the belief that this life is a vale of tears, though it once was just that for many of us. But it is clear that we made our own misery. God didn’t do it. Avoid then, the deliberate manufacture of misery, but if trouble comes, cheerfully capitalize it as an opportunity to demonstrate His omnipotence.

Faith, to be sure, is necessary, but faith alone can avail nothing. We can have faith, yet keep God out of our lives. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 34

We feel a man is unthinking when he says sobriety is enough.

By finally admitting that I was one among many, and by following the example of my sponsor and other A.A. members in practicing faith I did not have, my life has been given meaning, direction and purpose.

A.A. is no success story in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a story of suffering transmuted, under grace, into spiritual progress.

All I have to do is look back at my past to see where my self-will has led me. I just don’t know what’s best for me and I believe my Higher Power does. G.O.D., which I define as “Good Orderly Direction,” has never let me down,

Miraculously, the only way to keep the gifts of the program is to pass them on.

As I began to understand my own powerlessness and my dependence on God, as I understand Him, I began to see that there was a life which, if I could have it, I would have chosen for myself from the beginning.

I give thanks for the joy that I can be useful today.

the heart of true sobriety: serenity with myself, with others, and with God as I understand Him.

God can only do for me what He can do through me. Humility is the result of knowing that God is the doer, not me.

By taking action and working the Twelve Steps in all my affairs, I’ll have a life beyond my wildest dreams.

In the same degree that I actively demonstrate my empathy with them, I will lessen my own exaggerated suffering.

No one was greater than I, at least in my eyes, when I was drinking. Nevertheless, I couldn’t smile at myself in the mirror, so I came to A.A.

joy is not just the absence of pain; it is the gift of continued spiritual awakening. Joy comes from ongoing and active study, as well as application of the principles of recovery in my everyday life, and from sharing that experience with others.

Instead of trying to run away from my pain and wish my problems away, I can pray for humility! Humility will heal the pain. Humility will take me out of myself. Humility, that strength granted to me by that “power greater than myself,” is mine for the asking! Humility will bring balance back into my life. Humility will allow me to accept my humanness joyously.

Repeated exposure to joyfulness has a way of softening the hard, outer edges of my ego.

The spiritual awakening I have enjoyed as the result of working the Steps is the awareness that I am no longer alone.

I can “Let Go and Let God” by humbly repeating: “Thy will, not mine, be done.

To define the word “harm” in a practical way, we might call it the result of instincts in collision, which cause physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual damage to people.

Shoemaker, stick to thy last!” . . . better do one thing supremely well than many badly.

Meditation is something which can always be further developed. It has no boundaries, either of width or height. Aided by such instruction and example as we can find, it is essentially an individual adventure, something which each one of us works out in his own way.

Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 89

A COMMON SOLUTION The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 17

Regardless of what is happening around me I will always have the prerogative, and the responsibility, of choosing what happens within me. I am the creator of my own reality.

The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole Society has sprung and flowered. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, pp. 21

I drank to establish a bond between myself and others, but I succeeded only in establishing the bondage of alcoholic loneliness.

Whoever is upsetting me most is my best teacher.

Thank you, God, for the changing seasons and for my ever-changing life.

It has been well said that “almost the only scoffers at prayer are those who never tried it enough.” TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 97

Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.

A FULL AND THANKFUL HEART I try hard to hold fast to the truth that a full and thankful heart cannot entertain great conceits. When brimming with gratitude, one’s heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love, the finest emotion that we can ever know. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 37

ACCEPTING OUR HUMANNESS We finally saw that the inventory should be ours, not the other man’s. So we admitted our wrongs honestly and became willing to set these matters straight. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 222

LOOKING WITHIN Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 42

The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 115

Love and tolerance of others is our code. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 84

I try to live an “attitude of gratitude

Under very trying conditions I have had, again and again, to forgive others—also myself AS BILL SEES IT, p. 268