DAILY PONDERABLES - Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny - Daily Reflections for Saturday, 1 March 2014

DAILY PONDERABLES - Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny - Daily Reflections for Saturday, 1 March 2014
IT WORKS
It works -- it really does.--ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, page 88
When I got sober I initially had faith only in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Desperation and fear kept me sober (and maybe a caring and/or tough sponsor helped!). Faith in a Higher Power came much later. This faith came slowly at first, after I began listening to others share at meetings about their experiences -- experiences that I had never faced sober, but that they were facing with strength from a Higher Power. Out of their sharing came hope that I too would -- and could -- "get" a Higher Power. In time, I learned that a Higher Power -- a faith that works under all conditions -- is possible. Today this faith, plus the honesty, openmindedness and willingness to work the Steps of the program, gives me the serenity that I seek. It works -- it really does.--From the book Daily Reflections © Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
When I find myself thinking about taking a drink, I say to myself. "Don't reach out and take that problem back. You've given it to God and there's nothing you can do about it." So I forget about the drink. One of the most important parts of the A.A. program is to give our drink problem to God honestly and fully and never to reach out and take the problem back to ourselves. If we let God have it and keep it for good and then cooperate with Him, we'll stay sober. Have I determined not to take the drink problem back to myself?
Meditation for the Day
Constant effort is necessary if I am to grow spiritually and develop my spiritual life. I must keep the spiritual rules persistently, perseveringly, lovingly, patiently, and hopefully. By keeping them, every mountain of difficulty shall be laid low, the rough places of poverty of spirit shall be made smooth, and all who know me shall know that God is the Lord of all my ways. To get close to the spirit of God is to find life and healing and strength.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that God's spirit may be everything to my soul. I pray that God's spirit may grow within me.--From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day © Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Anxiety attack?--Page 63
"[The] Power that brought us to this program is still with us and will continue to guide us if we allow it."--Basic Text, page 27
Ever had a panic attack? Everywhere we turn, life's demands overwhelm us. We're paralyzed, and we don't know what to do about it. How do we break an anxiety attack? 
First, we stop. We can't deal with everything at once, so we stop for a moment to let things settle. Then we take a "spot inventory" of the things that are bothering us. We examine each item, asking ourselves this question: "How important is it, really?" In most cases, we'll find that most of our fears and concerns don't need our immediate attention. We can put those aside, and focus on the issues that really need to be resolved right away. Then we stop again and ask ourselves, "Who's in control here, anyway?" This helps remind us that our Higher Power is in control. We seek our Higher Power's will for the situation, whatever it is. We can do this in any number of ways: through prayer, talks with our sponsor or NA friends, or by attending a meeting and asking others to share their experience. When our Higher Power's will becomes clear to us, we pray for the ability to carry it out. Finally, we take action. 
Anxiety attacks need not paralyze us. We can utilize the resources of the NA program to deal with anything that comes our way.
Just for Today: My Higher Power has not brought me all this way in recovery only to abandon me! When anxiety strikes, I will take specific steps to seek God's continuing care and guidance.--From the book Just for Today © Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."--Abraham Maslow
'The highest of all forms of prayer is true contemplation, in which the thought and the thinker become one.'--Emmet Fox (thanks Chris C.)
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
As soon as you get some sense of contact, you want to be teachers of others. This is a big mistake.--Ta-sui 
Native American
"The beginning is purification, that's the first step..And purification means purification of body and mind. You don't purify the body without cleansing the mind; that's the way it works."--Rolling Thunder, CHEROKEE
If we have bad thoughts or poison in our minds, they will eventually show up in our bodies in the form of headaches, pains, and stomach problems. It works this way because we are interconnected. Our minds and our bodies are one system. So when we start to grow, or commit to the Red Road, we need to start cleaning up our thoughts and start showing respect for our bodies. We start purifying our minds by prayer and meditation, and we start cleansing our bodies by getting the right amount of sleep and developing good eating habits. Today, I'm going to observe my thoughts. Will my thoughts be clean today?
Great Spirit, let me focus on Your love today so my mind will be pure. 
Keep It Simple
Made the decision to turn our will and lives over to God as we understand Him.--Step Three
Care. This is what turn our will and lives over to care of our Higher Power. What peace follows! We see our God as caring, as loving. We turn everything over to this Higher Power, who can take better care of us than we can by ourselves. Care can guide us. If we want to do something, we can ask ourselves, "Would my Higher Power see this as an act of care?" If the answer is yes, then we go ahead. If the answer is no, we don't do it. If we can't be sure, we wait and talk it over with our friends and sponsor. We wait until we know whether it would be an act of care or not. What wonderful guidance!
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, I give to You my will. I give to you my life. I gladly jump into Your loving arms.
Action for the Day: Today, I'll care about others. I'll find as many as I can to care for others.
Big Book
"We agnostically inclined would not feel satisfied with a proposal which does not lend itself to reasonable approach and interpretation. Hence we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable, why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to believe, why we say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands in doubt and said, 'We don't know.'"--Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, We Agnostics, page 53
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Chuck Chamberlain, Memorial. 
This recording is a memorial service for the much-loved, early Alcoholics Anonymous member, Chuck Chamberlain. Chuck died on December 14th, 1984 in Laguna Beach, California at the age of 82. 
This recording was made within the two weeks after his death. The chairman of this meeting is well-known AA speaker, Johnny Harris. Johnny introduces about seven or eight different speakers who take their turns at the podium eulogizing Chuck. The speakers include Chuck’s wife Elsa, his son Bill Chamberlain, Sybil Corwin, Cecil Corrigal, and Clancy Imislund. 
There are a lot of heart-felt memories of Chuck C shared by these speakers on this recording. Several times, various speakers hint at the fact that the final speaker is definitely the best. The final speaker ends up being Chuck C himself; a short recording of a Chuck AA talk is played and provides a very emotional ending to this memorial. 
http://www.mediafire.com/download/sjegg7ljvkyl7kc/Chuck+C.+memorial+++1984.mp3
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DAILY PONDERABLES - Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny - Daily Reflections for Sunday, 2 March 2014
HOPE
Do not be discouraged.--ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, page 60
Few experiences are of less value to me than fast sobriety. Too
many times discouragement has been the bonus for unrealistic
expectations, not to mention self-pity or fatigue from my wanting to change the world by the weekend. Discouragement is a warning
signal that I may have wandered across the God line. The secret of fulfilling my potential is in acknowledging my limitations and believing that time is a gift, not a threat.
Hope is the key that unlocks the door of discouragement. The
program promises me that if I do not pick up the first drink today, I will always have hope. Having come to believe that I keep what I share, every time I encourage, I receive courage. It is with others that, with the grace of God and the Fellowship of A.A., I trudge the road of happy destiny. 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.--From the book Daily Reflections © Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
Over a period of drinking years, we've proved to ourselves and to
everybody else that we can't stop drinking by our own willpower. We have been proved helpless before the power of alcohol. So the only way we could stop drinking was by turning to a Power greater than ourselves. We call that Power God. The time that you really get this program is when you get down on your knees and surrender yourself to God, as you understand Him. Surrender means putting your life into God's hands. Have I made a promise to God that I will try to live the way He wants me to live?
Meditation For The Day
Spirit-power comes from communication with God in prayer and
times of quiet meditation. I must constantly seek spirit-communication with God. This is a matter directly between me
and God. Those who seek it through the medium of the church do not always get the joy and the wonder of spirit communication with God. From this communication comes life, joy, peace, and healing. Many people do not realize the power that can come to them from direct spirit-communication.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may feel that God's power is mine. I pray that I may be able to face anything through that power.--From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day © Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Success--Page 64
"Any form of success was frightening and unfamiliar."--Basic Text, page 14
Before coming to NA, few of us had much experience with success. Every attempt to stop using on our own had ended in failure. We had begun to give up hope of finding any relief from active addiction. We had grown accustomed to failure, expecting it, accepting it, thinking it was just part of our makeup. 
When we stay clean, we begin to experience success in our lives. We begin to take pride in our accomplishments. We start to take healthy risks. We may take some knocks in the process, but even these can be counted as successes if we learn from them. 
Sometimes when we fulfill a goal, we hesitate to "pat ourselves on the back" for fear that we will seem arrogant. But our Higher Power wants us to succeed, and wants us to share with our loved ones the pride we take in our accomplishments. When we share our successes with others in NA, they often begin to believe that they can achieve their goals as well. When we succeed, we help lay the groundwork for others who follow in our path.
Just for Today: I will take time to savor my successes. I will share my victories with an "attitude of gratitude."--From the book Just for Today © Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."--Leo Buscaglia (thanks Stephanie T)
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
Remain silent, and you sink into a realm of shadows; speak, and you fall into a deep pit. Try, and you're as far away as sky from earth; give up, and you'll never attain. Enormous waves go on and on, foaming breakers flood the skies who's got the bright pearl that calms the oceans? --I Ching
Native American
"The voice and the heart are not working together."--Barney Bush, SHAWNEE
We can say any words we want with our voice but we cannot hide the true meaning and the true spirit behind the words. The true meaning is always understood. The voice is heard in the physical world, but the meaning is transmitted in the spiritual world. If our voice says one thing but the heart is saying something else, it's the something else that is heard. It is said that the truth will set you free. Reaching the truth means your voice and your words will be in alignment with the heart. 
Great Spirit, let my tongue, speak the truth today.
Walk In Dry Places
Seeking Excitement____ Seeking Serenity
"I haven't found anything to replace the excitement I felt while drinking," a member complained. "Sure, I'm grateful to be sober. But sometimes it's so darned boring!
Let' talk about that need for excitement, or "high." For many of us, it was an important part of our drinking. At times, our drinking was exciting---it came with celebrations, graduations, marriage receptions, engagements, and just about anything else out of the ordinary. Along with it, we wanted other excitement: exciting love affairs, exciting experiences, exciting stories.
For us, however, excitement always ended with a crash, often a terrible one. Waking up after an exciting binge was a horrible moment. It stretched out to become horrible It never seemed to have a happy ending.
We can take this addiction to excitement in hand by recognizing it as a component of our alcoholism. We'll still be able to be excited at times, but it must be a type of excitement that brings neither crash nor hangover.
I will not let boredom push me into actions that I know will be destructive in the long run. I do not want thrills at the expense of my self-respect and sense of well-being. 
Big Book
"So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They
arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so."--Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, How It Works, page 62
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Mr. Hyde Doesn't Die Grapevine April 1968 (thanks Ronny H)
The boozer in us is still there, but put to sleep by AA. This member woke up his Mr. Hyde with a single beer.
WE ALCOHOLICS are, I think, double-personality people--one person sober and an entirely different one loaded. This thought is very much on my mind because I resurrected this second personality in myself when I recently strayed off the AA reservation.
This time, for perhaps the first time, I could separate the two personalities. In pre-AA days the two were so frequently blended and intermingled that I accepted both as making up the person, the whole me. As a consequence I despised myself, though I did realize vaguely that the things I hated most came out only while I was drinking. Now I know better.
The alcoholic personality, this Mr. Hyde to my Dr. Jekyll, is not me at all. It is a diseased product of a temporarily deranged ego and embodies all the unattractive thoughts, ideas, and character defects I have at the bottom of my mind. It is a ludicrous animal that crawls up out of the slime and, at least for a time, becomes AL W. We are all mixtures of good and evil, but this second personality of mine is more evil than good when in full alcoholic bloom. From the thoughts that went through my head recently (that I can remember) and from the actions which other people kindly filled in for me later, I realize that this "thing" was actually capable of almost anything.
The contention that one doesn't do anything while intoxicated or hypnotized that is against one's sober or conscious moral standards was proved wrong in my case--it was blown out of the water. I proved that I did do things I would never do sober. I never drive by a prison or a jail without experiencing a wave of gratitude that I'm not incarcerated in it. For among the criminals in any prison are a number of alcoholics (like you and me) whose Mr. Hyde personality trapped them. Mr. Hyde always leaves the tab for the real me to pick up, and the size of the bill progresses with the progression of this disease.
In my early days of overindulgence, alcohol merely changed some aspects of the sober me, aspects I wanted changed. But at one point, and I remember it well, I went completely over the line into acute alcoholism. And this second self, my Mr. Hyde, became an entity unto itself, with practically no resemblance whatever to the real person. It was dependent on me in only one area, in that I had to drink to bring it to life and into expression. No problem. I was addicted to alcohol. I lived for it. For the whole first part of my life I honestly felt that I couldn't live without it. So my Mr. Hyde had a very active life of his own, and with every breath he took, my self-respect as Dr. Jekyll went down another notch. The insane part of it was that I knew what was happening all the time. The more I hated Mr. Hyde for what he represented and what he did to me, the more often I brought him to life. I'm no scientist and I'm not trying to be scientific about all this. It's just that, with a little insight dropped in my lap the hard way, I can (at least to my satisfaction) piece together the repeated falls and final resurrection of an Alcoholic Named AL.
In the first three months of my exposure to this program, I buried this entirely phony second self. It sickened from malnutrition and died--I thought. A long time later, I found Mark Twain was right: The report of its death was greatly exaggerated. With one drink of beer, I literally reached down into the bottom of my mind, where all the garbage is, and stirred to life this decaying corpse. This is one of the reasons why there is no cure for this disease we share: The "drinker" never dies until we do. I guarantee, however, that AA will put it to sleep, and that is all we should ask. It's all I wanted to know once, and I believe--more than ever now--it's all I need to know from here on out.
My recent relapse, I understand now, was a direct result of questioning and wishfully disagreeing with part of a program my better self knew was created by alcoholics with divine guidance. They devised AA and offered help to fellow alcoholics who were sick of the complete dependence that is addiction--sick of unbelievable physical and mental pain, sick of causing pain to others, sick of being so much less than they really are. The real difference between a drunk and an alcoholic is not, as the comedians like to quip, that the latter has to go to all those damn meetings. It is hope and the inward knowing that our Mr. Hydes are not the people we were meant to be.
If there is any one motive common to all humanity, it is the search for happiness. It is this state of being that we all hoped to find at the bottom of the glass. Not finding it (except occasionally when the disease was young), we keep going from glass to glass until we are finally two people.
I was permitted a second look at my alcoholic personality. I saw it reflected in bar mirrors and it looked fine--old Al, swinging again at last! It was only the next day that I saw it in perspective, at least up to the point where memory blessedly stopped.
I was given a second look at what the disease had wrought. That look destroyed for all time the reservation I guess I had retained all along: that sometime, under controlled conditions, alcohol plus me could equal fun once more. The realization that rocks me even now is the literally God-forsaken chance I took on dying before my time, for that second look!
There was only one place I wanted to go as I waited in a jail cell for the court to convene. I wanted to go where the real action was--action on a very different plane, action not only seen but experienced, the human being in gentle and positive communion with the absolute Power. I wanted to go where I had first found God and at the same time found myself. Like a small child who has stumbled over his own stupidity and hurt himself very badly, I wanted to go to the only place I knew where even this lapse would be understood. Not excused, but understood.
I wanted to go back to AA. And I did!--A. J. W., Blue Springs, Missouri
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If you're not enjoying your sobriety it's your own damn fault!
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