AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 4, 2022 Begun to Learn If we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we have written down a lot. We have listed and analyzed our resentments. We have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality. We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness. We have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (How It Works) p. 70 Thought to Ponder We are ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 3, 2022 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ Willing and Ready Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it—then you are ready to take certain steps. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (How It Works) p. 58  Thought to Ponder The Twelve Steps -- a manuscript for rational living.  AA-related 'Alconym' F A I T H  =  For All ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 2, 2022 Spiritual Awakening In a very real sense he has been transformed, because he has laid hold of a source of strength which, in one way or another, he had hitherto denied himself. He finds himself in possession of a degree of honesty, tolerance, unselfishness, peace of mind, and love of which he had thought himself quite incapable. - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Step Twelve) p. 107 Thought to Ponder We're not living just to be sober; we are living to ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 1, 2022 True Tolerance We begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means. It will become more and more evident as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry, or to get hurt by people who, like us, are suffering from the pains of growing up. - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Step Ten) p. 92 Though ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) March 31, 2022 Being Helpful When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done." We avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn’t treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) March 30, 2022 Problem Removed We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (Into Action) p. 85 Thought to Ponder Spiritual p ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) March 29, 2022 Greater Challenge Like most people, we have found that we can take our big lumps as they come. But also like others, we often discover a greater challenge in the lesser and more continuous problems of life. Our answer is in still more spiritual development. Only by this means can we improve our chances for really happy and useful living. - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Step Twelve) p. 114 Thought to Ponder Life is a steady drizzle of small things - ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) March 28, 2022 Step Five Somehow, being alone with God doesn't seem as embarrassing as facing up to another person. Until we actually sit down and talk aloud about what we have so long hidden, our willingness to clean house is still largely theoretical. When we are honest with another person, it confirms that we have been honest with ourselves and with God. - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Step Five) p. 60 Thought to Ponder If you want to get free, you have to fir ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) March 27, 2022 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ Whistling in the Dark Now and then a serious drinker, being dry at the moment says, “I don’t miss it at all. Feel better. Work better. Having a better time.” As ex-problem drinkers, we smile at such a sally. We know our friend is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits. He fools himself. Inwardly he would give anything to take half a dozen drinks and get away with them. He will presently try the old game again, for ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) March 26, 2022 Errors to Assets Henry Ford once made a wise remark to the effect that experience is the thing of supreme value in life. That is true only if one is willing to turn the past to good account. We grow by our willingness to face and rectify errors and convert them into assets. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (The Family Afterward) p. 124 Thought to Ponder The first step in overcoming mistakes is to admit them. AA-related 'Alconym' F E A R  =   Face Everyt ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) March 25, 2022 A Fair Hearing We looked at the human defects of these people, and sometimes used their shortcomings as a basis of wholesale condemnation. We talked of intolerance, while we were intolerant ourselves. We missed the reality and the beauty of the forest because we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees. We never gave the spiritual side of life a fair hearing. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (We Agnostics) p. 50 Thought to Ponder When I change the way I ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) March 24, 2022 Spiritual Awakening Maybe there are as many definitions of spiritual awakening as there are people who have had them. But certainly each genuine one has something in common with all the others. And these things which they have in common are not too hard to understand. When a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided stre ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) March 23, 2022 Inventory-Taking When evening comes, perhaps before going to sleep, many of us draw up a balance sheet for the day. This is a good place to remember that inventory-taking is not always done in red ink. It's a poor day indeed when we haven't done something right. As a matter of fact, the waking hours are usually well filled with things that are constructive. Even when we have tried hard and failed, we may chalk that up as one of the greatest credits of all. ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) March 22, 2022 Faith and Utopia There is, however, a vast amount of fun about it all. I suppose some would be shocked at our seeming worldliness and levity. But just underneath there is deadly earnestness. Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish. Most of us feel we need look no further for Utopia. We have it with us right here and now. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (Bill's Story) p. 15 Thought to Ponder It is when you act on faith that you ac ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) March 21, 2022 Accurate Self-Appraisal Must A.A.'s spend most of their waking hours drearily rehashing their sins of omission or commission? Well, hardly. The emphasis on inventory is heavy only because a great many of us have never really acquired the habit of accurate self-appraisal. Once this healthy practice has become grooved, it will be so interesting and profitable that the time it takes won't be missed. For these minutes and sometimes hours spent in self-examinat ...Continue Reading