AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 24, 2020 Common Journey High and low, rich and poor, these are future fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous. Among them you will make lifelong friends. You will be bound to them with new and wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey. Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life. You will learn the full meaning of "Love thy neighbor as thy ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 23, 2020 Virtually Impossible We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (There Is A Solution) pp. 22 - 23 Thou ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 22, 2020 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ Spiritual Condition It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.  - Alcoholics Anonymous, (Into Action) p. 85  Thought to Ponder The Twelve Steps⁠—a manuscript for rational living.  ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 21, 2020 Honesty 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 Honesty is the absence of the intent to ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 20, 2020 The Key Practicing Step Three is like the opening of a door which to all appearances is still closed and locked. All we need is a key, and the decision to swing the door open. There is only one key, and it is called willingness. Once unlocked by willingness, the door opens almost of itself, and looking through it, we shall see a pathway beside which is an inscription. It reads: "This is the way to a faith that works." - Twelve Steps and Twelve ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 19, 2020 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. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (The Family Afterward) p. 133 Thought to Ponder Happiness is part of the journey, not some distant destination. AA-related 'Alconym' A L O H A  =   A Lot Of Happy Al ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 18, 2020 Looking for Results To return to the subject matter of this book: It contains full suggestions by which the employee may solve his problem. To you, some of the ideas which it contains are novel. Perhaps you are not quite in sympathy with the approach we suggest. By no means do we offer it as the last word on this subject, but so far as we are concerned, it has worked with us. After all, are you not looking for results rather than methods? - Alcoholics A ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 17, 2020 Deprived Ourselves The notion that we would still live our own lives, God helping a little now and then, began to evaporate. Many of us who had thought ourselves religious awoke to the limitations of this attitude. Refusing to place God first, we had deprived ourselves of His help. But now the words "Of myself I am nothing, the Father doeth the works" began to carry bright promise and meaning. - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Step Seven) ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 16, 2020 Pain Someone who knew what he was talking about once remarked that pain was the touchstone of all spiritual progress. How heartily we A.A.'s can agree with him, for we know that the pains of drinking had to come before sobriety, and emotional turmoil before serenity. - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Step Ten) pp. 93 - 94 Thought to Ponder The gritty pain of alcoholism is the traction of recovery. AA-related 'Alconym' H O P E  =   Hold ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 15, 2020 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ Step One "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable." Many less desperate alcoholics tried A.A., but did not succeed because they could not make the admission of hopelessness. It is a tremendous satisfaction to record that in the following years this changed. Alcoholics who still had their health, their families, their jobs, and even two cars in the garage, began to recognize ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 14, 2020 Sunlight My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, "Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?" That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (Bill's Story) p. 12 Thought to Ponder Hope leads to faith if you let it. AA-related 'Alconym' A A  =   Altered Attitudes. Thanks to all ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 13, 2020 Step Eight "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all." What real harm, therefore, had we done? No more, surely, than we could easily mend with a few casual apologies. This attitude, of course, is the end result of purposeful forgetting. It is an attitude which can only be changed by a deep and honest search of our motives and actions. - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Step Eight) p. 79 ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 12, 2020 Twelfth Step Call When he sees you know all about the drinking game, commence to describe yourself as an alcoholic. Tell him how baffled you were, how you finally learned that you were sick. Give him an account of the struggles you made to stop. Show him the mental twist which leads to the first drink of a spree. We suggest you do this as we have done it in the chapter on alcoholism. If he is alcoholic, he will understand you at once. He will match your ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 1, 2020 My Language He gave me information about the subject of alcoholism which was undoubtedly helpful. Of far more importance was the fact that he was the first living human with whom I had ever talked, who knew what he was talking about in regard to alcoholism from actual experience. In other words, he talked my language. He knew all the answers, and certainly not because he had picked them up in his reading. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (Doctor Bob's Nightmare) ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) November 10, 2020 Unity - Tradition One Realization dawns that he is but a small part of a great whole; that no personal sacrifice is too great for preservation of the Fellowship. He learns that the clamor of desires and ambitions within him must be silenced whenever these could damage the group. It becomes plain that the group must survive or the individual will not. - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Tradition One) p. 130 Thought to Ponder There is no strength wit ...Continue Reading