*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 18, 2016* *Pink Cloud* I was like a lot of others on a pink cloud for two or three weeks.  Then I came crashing down to earth and began to feel that awful, apprehensive, depressive pain that said if I wanted to stay stopped, I would have to change. Thank goodness, I was told at meetings that I could now live one day at a time. I didn’t need to project the future or cry about the past. Just live to the best of my ability, one day at a time. /- AA Around the ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 17, 2016 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ Habits Our drinking was connected with many habits—big and little. Some of them were thinking habits, or things we felt inside ourselves. Others were doing habits—things we did, actions we took.  In getting used to not drinking, we have found that we needed new habits to take the place of the old ones.* /- Living Sober,/ Preface *Thought to Ponder . . .* *Learn to change, change to learn. AA-related 'Alconym' . . . *A B ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 16, 2016* *Humility* Every newcomer in Alcoholics Anonymous is told, and soon realizes for himself, that his humble admission of powerlessness over alcohol is his first step toward liberation from its paralyzing grip. So it is that we first see humility as a necessity.  But this is the barest beginning. /- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions,/ pp. 72-73 *Thought to Ponder . . .* Humility is not thinking less of myself, but thinking of myself less. *AA-rela ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 15, 2016* *Spiritual Strength* With my life in God’s care, fear, uncertainty, and anger are no longer my response to those portions of life that I would rather not have happen to me. The pain of living through these times will be healed by the knowledge that I have received the spiritual strength to survive. /- Daily Reflections,/ p. 206 *Thought to Ponder . . .* Through adversity we find strength. *AA-related 'Alconym' . . .* *H O W* = **H**onesty, **O**pen-m ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 14, 2016* *Anonymity* “It is today the view of every thoughtful AA member that if, over the years ahead, we practice this anonymity /absolutely/, it will guarantee our effectiveness and unity by heavily restraining those to whom public honors and distinctions are but stepping-stones to dominance and personal power.” /- ‘Pass It On’ . . .The story of Bill Wilson and how the AA message reached the world./ p. 312 *Thought to Ponder . . .* I asked God to make me fa ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 13, 2016 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ The A.A. Preamble Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for A.A. membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. A.A. is not allied with any sect, denominati ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 12, 2016* *Expectations* I was suffering inner pain because my performance and my accomplishments in life failed to live up to my own expectations of myself. I /had/ to anesthetize that pain with alcohol.  Of course, the more I drank, the more unrealistic my expectations became and the poorer my performance, and the gap widened. So the need to drink grew still greater. /- Alcoholics Anonymous,/ p. 556 *Thought to Ponder . . .* My disappointments are equal ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 11, 2016* *Identity* I found that feeling different or having an edge on the other AA members by being an alcoholic-addict was not appealing to me.  I do not refer to myself as an alcoholic-addict for that reason. I truly feel that I am an alcoholic who had problems with other chemicals, and if I participate in our program of recovery by practicing these spiritual principles in my life, it just doesn’t occur to me to stick needles in my arm or smoke those f ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 10, 2016 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ The Wine of Success We must be careful when we begin to achieve some measure of importance and material success. For no people have ever loved personal triumphs more than we have loved them; we drank of success as of a wine which could never fail to make us elated. Blinded by prideful self-confidence, we were apt to play the big shot.* /- As Bill Sees It,/ p.19 *Thought to Ponder . . .* *The smallest package in the world is a ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 9, 2016* *A Million Potentials* Perfection would limit me; imperfection offers me the freedom of a million potentials. All the excitement and interest and wonder of adventure are mine to explore, ever-new, ever-changing, ever-becoming. Thank God, as a result of AA and sobriety, I am liberated from /dreaming/ the impossible dream and free, finally, to start /living/ the possible dream. /- The Best of the Grapevine/ [Vol. 1], p. 61 *Thought to Ponder . . .* It's ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 8, 2016* *The Here-And-Now* The nondrinking alcoholic discovers in AA that you cannot Get Ahead until you learn to Be Here. We discover from our Serenity Prayer that one of the things we cannot change is time. The Here-and-Now is the only reality.  The active alcoholic tends to live in the future or in the past. The sober alcoholic, using part of the philosophy in his AA experience, lives or strives to live in the present. /- Came To Believe . . .,/ p. 113 ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 7, 2016* *Step Seven* /“Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”/ For God to remove our shortcomings, we need to identify the defect for what it is. Thus we attain the humility required by Step Seven. And certainly the most difficult fault to see in ourselves is pride, aptly termed the first deadly sin. /- The Best of the Grapevine/ [Vol. 3], p. 208 *Thought to Ponder . . .* If I want God to remove my character defects, I'll have to stop doing them. *AA-r ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 6, 2016 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ Slips It isn’t easy to start over again, to try to be teachable after being one of the teachers, to try to become humble after being successful in AA and a career. I dug out my AA books, the ones I nearly threw out the last time I moved. . . It looks like a slow, uphill process. But at least I no longer feel as if I’m going downhill on a greased slide.* /- The Best of the Grapevine/ [Vol. 3], pp. 304-305 *Thought to Ponder . . ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 5, 2016* *Alternatives* If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help. /- Alcoholics An ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *July 4, 2016* *Firecrackers* It occurred to me that we alcoholics are like firecrackers. Yes, when we first go into AA we are like firecrackers with short wicks and when those short wicks get lighted with resentment or self-pity or any of the things that cause us to go off on a tangent, it doesn’t take long before we explode. The longer we go to meetings, the longer the wick becomes. /- Thank You For Sharing,/ p. 61 *Thought to Ponder . . .* RULE #62: "Don't ta ...Continue Reading