*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 24, 2014 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ "Dry Drunk" A dry drunk is a period of temporary insanity for the sober alcoholic. Step Two says: "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." A dry drunk is a self-imposed separation from others and from God. We try to run on our own current, like a battery without a generator, which soon runs down and becomes quite dead.* /- The Best of the Grapevine/ [Vol. 1], p. ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 23, 2014* *Surrender* *When alcohol influenced every facet of my life, when bottles became the symbol of all my self-indulgence and permissiveness, when I came to realize that, by myself, I could do nothing to overcome the power of alcohol, I realized I had no recourse except surrender. In surrender I found victory -- victory over my selfish self-indulgence, victory over my resistance to life as it was given to me.* /- Daily Reflections,/ p. 14 *Thought t ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 22, 2014* *Right Living* *Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God's sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 21, 2014 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ No Regrets The spiritual life is not a theory.  /We have to live it. . ./ If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.* /- Alcoholics Anonymous,/ p. 83 *Thought to Ponder . . .* *Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.* *AA-relat ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 20, 2014* *Confusion* *I began to question my new beliefs too much -- I began to panic.  I began to read beyond AA's literature for answers. . . before I had read too much about the subject of spiritual beliefs, I realized I was asking too much too soon. Wisely, I left the philosophy books to minds more capable than mine. I could not risk further mental confusion.  I returned to the teachings of AA, which had already saved me from a life of tormen ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 20, 2014* *Confusion* *I began to question my new beliefs too much -- I began to panic.  I began to read beyond AA's literature for answers. . . before I had read too much about the subject of spiritual beliefs, I realized I was asking too much too soon. Wisely, I left the philosophy books to minds more capable than mine. I could not risk further mental confusion.  I returned to the teachings of AA, which had already saved me from a life of tormen ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 19, 2014* *Emotional Sobriety* *Tying our sobriety to someone we are emotionally involved with proves flatly disastrous. "I'll stay sober if so-and-so does this or that" puts an unhealthy condition on our recovery. We have to stay sober for ourselves, no matter what other people do or fail to do. . . We need to cool /any/ overboard feeling, lest it flip us back into the drink. * /- Living Sober,/ p. 62 *Thought to Ponder . . .* *Formula for fail ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 18, 2014* *Truth* *As I began to look more closely, I noticed serious flaws: I was an alcoholic; I was neurotic; I was brimful of character defects. But these were things that, in time and with help, could be dealt with. No longer did I have to run with nightmarish terror from an inner monster. I had seen the truth, and the truth had freed me to do less hiding and more seeking.* /- The Best of the Grapevine/ [Vol. 1], p. 134 *Thought to Ponder . . .* *I c ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 17, 2014 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ Turning Point Half measures availed us nothing.  We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.* /- Alcoholics Anonymous,/ p. 59 *Thought to Ponder . . .* *Life will take on new meaning.* *AA-related 'Alconym' . . .* **H O P E** = **H**eart **O**pen; **P**lease **E**nter. ** *A Member Shares: Hi, I'm Peter, and I'm an alcoholic.  That's a great passage.  Really is t ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 16, 2014* *Fellowship* *I began to develop a sense of trust in the AA group and in the ideals of the Fellowship as a manifestation of a Power greater than myself. Although for many years I did not come to an acceptance of a God who intervened personally and directly in the lives of individuals, I was able to accept the idea of a force that moved in the rooms and animated AA members with a sense of unconditional love. That satisfied my spiritual needs for a ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 15, 2014* *Fact* *Somehow our bodies had reached the point where we could no longer absorb alcohol in our systems. The /why/ is not important, the /fact/ is that one drink will set up a reaction in our system that requires more, that one drink is too many and a hundred drinks are not enough.* /- Alcoholics Anonymous,/ p. 355 *Thought to Ponder . . .* *Alcohol -- cunning, baffling, powerful!* *AA-related 'Alconym' . . .* *A A* = **A**bsolute **A**bstinenc ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 14, 2014 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ Step Four /"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."/ Step Four is the vigorous and painstaking effort to discover what the liabilities in each of us have been, and are. I want to find exactly how, when, and where my natural desires have warped me. I wish to look squarely at the unhappiness this has caused others and myself. . . Without a willing and persistent effort to do this, there can b ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 13, 2014* *Growth* *Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you. At the start, this was all we needed to commence spiritual growth, to effect our first conscious contact with God as we understood Him. Afterward, we found ourselves accepting things which then seemed entirely out of reach. That was growth, but if we wished to grow we had to begin somewhere. So we used our own conc ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 12, 2014* *Serenity* *I came into my apartment and I suddenly collapsed on the floor. I lay there breathing kind of heavily and I said to myself, "Oh, to hell with serenity.  I don't care if it never comes." And I meant it.  And do you know what happened? All of a sudden the craving to find serenity utterly evaporated - and in its place was serenity. The trouble was the search ... looking /there/ for what was right /here./* /- Daily Refl ...Continue Reading

*AA Thought for the Day* (courtesy AA-Alive.net) *September 11, 2014* *Peace* *Peace is possible for me only when I let go of expectations. When I'm trapped in thoughts about what I want and what should be coming to me, I'm in a state of anxious anticipation and this is not conducive to emotional sobriety. I must surrender - over and over - to the reality of my dependence on God, for then, I find peace, gratitude and spiritual security.* /- Daily Reflections,/ p. 197 *Thought to Ponder . . .* *No God, no peace -- ...Continue Reading