AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 13, 2022 Truth I began with blind faith, but the proof of truth is that it works. I believed those who said they had suffered from alcoholism, but, through AA, were now enjoying sobriety. So the truth was there for me to see. But shortly I knew the truth from my own experience. I was not only released from the compulsion to drink; I was guided toward a compulsion to live! - Came To Believe, p. 3 Thought to Ponder Truth is to inner space what sunshine is to a garde ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 12, 2022 A Novel Idea 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. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (Bill's Story ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 11, 2022 Closest Scrutiny But in other instances only the closest scrutiny will reveal what our true motives were. There are cases where our ancient enemy, rationalization, has stepped in and has justified conduct which was really wrong. The temptation here is to imagine that we had good motives and reasons when we really didn't. - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Step Ten) p. 94 Thought to Ponder Don't believe everything you think. AA-related 'Alconym' D E N ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 10, 2022 ~ Scroll Down for Share ~ An Approach If he is to find God, the desire must come from within. If he thinks he can do the job in some other way, or prefers some other spiritual approach, encourage him to follow his own conscience. We have no monopoly on God; we merely have an approach that worked with us. - Alcoholics Anonymous, (Working With Others) p. 95  Thought to Ponder Take a walk with God. He will meet you at the Steps.  AA-related 'Alcon ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 9, 2022 Can We Choose? "As active alcoholics, we lost our ability to choose whether we would drink. We were the victims of a compulsion which seemed to decree that we must go on with our own destruction. Yet we finally did make choices that brought about recovery. We came to believe that alone we were powerless over alcohol. This was surely a choice, and a most difficult one. We came to believe that a Higher Power could restore us to sanity when we became will ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 8, 2022 Our First Attempt We can have faith, yet keep God out of our lives. Therefore our problem now becomes just how and by what specific means shall we be able to let Him in? Step Three represents our first attempt to do this. In fact, the effectiveness of the whole A.A. program will rest upon how well and earnestly we have tried to come to "a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." - Twelve Steps and Twel ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 7, 2022 Harmed Other People We might next ask ourselves what we mean when we say that we have "harmed" other people. What kinds of "harm" do people do one another, anyway? To define the word "harm" in a practical way, we might call it the result of instincts in collision, which cause physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual damage to people. - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Step Eight) p. 80 Thought to Ponder The 3 A’s -- Aware ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 6, 2022 A Fatal Progression Since Step One requires an admission that our lives have become unmanageable, how could people such as these take this Step? It was obviously necessary to raise the bottom the rest of us had hit to the point where it would hit them. By going back in our own drinking histories, we could show that years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal p ...Continue Reading

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) April 5, 2022 An Answer for You If you still think you are strong enough to beat the game alone, that is your affair. But if you really and truly want to quit drinking liquor for good and all, and sincerely feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you. It never fails, if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when you were getting another drink. Your Heavenly Father will never let you down! - Alcoholics A ...Continue Reading

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