Thursday 22 March 2012

March 22 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 3 | 2012 | Alcoholics Anonymous

March 22 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 3 "Let Go" | 2012 | Today's AA daily reflection: "no more struggle…" Battling, fighting and winning or overcoming something… Never my favourite concepts and when I started to understand the twelve steps are always about well-being and interdependence and equality I was able to breathe a deep sigh of relief…



In my early years of work experience and life experience, it was never about being top dog or competing against the next man or woman. I feel it was always about being the best I could be on any given day. And the fall into alcoholism was a natural consequence of my striving and determination and subsequent disappointment and heartbreak with life. As time has passed in recovery, I can strive and live the best and the worst of life and see the balance as each day unfolds…



On any given day my mood and attitude will adjust to what is going on and life is unpredictable. To try and impose emotions on a situation does not work, at the same time though if I can think a solution my feelings and emotions will improve. And if I cannot think of a solution without help, I let go and ask the help from any source, inside and out. We are not at war with life, more often at war with our expectations and what we think we deserve or what society suggests we should have today…



In the United Kingdom we have just had the annual budget statement from the government. Taxation in our country falls into two categories, direct tax on income and indirect taxes on commodities we buy. Every single person in the United Kingdom is a taxpayer, directly or indirectly. Actually taxation these days is mostly based on your lifestyle choices, taxed being single, taxed being married, taxed having children, taxed for buying a house, taxed on luxury goods, taxed alcohol, taxed for cigarettes, taxed for going abroad by air, taxed on your utilities, taxed for having a car, taxed for saving money, taxed for pension, and taxed for living longer and overcharged whenever possible by big business. Life can be very taxing! Thank God for recovery…



So going back to the question; "no more struggle?" Probably I am pragmatic person, it is a question of mental attitude and what we can and cannot do on a daily basis. Today I can cope with my daily routines and know my limits and how far I might be able to push them. When it comes to issues of government and wider society, I will not be bound by my old attitudes and loyalties. I will look at what is good for family community and society overall and not what is good for a minority who take advantage and manipulate to their own ends…

-/-

DonInLondon 2005-2011



Powerless over alcohol, people, places and things and my choices are manageable, good conscience keeps me sober and sane today, less self interest and more interest in the common good. I am responsible when anyone anywhere, and reminding myself what I can do and cannot do and when needed, seeking guidance and wisdom today...



We learn our feelings every moment, as life experience offers ~ Dale Carnegie "Happiness doesn't depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude." -/- Change is not only possible, change is always happening as we engage in living..



Solitary endeavour is quite different to isolation ~ Eric Hoffer "A man by himself is in bad company." -/- Life is always about balance..



Sharing experience strength and hope of how it was and how it is today ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes "Beware how we take away hope from another human being." -/- That was then and this is now, in the now new possibilities open for us, real and just for a day? Today is always..



Spitiual and emotional well being, contingent on our sobriety and now ~ D. H. Lawrence "One realm we have never conquered: the pure present." -/- Open honest and willing, we keep open the door to new experiences whatever they may be, and we change as a consequence..



The mind can assert anything, and pretend it has proved it. My beliefs I test on my body, on my intuitional consciousness, and when I get a response there, then I accept.- D. H. Lawrence



Into the fabric of recovery from alcoholism are woven the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions, steps to be open honest and willing to learn, traditions to live unity service and recovery.

-/-

AA Daily Reflection: ~ NO MORE STRUGGLE… And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone- even alcohol. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p.84



When AA found me I thought I was in for a struggle, and that AA might provide me the strength I needed to beat alcohol. Victorious in that fight, who knows what other battles I could win. I would need to be strong, though. All my previous expirence with life proved that. Today I do not have to struggle or exert my will. If I take those Twelve Steps and let my Higher Power do the real work, my alcohol problem disappears all by itself. My living problems also cease to be struggles. I just have to ask whether acceptance-or change-is required. It is not my will, but his, that needs doing

-/-

As Bill sees it "Personality Change ~ "It has often been said of A.A. that we are interested only on alcoholism. That is not true. We have to get over drinking in order to stay alive. But anyone who knows the alcoholic personality by firsthand contact knows that no true alky ever stops drinking permanently without undergoing a profound personality change. We thought "conditions" drove us to drink, and when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't do so to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics. It never ocurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.





Step 3 "Let Go" Reading Video Link:



"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him"

-/-

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