April 4 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 4 "Inventory" | Alcoholics Anonymous Today's AA daily reflection: "crying for the moon" I'm not too familiar with what this means, but what follows is the description of how alcoholism holds us in its grip, and the obsession to do well when we feel inferior continues to hamper our progress into sobriety…
I was certainly in the grip of many fears in my drinking years, a desire to be accepted, a desire for a wife and everything including family, a desire to succeed in any enterprise. And I set high standards for myself and tried to sustain them, and alcohol was always my best friend when I had success and when I did not measure up in my own estimations. Drink took the edge off the pain and success and then drink took that edge off me, and without drink now I realise I was simply good enough and no need to be perfect…
The only way for me to drink responsibly these days is to drink water! I now realise just how hazardous self-medication with alcohol was. It may have taken one drink in the past to set me off on adventures which seemed to be very pleasurable at the time and full of encounters I can see would have flourished, and more interesting and meaningful if I had not been so self absorbed. The journey for each of us is arduous when it comes to recovery and step four; a chronicle of success and catastrophe and how we felt about life is so valuable in learning what I can and cannot do today…
Can do, cannot do and the wisdom to know the difference happens in the moment and just for today. I now understand fully what it means when we ask ourselves, "hungry, angry, lonely, tired H.A.L.T" simply stopping and taking a reality check. How am I feeling, why and what may I do next, it can be something or nothing depending what is appropriate in the present moment. Keeping it simple for a complicated person like me? I think so and always just for today…
DonInLondon 2005-2011 [ Full daily blog link: http://donoddylondon.blogspot.com/ ]
No longer driven by the idea that "life will be better when I get this job, that girl or whatever it may be.." Sober today I may have dreams, and make steps toward the future based on real life, real life as it is. I can be open, honest and willing, share my hopes and put in the foot work today. Unrealistic dreams are resentments under construction...
How do we look after ourselves? My late father, said to me many years ago, "I wished I had cherished your mother more and been less superficial and indifferent" Dad never found recovery. Those words, cherish, superficial and indifferent help me every day. To cherish always and be aware of superficiality and indifference..
Every day we learn more about who we are, how we are feeling, why and what we may do ~ Katharine Butler Hathaway "All I can do is act according to my deepest instinct, and be whatever I must be; crazy or ribald or sad or compassionate or loving or indifferent. That is all anybody can do" -/- We learn to cherish ourselves and everyone, just as we may be today..
-/-
AA Daily Reflection: Daily Reflections ~ CRYING FOR THE MOON “This very real feeling of inferiority is magnified by his childish sensitivity and it is this state of affairs which generates in him that insatiable, abnormal craving for self-approval and success in the eyes of the world. Still a child, he cries for the moon. And the moon, it seems, won’t have him!” LANGUAGE OF THE HEART, p. 102
While drinking I seemed to vacillate between feeling totally invisible and believing I was the centre of the universe. Searching for that elusive balance between the two has become a major part of my recovery. The moon I constantly cried for is, in sobriety, rarely full; it shows me instead its many other phases, and there are lessons in them all. True learning has often followed an eclipse, a time of darkness, but with each cycle of my recovery, the light grows stronger and my vision is clearer.
-/-
As Bill Sees It ~ Foundation for Life... We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order and on our terms. In praying, we ask simply that throughout the day God place in us the best understanding of His will that we can have for the day, and that we be given the grace by which we may carry it out There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation for life. TWELVE AND TWELVE 1. P. 104 2. P. 102 3. P. 98 20
-/-
Step 4 "Fearless Inventory" Reading Video Link:
"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"
-/-
I was certainly in the grip of many fears in my drinking years, a desire to be accepted, a desire for a wife and everything including family, a desire to succeed in any enterprise. And I set high standards for myself and tried to sustain them, and alcohol was always my best friend when I had success and when I did not measure up in my own estimations. Drink took the edge off the pain and success and then drink took that edge off me, and without drink now I realise I was simply good enough and no need to be perfect…
The only way for me to drink responsibly these days is to drink water! I now realise just how hazardous self-medication with alcohol was. It may have taken one drink in the past to set me off on adventures which seemed to be very pleasurable at the time and full of encounters I can see would have flourished, and more interesting and meaningful if I had not been so self absorbed. The journey for each of us is arduous when it comes to recovery and step four; a chronicle of success and catastrophe and how we felt about life is so valuable in learning what I can and cannot do today…
Can do, cannot do and the wisdom to know the difference happens in the moment and just for today. I now understand fully what it means when we ask ourselves, "hungry, angry, lonely, tired H.A.L.T" simply stopping and taking a reality check. How am I feeling, why and what may I do next, it can be something or nothing depending what is appropriate in the present moment. Keeping it simple for a complicated person like me? I think so and always just for today…
DonInLondon 2005-2011 [ Full daily blog link: http://donoddylondon.blogspot.com/ ]
No longer driven by the idea that "life will be better when I get this job, that girl or whatever it may be.." Sober today I may have dreams, and make steps toward the future based on real life, real life as it is. I can be open, honest and willing, share my hopes and put in the foot work today. Unrealistic dreams are resentments under construction...
How do we look after ourselves? My late father, said to me many years ago, "I wished I had cherished your mother more and been less superficial and indifferent" Dad never found recovery. Those words, cherish, superficial and indifferent help me every day. To cherish always and be aware of superficiality and indifference..
Every day we learn more about who we are, how we are feeling, why and what we may do ~ Katharine Butler Hathaway "All I can do is act according to my deepest instinct, and be whatever I must be; crazy or ribald or sad or compassionate or loving or indifferent. That is all anybody can do" -/- We learn to cherish ourselves and everyone, just as we may be today..
-/-
AA Daily Reflection: Daily Reflections ~ CRYING FOR THE MOON “This very real feeling of inferiority is magnified by his childish sensitivity and it is this state of affairs which generates in him that insatiable, abnormal craving for self-approval and success in the eyes of the world. Still a child, he cries for the moon. And the moon, it seems, won’t have him!” LANGUAGE OF THE HEART, p. 102
While drinking I seemed to vacillate between feeling totally invisible and believing I was the centre of the universe. Searching for that elusive balance between the two has become a major part of my recovery. The moon I constantly cried for is, in sobriety, rarely full; it shows me instead its many other phases, and there are lessons in them all. True learning has often followed an eclipse, a time of darkness, but with each cycle of my recovery, the light grows stronger and my vision is clearer.
-/-
As Bill Sees It ~ Foundation for Life... We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order and on our terms. In praying, we ask simply that throughout the day God place in us the best understanding of His will that we can have for the day, and that we be given the grace by which we may carry it out There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation for life. TWELVE AND TWELVE 1. P. 104 2. P. 102 3. P. 98 20
-/-
Step 4 "Fearless Inventory" Reading Video Link:
"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"
-/-
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