September 30 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 9 Amends In Action Alcoholics Anonymous Today's AA daily reflection: "the circle and the triangle: the circle is the global fellowship, the triangle: the three legacies of unity, service and recovery…" Inside and outside fellowship learning and living with freedom to choose and live an emotional and spiritual life. Unity, service and recovery preserving personal freedom and personal choice, living the truth of the moment and coping with or without help as we need one day at a time…
Video For Today:
From being a newcomer, to a mature student, to being a newcomer again. In the "one day at a time" fellowship, we can wake up and start afresh each morning as a newcomer and by lunchtime we are a mature student as life experience offers. And we keep on learning the wisdom of life, we have a can-do attitude with principles of open, honest and willing to keep trying. And we also learn the cannot do of life and where we need help and seek it with enthusiasm rather than reluctance. It is perfectly okay not to know the answers and seek help to find them in whatever endeavour we have today…
Physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. The principles of the twelve steps and twelve traditions encourage us to seek the truth of our situation and the situation of our fellows, and in family, community and society. We take account not only of our own needs, but the needs of the people around us and how to live more harmoniously. Its not just about me anymore, it is about us all working together. I might think I have a grand plan in my own head about what is right, and then I share it, and my grand plan is simply my plan and part of a negotiation with the real grand plan which includes everyone. Everyone plays a part, has needs and wants and we are all interdependent, we need all work together in whatever the endeavour may be just for today…
Just now I was reading tradition nine, I do hope everyone in the fellowship finds time to reflect on all the traditions. Indeed all the traditions are difficult reading for anyone wanting to be a leader, to impose a rule of law on the fellowship and impose their will on other people. No leaders, no laws, no governance, no right to tell anyone what to do, no right to control others or judge them in their behaviour. No right to issue orders. And every right to speak our minds when and if we choose…
In my early days in the fellowship, I was looking for the answer to restore myself back to who I was. And the old life of course, the one that was killing me was the one I wanted most. I would never want that old life back ever again, it was toxic and poisonous and barely half a life. And in my early days, I could find every fault in fellowship, and every fault in every member of the fellowship. I wanted to change everything about the fellowship to my way of thinking and tell everyone how to get sober and stay sober based on my interpretation. After my early days of madness subsided, I realised my way did not work too well ever, and found a new way to live in unity, service and recovery. Learning from suggestions and never from orders, simply learning life one day at a time…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
My world represented by the circle and the triangle. The circle is about inclusion and being included, and how to love and be loved and useful. A “triangle” which reminds me that unity, service and recovery are living principles. And our pledge “I am responsible” helps me be a citizen of the world today…
And life is difficult, and as long as I know life is difficult, I need not worry. With humility, in its true sense, I can keep on learning what works. I am allowed to make mistakes and keep on learning; it’s not about putting on an act and pretending to be okay, it is about living in the “real heat of now…”
An equal opportunities employer as we come to understand some call “providence” and some call “god.” A whole world living to beliefs, some beliefs similar to all and all different dependent on our life experiences what we accept as true and what we do not accept without proof. Billions of people and all have a definition of what god is or is not. All definitions are right for each person, about the god we understand or refute. And we can all be agnostic, atheist and believers depending on what happens to us in this life.
It seems most of the people on the planet have a conscience, mostly good as we learn life in civilised societies. And some of us have been blown off course by life experiences, into addiction and alcoholism. There is no god when we are in the pit of despair and desolate, seeking oblivion from the truth of now, now is where we live all the time. We could live in the pit of any ism alcohol, drugs, attitudes and behaviour, where we are lost to reason. As some see the nature of god, man emulates god and fails to live in reality. Ego, fear and brave face, will keep us in desolation and ignorance, self-will turned to self-obsession. Out of touch with today, out of touch to help and support.
A return to sanity is no real mystery. We let go old attitudes and behaviour and see what will work in reality. Reality is always now, what we do to help ourselves and others. If we help ourselves to the truth of now, we live in the now, we can see how to live and how to help other people live. As we live now, live to good conscience, we see the big picture and not just our outlook. We see we are interdependent, we are of the world, we face life on life’s terms, we accept what is in front of us, good or bad, we find acceptance of the truth of now.
It has taken me a long time to accept the notion that I am back in the world, a part of, I have a perspective on my life. And the same is true for anyone who lives in the day and faces life on life’s terms. We are all similar and still have our unique and authentic perspective; we absorb and or can become blunt to the truth of life today.
When life is good, we are thankful and can believe that providence is working for us, we believe life is worth living. When life is bad, life is not worth living and depending on how we shape ourselves to reality, providence does not favour us. Life and providence, we are powerless over people, places and things and we make more difficult with self-will and just one perspective, our own. When we ask for help, usually from those we know and have the wisdom, we get our choices back. Choices does not mean our self-willed outcome, it means the best choice based on reality, wisdom we hear, and every interdependent element which will impact on us.
What are our best choices today? To be a part of truth, to love and be loved back, to be useful in the world in whatever way is open to us. Usually we do not get what we want, we get what we need. Truth, love and wisdom we learn and wisdom shared through other humans. We work out next steps in good conscience, including people and with love in our hearts.
Unity, service and recovery are key, and all about living together in fellowship, applicable in all our living too. With an open mind, honest endeavour and willingness to keep on changing, life usually works out with our needs met and wants forgotten. We live providence, as nature intended, make choices in the moment of now. We all find our unique and authentic path of life, similar beyond any doubt and all of us able to make a difference today. We choose to do make a difference for the good of all.
September 30 2010 ~ who do we work for... god as we come to understand he, she or it. God is what you believe god to be. For me; god is truth, love and wisdom, the universe, nature and this word: "providence." Providence is where we all live today, life as it is, not wished or imagined. And spiritual, always reality in the moment of now...
September 30 2010 ~ step nine includes new ways to live and how to be useful. Our usefulness in fellowship is how we apply ourselves through three elements; unity, service and recovery. As we develop our outlook to be; open, honest and willing we see unity, service and recovery intertwined in fellowship and how we live life today...
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AA Daily Reflections ~ "the circle and the triangle... the circle stands for the whole world of AA, and the triangle stands for A.A.’s Three Legacies of Recovery, Unity, and Service. Within our wonderful new world, we have found freedom from our fatal obsession. [A.A. Comes Of Age]
Early in my A.A. life, I became employed in its services and I found the explanation of our society’s logo to be very appropriate. First: a circle of love and service with a well - balanced triangle inside, the base which represents our Recovery through Twelve Steps. Then, the other two sides represent Unity and Service, respectively. The three sides of the triangle are equal. As I grew in AA I soon identified myself with this symbol. I am the circle, and the sides of the triangle represent three aspects of my personality: physical, emotional sanity, spirituality, the latter forming the symbol’s base. Taken together, all three aspects of my personality translate into a sober and happy life."
September 30 2007
DonInLondon - ‘Day In the Life’ Obliviate Is not A Word
Obliviate
Obliviate feels like a word although its not in a dictionary I know. It represents something to me, a state of being out of this world, not of this world by taking alcohol or and drugs to find escape from reality. Obliviate might also be achieved with whatever fix we find takes us away from harsh times and unwelcome realities we can face any day and worse, every day.
Last night, Saturday I had two guests in my new home. Not for the first time, my mother and sister. The first visitors to see my new above with furniture. I have been camped out here for some weeks and have been sleeping on the concrete floor, doing some redecoration and making do with what might seem a bit of a trial. Not for me as being here represents the first home I may call “home” for many years. So a little discomfort is fine by me!
Seeing family is important, and I realise I have spent little time with my brother and his family. Indeed the notion of being with family the last ten to twenty years was a trial.
Two decades of time in depression so bad I chose to find oblivion, drank alcohol as it my life depended, indeed dependence was where I ended up. Alcoholic.
Driven Mad?
Anyone who cannot face life and lives in desolation will know my story far too well. That the cards life dealt, I could not face.
Death
The death of my father in 1991, the loss of my best friend and lover, she had her reasons to leave me and they were absolutely the right ones at the time and not because of me in the main. Although I would be foolish to deny my part in events. I could not face these two losses and turned to drink, then gave it up a while, then became a fitness fanatic, they became an overeater and always, always a workaholic.
Workaholic
When anything and everything went wrong in my personal existence, I ploughed myself back into work. Work was good, it was ethical, it fed my obsessions and kept me pinned into the insanity of perfection.
Perfect
It was everything it promised to be, when I worked like crazy, I felt I gave the impression of all being well with the world and mask was in place. Perfectly ok and perfectly imbalanced.. A perfect wreck of a man who could look right appear right and had nothing left but a façade of everything ok on the outside and my insides smashed beyond repair back to an old me and some place of happiness?
Love
Love had come and gone so many times, it was not love I suspect in the way people grow and live and understand life together. Only once feeling right in those decades I realise and knowing it could not last because the journey for my lover was elsewhere and both she and I knew it long before it happened.
Today and last night
I sit and realise in the silence, life is as different as can be. Facing demons set off in my youth and with a nature given predisposed to a particular outlook, a journey to now was indeed worth it.
AA - Alcoholics Anonymous
A meeting last night and hearing the most harrowing tale of life lived as raw as any including my own, my share was about forgiveness all the way.
Forgiving and Accepting Life
Life on life’s terms. There are a number of times where I nearly perished on the way to today. And with a few lumps and hard knocks, dire and awful times are less often as my mind finds peace in solitude and in company these days.
Just for a day I have a way to live, to energise and deal with all that besets me daily. That even with a few unhelpful incapacities, life goes on and life is not over. Indeed the life just for this day is beyond dreams I may have had.
I don’t know I had dreams as such or expectations from life, as most experiences ended in sadness along my path. Fear was a culprit, and fear of life itself. I had to lose it nearly to appreciate life on life’s terms. As the cards fall.
I know myself a little better today.
September 30th 2006
Stormy Weather
Well I was in a bit of a hurry in the end this morning, was lost in thought and then needed to add a cat visit in and get to the hospital meeting for 8-30AM.
The relapse stuff was because Soho treatment is an outpatient clinic and relapse is just about guaranteed if attending for the first time. So they are cool about it, but three strikes and its over, for a period of time. They do their best to help as best the rules allow. And they know often a relapse means the person may end up dead. As has been proved while I went there.
I have no doubt the content of the presentation has been used some way, so I don't mind it not being me to present. The aim is simply passing on the message that people can get longer term recovery with the right help and support.
Meanwhile during the day I have been busy with history. And this is my post to my journal:
Stormy Weather
Now there is an old song title! Billie Holiday sang it as well as others. Reminds me of one particular girl in my life. Smiles enough of memory lane to an extent.
Mind you I’ve been archiving my files and daily journals. And there are a few years. it’s a strange thing, when I glance, I don’t look too deep, there is a lot of pain as well as joy. And the pain outweighs the joy as they decree. The joy is merely there as an adjunct to long troughs, long periods where life was not what it was cracked up to be. Somewhere success took the fun out of living and living took the fun out of me!
History has its place. Not sure where that is for in it is wisdom. And every other experience we have. There were fun times there too. I must remind myself of the bitter twists there that will do for me if ever I become complacent ..
Anyways there have been stormy outbursts over the last day or so. And this person likes the weather rough, well sometimes. And then there were those days in the Sun, months on end. And where? The Caribbean of course for me.
Golden days of escape and running from a life lost to chance and luck made bad. I realise the bad luck was luck ran out and something else stepped in to make me blanch. Fear cut so deep I recognise its friendless grip on me. And then times where magic potions took all feeling far away, and good sense followed as swiftly in that wreckage of a life. Gone for good, merely a day away, and always there to haunt my shadow.
“Get a Grip” I recollect
Someone used to say this to the world. And that someone made my life revolve around, and made it sour to the taste. A spoiler and rancid individual, better left to others fateful touch. No more in me than any other poison these days. And I’ll not forget. And that wisdom taught will come their way again and again as their life sours and makes no sense of joy. Joyless and extreme, never again my path. Let them go and wither in their own muddle of foolish pride.
And life is ok for me. I am wondering what to share today.
I have a chair, a speaking part, to do again and have no real sense where it will start or end. Best way, so we are always told, we shall see. Mind I do know it will be about experience strength and hope…
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Just For Today, cherish always…
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AA Official Online Site: Daily Reflections
AA Official Online Site: Big Book And Twelve And Twelve
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Step 9 "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. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves." Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us…sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them." AA Promises
Step 9 Amends In Action Alcoholics Anonymous Anonymous Reading Video Link:
“How It Works” Reading Video Link:
“Into Action" Reading Video Link:
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I do not speak for Alcoholics Anonymous I speak for myself. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of unique and authentic people who speak for themselves where they will to share experience, strength and hope about recovery on a daily basis. Anonymity affords sanctuary to find how to live sober and be open, honest and willing to learn life day by day. For me "truth," "love" and "wisdom" offer the best spiritual experience by living reality today. Into the fabric of recovery from alcoholism are woven the Twelve Steps and the Traditions: steps to be open, honest and willing to learn, traditions to live unity, service and recovery.
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Spiritual principles ~ Forgiveness Acceptance Surrender Faith Open-mindedness Honesty Willingness Moral-inventory Amends Humility Persistence Spiritual-growth Service
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