September 25 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 9 Amends In Action Alcoholics Anonymous Today's AA daily reflection: "stepping out of the problem into the solution…" Always the problem? Anyone moving into recovery starts to see the solution to all their problems today! Not trying to solve it on our own, asking for help in the right way, be it the higher power, or what the higher power works through, people with wisdom to know the difference…
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Sometimes I am so happy that life is so simple, I feel like my head could explode with joy and my relationships are completely open and honest. And then there can be other days when the problems of the world make me so depressed, I can be angry at politicians and bankers, where ambition and greed keep the rest of the world in poverty. And then I remember I am no longer greedy and my ambition today is quite different, how to live with needs met and serenity doing what I can do and knowing what I cannot do and learning the wisdom to know the difference…
In order to step out of the problems I had in the past, the solution was to forgive everyone everything including myself first. Once I could stop the blame game, but understand the history of why things happened I could see my part in it and I could see the part other people played as well. What other people do with their own part in matters is theirs, all I can do is clean up my side of the Street and know the solutions and the amends to make our for what I did and not what they did…
How can people trust us again? In truth I don't expect anybody to trust me for how I used to be, at the end of my downfall I was a mess and I could not trust myself. And there is no blame to being ill, with a chronic condition which will not go away. What I can do is tell people what is going on today and they choose whether they can trust me or not. Sometimes it can be very hurtful when we are not trusted and when other people have different opinions. And I completely support other people having the right to their own opinions and beliefs. Opinion and belief which I have is not truth, and the opinion and belief of others is not truth. Then we have to find common ground in the moment of now to find the truth of our situation simply one day at a time…
Finance and romance! I used to measure myself by the amount of money I could earn on a daily basis and I found I could earn quite a lot in the right place at the right time with the right people and I was very successful at it for a while. Success is not a measure of happiness. Romance, I was a very trying romantic perfectionist, and never satisfied with my endeavours and romantic relationships because I always thought I had to strive and be the absolute best. In other words either I was all in, or I was running for the hills disappointed that my amorous desires fell short for the poor girl of my dreams on that day. As was said in a comic movie, "I was out of whack with reality." As in all living today, relationships are a two way Street, starting from scratch, putting on the foundations and learning how life can be without expectations so there are no resentments either way under construction. Romance is always good, when we start with a clean slate, understanding our current condition and finding out about what makes us tick in the moment, rather than an expectation beyond our wildest dreams…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
Emotional and spiritual?: Feelings in the moment of now ~ used to be beyond me. A fellowship based on emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Someone apologised for their atheist outlook recently. I don't connect spiritual with religion, many do and that is really okay and not for me to judge. In fellowship our primary purpose is sober, contingent on our spiritual condition today. Sober our similarity, everyone happily unique and different. Everything is spiritual in the present moment, the quality of the experience, a personal journey day by day...
I hear my story in the rooms of AA, how I got to be an alcoholic, my feelings about me and life. And what is happening day by day for me and many others living a sober life. And with freedom to make choices, based on real opportunities rather than fantasies. I still dream and imagine, feel inspired by good fortune. I take my knocks and deal with them and find peace and serenity when it is happening now. Everything changes and I see it day by day...
My daily maintenance - From old friends and other times (Rosemary and Philip) I ask some basics of me. When I wake up, how am I feeling, why do I feel this way and what can I do about it? Three simple questions give me a surprise every day.
If I know how I feel when I get up, why I feel this way, and what can I do to keep it that way or change how I feel. Well this is good to do, it takes practice daily to understand what my feelings are. Simply because we are told we must never show some of our feelings, which some consider bad or unhelpful.
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And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.
For me, serenity began when I learned to distinguish between those things that I could change and those I could not. When I admitted that there were people, places, things, and situations over which I was totally powerless, those things began to lose their power over me. I learned that everyone has the right to make their own mistakes, and learn from them, without my interference, judgement, or assistance!
The key to my serenity is acceptance. But "acceptance" does not mean that I have to like it, condone it, or even ignore it. What it does mean is I am powerless to do anything about it... and I have to accept that fact.
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AA Daily Reflections ~ "First things first... Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: Job or no job - wife or no wife - we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God. [Big book]
Before coming to A.A., I always had excuses for taking a drink: “She said . . . , ” “He said . . . ,” “I got fired yesterday,” “I got a great job today.” No area of my life could be good if I drank again. In sobriety my life gets better each day. I must always remember not to drink, to trust God, and to stay active in A.A. Am I putting anything before my sobriety, God, and A.A. today?"
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Spiritual principles to live life "real" ~ "Forgiveness" "Acceptance" "Surrender" "Faith" "Open-mindedness" "Honesty" "Willingness" "Inventory" "Amends" "Humility" "Persistence" "Spiritual-Living" "Service"
September 25th 2006
Beyond My Wildest Dreams
Well as per usual I feel a bit flat and deflated this morning. I had to speak last night about me for about half an hour, experience strength and hope. The experience of becoming a sober human being, the strength I get from my fellowship and the hope I have for now and the future, a day at a time. It’s called doing a chair.
And this is something my fellows tell me will have a good impact on me. I am uncertain whether I am just being negative or there is something dishonest in me. I try to tell the truth about my life and where it is now. And one thing I do know, I am better off today than I have ever been in my outlook. Have next to nothing in the material sense, I have poor health presently, yet my head is better than at any time in ten years. Now, one out of three ain’t bad.
Without doubt I am fortunate to be alive at all, and for this I am grateful. I wonder how honest I am because my life is far from where it used to be. And a lot of this is due to experiences and impacts from short periods in my life which have impacted on all of it. Knowing the causes and the effects help me make good each day I have now. Knowing the impacts and why, well that’s old news and sharing my life story does not necessarily have the cathartic affect others seem to have.
I am sure it’s good to share, and maybe I need change the highlights of my life to reflect a better way forward. Some positive cognitive behavioural therapy I can do for me. And I still know it will not impact, simply because my condition of depression is not emotional in cause these days, it’s a clinical condition and chemical condition.
Oddly the medication for the diabetic neuropathy pain is also having an emotional impact and physical impact. Less pain overall, and some more mobility, in the amount of time I can be mobile longer, but not overall or a restoration of the old me. It means the pain is delayed. But the other therapeutic effect is on my mental faculties, I am sleeping three or four hours at night. I feel less depressed in some ways and so the anti-depressant effect is there as well as the pain relief.
I am slower though and my mental processes feel sluggish. This is tolerable for now, but I know there is a frustration as that sharp edge is not there as before. And maybe that’s an ok thing, I don’t know yet. It feels like a part of me is missing. Another part of me is restored at the same time, better able to walk, better able to get some sleep. Swings and roundabouts.
So the flat feeling is in me, that middle of the road feeling. And I am missing the edginess of depression which makes me push and stretch my perceptions beyond where they are now. I don’t know, but the pain is less and that’s significant.
Time will tell me over the next few weeks where the payoffs are and where the deficits are. The choices are to be made as and when, pain might be preferable to the lowered sensory state. Not knowing is ok, not really certain what this means for the future. I need only be concerned with today.
And an autumn seasonal cold is not helping.
Coughs and splutters, onwards!
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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