November 4 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 11 Daily Meditation Alcoholics Anonymous Today's Daily Reflections: "virtuous circle: appraise, prayer and meditation…" It is a virtuous circle, appraisal of my situation and then prayer and asking for help and then meditation and reflecting. Sometimes the virtuous circle is very quick to do, a response at any time of day, and then at the end of the day, having gratitude that the day was the best it could be based on what we can do, and cannot do, and learning the wisdom to know the difference…
Video For Today:
I went to a meeting last night, it is called the after nines meeting, where a person with more than nine years sober share their experience strength and hope. And then we get to share back no matter what number of years, months or days we may be sober. The underlying theme is issues of later sobriety. Are the issues in later sobriety different? No because we are dealing with reality in the moment of now and how to cope with life. What changes dramatically through time is the way we deal with issues and life on a daily basis, which means we cope far better than we ever did before, and we can experience, "life in the moment, life on life's terms, feeling right in the moment of now…"
When I first went to meetings with titles like, "after eights," and "after nines," I simply thought it meant they were after 8 o'clock in the evening and after 9 o'clock in the evening. And even today some years down the line in sobriety, I still feel the issues of later sobriety are better kept within the day. On a daily basis, the issues of early sobriety are about step one, step two and step three: powerless and unmanageable, insanity of doing the same old same old, and letting go and asking for help and including people rather than excluding them in some way. On a daily basis by lunch time, depending on whether I am coping okay, I might slip back into old behaviour in step six, some fear, a bit of brave facing and ego rising. Or stick with step seven, developing courage, faith and confidence in doing the next right thing. And later sobriety on a daily basis is most often about step ten, spot check inventories, step eleven, prayer, meditation and gratitude. And of course step twelve, is now and always an all day step…
How am I feeling this morning? Two good meetings yesterday. Able to be at the first one all the way through, then take a few photos around London and back home. Had a chat with my sister later in the afternoon and she was able to share that my mother was resting comfortably after her operation on Friday. Then a short siesta, and a planned excursion to the after nine meeting, which I had to cut short due to irregular digestive issues, and then a long night on the bog and in the shower… And then my best friend dropped in for coffee very early this morning, to share news and fun and we laughed a lot… Happy, joyous and bog free this morning, so far so good today… It is still early hours and plenty of time for any kind of day…
DonInLondon 2005-2010
November 4 2010 ~ in fellowship meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, what you see is what you get. Attraction to experience strength and hope, wisdom shared, truth shared about recovery today. We don't promote or over promise, we cannot or we fall into delusions and fantasy. Open, honest willing to share life as it is, not as we might imagine today...
November 4 2010 ~ over time I have come to understand the usefulness of prayer and meditation. Asking in good conscience through prayer and meditation helps me to see the big picture of life and the choices open to me are realistic today. Focus and clarity comes through reflection and asking for help where I may find it moment by imperfectly perfect moment...
Higher Power In Fellowship - A personal view because we all have one and it is right for each of us I belong in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Sober today and likely to get to bed without a drink. I went to a meeting and there were many people there, from a few days sober, to decades sober. We share experience strength and hope with each other. At the beginning of the meeting, just this meeting, we say our name and how long we have been sober. My first time at this meeting I was just a few days sober and now it has become years. Still I listen with care to newcomers, those still feeling the horrors of drink and where it took them.
Although we have different amounts of time sober I am always struck by the equality we have in sobriety. After all we live in this one day, in the present moment. At the same time, the years, decades or simply our first day sober, we have something to share about life, our feelings and our path of living.
Fifty people in a room, fifty days of experience sober plus all the experiences of the years alive either drinking or not drinking, we share what is important to us. What is making life work and what is making life difficult. So fifty people, adding up their sobriety wisdom turns out to be not just fifty days of today, it is fifty people times their days weeks and years of sober life. And in an hour we have hundreds of years of sobriety to draw upon if we ask for help; there is probably someone who can help.
Is there higher power than me in my life today? Of course always the sum of our wisdom in fellowship exceeds that which resides in one person. It may seem obvious, and yet we can forget that the man or woman who walks into the meeting has first-hand knowledge of what we do not wish back in our lives. And we can share what sober life is about, just for today.
A power greater than us will not make life easier, it often means we need work harder at our living and learn and change as life changes. The good news is we have the tool kit today: Meetings, suggestions and principles to live well and have a bigger life than we could have imagined and we all work hard, even when we think we do not.
Our higher power is experience strength and hope, learning and developing our emotional range, understanding our spiritual life is contingent on our sobriety, and that spiritual is our ability to cope with real life as it is today, good or bad, easy or difficult.
Truth, love and wisdom are elemental for us humans I feel. Finding out the truth often needs to be checked out because we are all good at selecting what we feel is right and ignoring the obvious everyone else may see. Love is something we learn about every day is so many ways. And wisdom is forever changing. Ghandi suggested that God is truth, love and wisdom. I hope I keep learning truth, more about love and with humility knowing that my wisdom is just as far as I have understood today.
Humility is my connection to the higher power, whatever the higher power may be so I may keep on learning and live life today. Sober it is infinitely better, I am part of life rather than judging it, and making the choices open to me with a free spirit and more open mind as life affords…
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AA Daily Reflections ~ "A DAILY DISCIPLINE they [self-examination, meditation and prayer] are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation for life. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 98
The last three Steps of the program invoke God’s loving discipline upon my wilful nature. If I devote just a few moments every night to a review of the highlights of my day, along with an acknowledgment of those aspects that didn’t please me so much, I gain a personal history of myself, one that is essential to my growth, or lack of it, and to ask in prayerful meditation to be relieved of those continuing shortcomings that cause me pain. Meditation and prayer also teach me the art of focusing and listening. I find that the
turmoil of the day gets tuned out as I pray for His will and guidance. The practice of asking Him to help me in my strivings for perfection puts a new slant on the tedium of any day, because I know there is honour in any job done well. The daily discipline of prayer and meditation will keep me in fit spiritual condition, able to face whatever the day brings - without the thought of a drink."
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November 4 2007
DonInLondon - ‘Day In the Life’ Promises, promises!
I promise, Quick Fixes Don’t work
Winning the hearts and minds of others to a particular point of view. Its like rolling a boulder up the side of a mountain most often. We can campaign till blue in the face, we may not make much impact on beliefs and faith others have and their point of view.
And Its Not My Job Anyway
Odd to share this right now as you know I write and talk about recovery on you tube. Recovery from addiction to alcohol, and it may as well be about drugs, and food, and our behaviour. I write about when things go wrong and things go right.
In between the video this morning and now, I went to Flood Street early morning meeting of AA. Its one I love, not always because I share, most often I don’t get picked. Either way is ok, as I have found, to talk or just listen as long as I might do both, the meeting works for me.
Today was about - God
A thorny and difficult subject for addicts in recovery as God is often called upon to help the suffering addict out of the well of misery.
Misery
Misery loves a drink, and God can cause a problem with continuation of drink or drugs.
God for Me
I know without a shadow of doubt, I am not God, I am not here to interfere either in others faith and beliefs. What helps a person make the day work to the good, anything is in my opinion worth a go, even a God we come to understand.
Ghandi - “God Is Truth”
I am not a scholar with history and evidence to back up any faith or belief. Yet Ghandi certainly helped me stop the debate, the debate about a God or no good at all.
Absolute Truth
Absolute truth is something any human may strive for. And in my opinion, not a truth I hasten to add, Absolute truth is God for me.
Truth I learn more truth by the day, who I am, the world and what it is all about. That we humans can make it so complicated we don’t so often see Truth, we just see mess and muddle.
God Is Truth for me in Fellowship
In the AA fellowship there is much mention of higher power helping us to get to grips with our living. And as higher powers go, the Absolute truth works for me in all elements of the 12 step fellowship and the traditions of AA.
Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous
There are no spokespeople for AA. We are a fellowship. I am a fellow of AA, which sounds a bit smart, and a bit like I have something which makes me better than others…
I can report with confidence that whilst I don’t speak for AA, I have come to believe in Truth. And my truth today makes me realise I need never feel the pull to defend or undermine another’s faith and courage to live to good conscience.
I can also report so many of us in Early Days in the Fellowship, we maybe I can report that in my early days in fellowship the question of a God helping me was like a poison to my sensibilities. And fortunately I got over my judgmental attitude reasonably quickly.
So as time and I have moved along I see the good conscience in people, I see their courage faith and confidence grow in sober living. I see these changes in me too.
I am letting go the fear of life, putting on a brave face, being a fake, and losing much need to utilise ego these days.
Of course God is a question, and the answer to the question is as defined by as many individuals who have lived, live and will live. In all these definitions, and beliefs and faith, we come to understand where we are in our own belief and opinion. All to the good.
I need never interfere or meddle in matters of others personal faith ever, or I am judging and that is never right for me...
Live and Let Live
A phrase heard often in AA. And so helpful as understanding flows as we make our own personal journey to God
I am happy to come to understand that for today and at least for the day, God is truth for me. A higher power, as I only know what I have learned so far. Absolute truth without denial and everything that offers in argument, well I don’t feel the need to judge anymore.
I will come to my own understanding as life informs me, the absolute truth is timeless of course, and me? I play catch up every day I life informs me. I walk these days and don’t run.
The Promises of AA [ God and/or Absolute Truth as is your choice]
The AA Promises [Excerpt from the Big Blue Book]
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 [and/or Absolute Truth - for me, Don] 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.”
4th November 2006 [All About Last Year]
Spontaneous Combustion
Feelings come first, thinking second! Feelings we have from random ones when we wake to dreams which can be so vivid we cannot believe our imaginations. Feelings we don’t know what to do with and feelings which makes us powerless over our actions. Feelings are our reactive tools which alert us to our state of being. Thinking endorses how we feel.
Feelings can lead to impulse and reactions we are not able to make sense of, thinking is about sorting out issues of temperament and what we are about from day to day.
Drives we have from providence and nature make us more complex. As we are complicated in our feelings and reactions, we try make sense of them through our abstract thought processes.
To help us with spontaneous combustions of feelings which cause chain reactions, we humans layer our living with patterns of behaviour and acceptance of some rules which help basic human nature live in harmony with a lot of people sometimes, family, sometimes society.
Spontaneous combustions make for edgy living. We love it as a primal part of us enjoys excitement and joy derived from our situations and circumstances. As with everything we may view positively, there is the opposite in us. We are the polemic, the paradox nature and providence offers.
How we live and work with our light and darker elements, how we make sense of complicated living, how we fall down and pick ourselves up, its all a miasma and subject to coincidence and fortune. As with all matters we have little control over anything but choices, either reactions as feelings are left unchecked, or responses made with the benefit of time and thought. And in all this we feel we have control? Not so for today merely proves what we might wish and what we may have. A joyful and day full of nothing, which made life worthy of everything. Peace and harmony made good as in my world of today nothing but good has transpired…
So with a calm heart and clear mind, less contentious and more content in merely being, I rest easy in an understanding inside me, that keeping with basics and making good all moments, a moment of serenity was found along the way.
Some days are full of turmoil and turbulence, other days without movement across a calm consciousness. Haphazard are we in our journey across the oceans of this earth, spiritual, physical and emotional as in a moment of time a universe experienced and a lifetime to make good an understanding of this ever present, present moment of now…
Acceptance is a key in this living as denial shifts and swirls around our countenance, to make good our journey and path to serenity, transient as a heartbeat, ephemeral in eternity. Let go will as powering choices make good our moments. And let the waves of time wash their way through us, into the emptiness which is most useful, recharging our capacities to live as nature makes possible and providence enables..
Just For Today And Every Day, 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 10 "Although all inventories are alike in principle, the time factor does distinguish one from another. There's the spot-check inventory, taken at any time of the day, whenever we find ourselves getting tangled up. There's the one we take at day's end, when we review the happenings of the hours just past. Here we cast up a balance sheet, crediting ourselves with things well done, and chalking up debits where due. Then there are those occasions when alone, or in the company of our sponsor or spiritual adviser, we make a careful review of our progress since the last time. Many A.A.'s go in for annual or semi-annual house-cleanings. Many of us also like the experience of an occasional retreat from the outside world where we can quiet down for an undisturbed day or so of self-overhaul and meditation.”
October 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 10 The Now Inventory
Alcoholics Anonymous | Step Eleven Reading Video Link:
October 2012 | Video Reading How It Works:
October 2012 | Video Reading Into Action :
October 2012 | Playlist All About Step Eleven:
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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About Psychosis And Depression:
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