December 17 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 12 Living Principles Alcoholics Anonymous Today's Daily Reflections: "a priceless reward, being able to relate to our fellows in the moment of now…" Being able to understand our feelings in the moment of now, that is the emotional and spiritual connection we can have with our fellows. A reward for being human and functioning: when times are good times are bad and sometimes downright ugly. In unity, we can move mountains, on our own, we can hardly move at all…
Video For Today:
This weekend we witness a tragedy far away, where children and teachers are killed in an act of insanity. We can feel heartache and feel heartbroken. Emotions felt on an extreme level about an extremely distressing event. We feel compassion, and behind it, the anger and frustration and horror. Emotions moving almost faster than they can be felt in the moment. And we want to do something to help and we truly realise the meaning of powerlessness over what has happened. A president asks, are we powerless over this event, this tragedy? It is not for me as someone far, far away from the action to judge. The outcomes will be the actions decided by a nation who can move mountains, when they work in unity and with a common cause for the good of the nation…
The priceless reward… To be able to feel right, and feeling right does not mean it's pleasant in the moment of now. But at this moment in time, as a person in recovery, with type I diabetes, chronic pain and chronic depression, chronic means it just doesn't go away, it's something I live with day-to-day. So it is quite important that I am self-aware about my situation and condition, and my condition is my spiritual condition, coping with reality in the moment of now. Chronic does not mean it's always bad, indeed there are times when the situation is pretty much okay, as long as I don't go too far for too long, thinking I am the person I used to be. I am the person I am today, able to know what my feelings are, able to understand the impact of my feelings on my thinking and actions today. Sometimes I can be giddy and happy just because… Sometimes cry that tragedies have happened at home and abroad, and sometimes see the ugliness that humans perpetrate on each other. And somehow, I find balance and a path to tread one day at a time…
Truth, love and wisdom are earned. Truth comes with a price tag of experience. Learning to love and be able to be loved back, without conditions, simply is a living experience day by day. Wisdom, we can read wisdom and yet we only know it from experience. And as we ask how many times does it take for anyone to change anything, it takes as long as it takes any human, to move through their emotions and thinking and then to take actions toward a better future. When we are stuck in a particular way of life, doing the same thing over and over again, plausible deniability, denying the truth of now will stop any action and any change in the moment of now…
A saying from the past, "strike while the iron is hot." Just on my own personal level, striking whilst the iron was hot and my insanity had left me in a hopeless state and ready to be put in the ground, the gift of desperation did save my life. And then within moments, the idea of sobriety was slipping away from me. Almost in the blink of an eye, my thinking about the consequences of giving up drink nearly killed me. Somehow acceptance of the truth, that it was okay to be redeemed in some way. What is possible? Someone had to say to me that no matter what would happen next, it was okay to start over again, from scratch, from nothing to something and not know the outcome one day at a time, and I thank my sister for saying it all those years ago… Change is possible, with love in unity, service and recovery, today and every day…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
Dear higher power, how are you feeling this morning? Yesterday was wonderful, I set my expectations to zero in the morning, was hugged three times. Asked for nothing and got nothing. Did not think I deserved anything, and did not get anything. And was silly happy all day and full of gratitude, smiling till my face ached…
Extremes in feeling and as a consequence extreme in thinking leading to extremes in action provide a rush in our physical chemistry. Extreme experiences! Highs and lows over and over lead to burn out. Loss of perspective is the consequence. “River deep, mountain high.” There is no rush to serenity, serenity is always with us when we accept it…
Sharing the real truth means real truth can be shared back rather than a “load of bull truth today.” Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. We are not always good and not always bad. I feel better knowing I am not being singled out for special treatment either way. When I am open honest and willing, tell the truth about my situation, wisdom can come from any source rather than me and my attitudes, opinion and beliefs…
DonInLondon 2005-2010
December 17 2010 ~ when I work with others in fellowship I realise we are all similar in one respect, at first we don't want to stop drinking, because we relied so heavily on it, then as we find in sobriety becomes more attractive than the alternative, a return to a slow and painful end, sober we become free to make choices just for a day...
December 17 2010 ~ "life will take on new meaning" When I read this in early days, I was bitter and resentful, a life without alcohol! Today, I am happy or sad, my feelings fit the experience I am having. I have all my feelings back, right sized for today. Leaning on the many, we can recover, find truth, love and wisdom in the moment of now...
AA Daily Reflections ~ "A PRICELESS REWARD work with other alcoholics... It works when other activities fail. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 89
“Life will take on a new meaning,” as the Big Book says (p. 89) This promise has helped me to avoid self-seeking and self-pity. To watch others grow in this wonderful program, to see them improve the quality of their lives, is a priceless reward for my effort to help others. Self-examination is yet another reward for on-going recovery, as are serenity, peace and contentment. The energy derived from seeing others on a successful path, of sharing with them the joys of the journey, gives to my life a new meaning."
-/-
December 17 2007
DonInLondon - ‘Day In the Life’ Courage Faith and Confidence
Sometimes half of what we are!
Courage faith and confidence, great attributes we might all wish for more. And as life can teach we can have them. We also have what nature provides, almost the opposite or indeed the opposite, fear, putting on the brave face and sitting and relying on our ego too.
A Full Deck of Complimentary Aptitudes and Attitudes
Fear, Brave Facing and Ego, Courage Faith and Self Esteem all have their part to play as we develop as life experience affords. Where life requires we make up deficits with whatever we can to get by, scrape through some of the hard times we encounter.
How we develop is of nurture, how we were in family, in our set of people and how people are with us. We develop either some or all of our potential to be just human in the end.
Pretending to be or just being - acceptance comes as we live and right size ourselves to our living and doing. We are often compromised by what we feel we ought to be aspire to be, rather than living to be.
Shakespeare - “to be or not to be, that is the question?”
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
In all the efforts of living and time and experience, we can find these moments. Best to keep our heads in clouds of time to dream and find on this earth every element we may wish for truth. As the years pass and we find learned moments and wisdom from tempests, we give root how we may be. We can be true to ourselves and our fellows as we let go and find our path to courage faith and confidence.
Our measure is serenity in living to the good of good conscience, blended with every mortal knot loosed and freedom found in simple truth of now. Our spiritual moment may bleed us or feed us with all nature can afford. Sometimes Spartan times made good with hearty minds embracing life as may be, right here and now, goodly in good conscience served in level endeavours.
I find peace in this one moment, and turmoil in the next, acceptance is my key.
Daily Reflections
A PRICELESS REWARD. Work with other alcoholics.. It works when other activities fail. A A, p. 89
"Life will take on a new meaning," as the Big Book says (p. 89) This promise has helped me to avoid self-seeking and self-pity. To watch others grow in this wonderful program, to see them improve the quality of their lives, is a priceless reward for my effort to help others. Self-examination is yet another reward for an on-going recovery, as are serenity, peace and contentment. The energy derived from seeing others on a successful path, of sharing with them the joys of the journey, gives to my life a new meaning.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
The way of faith is of course not confined to A.A. It is the way for everybody who wants to really live. But many people can go through life without much of it. Many are doing so, to their own sorrow. The world is full of lack of faith. Many people have lost confidence in any meaning in the universe. Many are wondering if it has any meaning at all. Many are at loose ends. Life has no goal for many. They are strangers in the land. They are not at home. But for us in A.A. the way of faith is the way of life. We have proved by our past lives that we could not live without it. Do I think I could live happily without faith?
Meditation For The Day
"He maketh His sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends the rain on the just and the unjust." God does not interfere with the working of natural laws. The laws of nature are unchangeable, otherwise we could not depend on them. As far as natural laws are concerned, God makes no distinction between good and bad people. Sickness or death may strike anywhere. But spiritual laws are also made to be obeyed. On our choice of good or evil depends whether we go upward to true success and victory in life or downward to loss and defeat.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may choose today the way of the spiritual life.
I pray that I may live today with faith and hope and love.
As Bill Sees It
Praying Rightly, p.295
We thought we had been deeply serious about religious practices. However, upon honest appraisal we found that we had been most superficial. Or sometimes, going to extremes, we had wallowed in emotionalism and had also mistaken this for true religious feeling. In both cases, we had been asking something for nothing.
We had not prayed rightly. We had always said, "Grant me my wishes," instead of "Thy will be done." The love of God and man we understood not at all. Therefore, we remained self-deceived, and so incapable of receiving enough grace to restore us to sanity.
12 & 12, p. 32
17th December 2006
Where Ego’s Dare
Confident people need no ego to keep them safe. As we get along in our recovery we find that life takes on new colour and new hue’s. We get to see the world as it is, the gift of spiritual just delivered on a daily basis as we keep our feelings and thoughts in this one day.
When I came to AA several years ago, completely exhausted by living and work, I was truly flotsam, wreckage and drifting to death. It was not far away. I recall in very early days bumping into someone I knew from years before. He recognised me and was surprised to see me, he said he was quite certain I would not make it. And it hurt me that he accepted my death as if it were just another day in the life of… an alcoholic
As I sweated through that first real attempt to do the famous ninety in ninety. Ninety days sober and ninety AA meetings. I felt so angry and rage filled me when I heard him say his best analysis was I would die. My fear and bravery in those ninety days needed no dent as hearing I was written off and even an AA fellow might see me as beyond help. I realise now his concern and my lack of any reason, truly driven mad and compelled to drink myself to a very unpleasant death. How dare he judge me, I felt outraged. I know now he saw me slipping further down, and he could not help as I was not anywhere near ready to accept I was beaten back then. My ego and will drove me to insanity and kept me there stuck as a fly to sticky paper, slowly dying and nothing to stop me. Emptied of all reason hurting and in pain emotionally and physically, no respite, no way to stop drinking at all. My body wretched and yet needed every drop I drank, rejecting and wanting it, a poisoned mind and body, lost of course to any reason. That was a rock bottom to drink on.
I wrote this last night, the recollections came out of nowhere and today I have no rage or anger. That was a time back in 1998. After a nervous breakdown, lost career, a year or two of abstinence followed by the longest drunk of my life to near death. Hospital, clergy, family and everyone seemed to have written me off. They were all desperately sad, they were advised by those who know this scenario that either I would hit this famous rock bottom, make a decision to try life again or die in the process.
It must have been the hardest of times for anyone knowing me then, when beyond reason I just headed for an inglorious ending to a troubled life. I am not making bold of my contempt or even the madness of where the next few years took me. The lowest of times, the lonely times where even I could not stand anything about me. Failed and failing, not even able to draw breath without pain. Skin crawling and sweats, dark nightmares made my days. So troubled I guess it seemed I was self-destructing so driven into insanity, it seemed any ending was preferable to living at all.
Brave Fear
So it was just, that brave and fearful, I spent a long time bumping on the rock bottom of living. And it was not spectacular, the ego inside my only protection, made me big in my mind and small in everyone else’s. I was done in and nothing would end this nightmare. I condemned me in these years, for indeed beyond reasonable doubt I was better locked up to stop self-harm. As I know now this form of self-harm, its like any other mental disorder, an addiction to behaviour which kills and cannot be stopped.
Yesterday Morning
A chance conversation with an American now “Britisher” here in Chelsea. He despises alcoholics as self-inflicted and deluded people with no backbone and no control. He is right of course. Where we disagree in principle is the cause and motive and of course whether it’s a disease at all.
Asking this question, would a sane person self-harm themselves to death? The answer is simply no. Whether we get to the point of no return by our own hand or the absolute devastation of a broken heart and broken spirit, we can argue till death calls us to pay our tariff.
Mad and Insane Behaviour
This is self-harm, doing harm because we cannot find any solace, no connection, just broken down and willing our end as soon as.. Broken hearts and lost.
Do we ever realise it is our loss of love for ourselves, that we have no love at all and we reject others love because the pain is too much. Never ever wanting love again is where we end up. And craving some affection, we cannot do anything but seek oblivion. Rock bottom, where love has left and hate for ourselves pushes ever closer to that final end where living has no meaning at all.
Fear and Bravery
Why oh why, do we need to be brave to overcome fear. We need fear to find our bravery. Merely coping mechanisms in the short term of life shocks, deployed to where self-harm brings relief as hurt gives us cause to go mad.
If only, well how many if only moments can we have. As regret and resentment hold us in the grip of self-hate. We have lost every drop of good we can find for ourselves. That desolate vicious circle set, where nothing is sought as oblivion dulls every fibre ready for rigour to set in.
Yesterday
Two meetings for me to find some peaceful understanding of where I am now, just now. And the answer is most likely and emphatically this morning to be in the moment of now. To understand at last that fear and bravery need be utilised less often, that courage and faith in good conscience has been restored. Just for the day, and maybe more.
Today
I do believe in the good of people, their good conscience too. So often twisted by circumstance to rely on their brave face and where resentment is harboured.
Beware when we get to good living, albeit with the most meagre of resources often, peace in our own mind for one day is often worth years finding it, as true harmony in the moment is as golden a gift of life we can enjoy.
And we need be aware, that for many we meet, fear and bravery is their currency, overused and to the point of exhaustion.
Courage and faith come in fellowship and camaraderie, faith in humanity eventually finding its way. An eternity of understanding life, if we hold our conscience to nothing but this one day where we fine peace, we find peace in the moment of now. And maybe as one day may be our lifetime, or it may be one of many, best we make the most of these precious moments, we can never predict or secure anything but this ever present, perfectly imperfect, moment of now.
Carpe Diem!
December 17th 2005
sometimes a day goes well. And we forget the utterly fascinating quality each day brings. Complete, unique and always the same, always different, always
December 17th 2004
Truth
Truth is something which does not need support of any proof.
Yet we yearn evidence! Truth is the feeling inside, that split second before thinking turns the truth into a million facets of old memory, reprogramming and endorsing. We get to the truth through years and layers of history. So easy to let our feelings guide us.
If we are brave enough we can accept the truth we experience in the moment it happens. Truth is neither good or bad, truth is impartial, we bend truth to suit us and then endorse our interpretation to suit us.
Truth is best, as it happens, before we forget it and before we share it as a story....
-/-
Just For Today And Every Day, Cherish Always...
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“Awakening as the result of what? The result, or consequence of taking the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is a Spiritual Awakening. Please reflect that this step does not say the awakening comes as the result of taking steps 1 through 11, those preceding Step 12. On the contrary, the awakening comes as the result of taking these (all of the twelve) steps, including Step 12. (If you disagree, that is wonderful. Keep on digesting these steps.)” Big Book Bunch
December 2012 | Playlist About Step Twelve: Step Twelve Playlist
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AA Official Online Site: Big Book And Twelve And Twelve
Big Book And Twelve And Twelve
AA Official Online Site: Daily Reflections
December 2012 | Step Twelve Reading Video Link:
December 2012 | Video Reading How It Works:
December 2012 | Video Reading A Vision For You:
December 2012 | Video About Grief And Depression
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