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Alcoholics Anonymous | March 16 2013 | Steps In Action | Step 3 "Your Higher Power" "be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be…" Words from desiderata. I don't know whether these words help the newcomer, these words helped me in my early days. I had no clue about a higher power, the higher power of my childhood was my father and I had seen him crumble. In recovery, my higher power is the ever present presence of truth, love and wisdom flowing through people today…

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Pride, ego and fear used to keep me locked into the notion that I had to come up with the answers to life, not just my life, your life as well. Not only in family situations, also in personal relationships and in the career and jobs I did over the years. When we are fighting a war with ourselves, or any war, the first casualty is said to be "truth." I felt like I was in a constant battle, at the end of my drinking, making sure there was always enough to see me through another day and hating myself for my weakness. I was full of grandiose notions, knowing the answers to the world's problems, and unable to resolve my own problems every single day... This was the old life, at the end when nothing worked and I never wanted to wake up from whatever nightmare was running in my head…

Courage to change, having faith in doing the next right thing and building my self-esteem took a long time in early days of recovery. Paranoia seem to drive me mad. Especially I was frightened of any kind of authority and had a feeling of being watched and unworthy of any consideration at all. Courage, faith and confidence, it really did take a long time to realise that if I could cooperate, ask for help at any time, my situation improved immensely and I could start to live life again. It was completely different in early days to now, those early days of fear, have been transformed with courage and faith, and enough confidence, just to be myself, one day at a time…

The higher power in all this? People, places and things! Lots of people in lots of places with the ability to do things to help me was a revelation. The only person who had been against me all those years of battling was me. I realise now, the last big career which burned me out proved to me that I could be really good at a job, which turned out to be bad for me. Just because we can do something, does not mean it is right to keep on doing it. If I had been able to work out the answer with common sense and gumption, I would not have declined and lost the plot completely. All part of the undoing of me. And in recovery, it is very obvious that trying to do everything myself is never the answer. There is no battle in recovery, there is no war in recovery which takes away the truth, the truth prevails, and we can use our gumption and common sense and ask for help when we need it… The higher power: truth, love and wisdom growing by people helping and supporting others in good times and bad times, and mostly today…

Accessing your higher power means you don't have to fight, you don't have to put on a brave face and you don't have to do anything against your conscience. So often we believe we have to do that, battle and fight and go to war to prove that we are right, and whoever or whatever we are fighting is wrong. We don't have to be right, we need to know what we can do and what we cannot do and learn the wisdom, hopefully without doing any harm to others along the way. When I go to fellowship meetings, there is often a poster on the wall which says: "live and let live." This is true, within society, community and family, we can learn so much from so many when we listen to the diversity and wisdom around us today…

Part of accessing our higher power is having the humility to keep on learning and accepting that we can be baffled by simple life experiences which are new to us. I was baffled when I listened to the truth, being told by others, they shared their truth about life and what happened to them. And I could see the similarities so close to my own experience of life, and how they moved forward helped me to do exactly the same thing, to move forward with humility and then next gratitude…

Gratitude: it is a state of mind where we can be thankful for anything and everything that is happening around us. Gratitude when life is good, gratitude, when life is bad, and gratitude when life is ugly because we learn from every situation, no matter how difficult it can be. And this is part of that power greater than just us as single people. When we share gratitude with others, we share what is possible. And it is very true to say that, in recovery, "we are not a glum lot!" Indeed we thrive on adversity, because adversity teaches us much more. And when we share it, the power of sharing and gratitude is all encompassing. Even when we are in a bad mood and don't feel very grateful, when we hear gratitude, it can rejuvenate our understanding of what we can do today…

How am I feeling this morning? An interesting night insomnia, watching a TV series back-to-back, with all sorts of references to the fellowship of AA, which only skim the surface of what fellowship really is for those of us who really get the principles of the twelve steps. I don't know that fellowship can ever be represented fully in a drama on TV, but any reference good or bad, and even ugly, simply shows humanity has a job on its hands when it comes to recovery from addiction. And whatever way recovery is portrayed through drama or documentary, if you are not an addict, everything is either very clear, because of the wisdom you have about addiction, or it is incomprehensible, because addiction makes no sense to the average normal human being living one day at a time, it is insane! And thankfully, being restored to sanity, on a daily basis, contingent on some simple routines and knowing when to ask for help, even though we are experiencing bad weather here in London UK, I am happy in my spiritual sanctuary today…

Alcoholics Anonymous | March 16 2013 | Steps In Action | Step 3 "Your Higher Power" Today's AA daily reflection: "your own understanding of God is what counts." Atheist, agnostic and believer come to understand the greater wisdom which resides in the progress human beings are making every day. For centuries nature evolves and humans evolve. Everything is adapting through nature and nurture every single day. The collective wisdom in recovery is always at hand if we ask the help or simply listen how others make progress and never perfect?

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A universal databank of recovery available at any time of day. The universal databank or "bank of wisdom" is where deposits of knowledge and withdrawals of knowledge can work for everyone just for today. You cannot see it, or touch it but you can feel it happening in the moment of now. Our universal databank available contingent on the day we ask. The bank of "experience, strength and hope" available contingent on when we ask through our inner voice and what we know, face-to-face with another or in a meeting, or by phone, or by any other media we may access for wisdom to help ourselves. We are not alone today…

As in all matters recovery, as a Fellowship and as individuals we are making progress and we are not perfect. What does this mean? As a Fellowship we are evolving and coming to new understandings about what works in recovery and what hinders recovery. Evolution not revolution is the progress we humans make most of the time. Revolution is more difficult, some people call it "step change" in modern society. Over time I have learned the steps change me to be open and honest and willing to change, and extraordinary evolution into reality, progress as it can be today…

I need you to believe in the God of your understanding, no matter what that understanding is because it is yours. And I respect that completely your view of a higher power which works in your life. And that I need you to believe in the God of your understanding, I need to come to my own understanding of a power greater than me. Indeed and in reality there are many powers extraordinary and far greater than me. Being one of seven billion people on this tiny planet in the universe I need the experience, strength and hope which resides in you and always in the moment of now…

-/-

DonInLondon 2005-2011

A great privilege to hear a first chair last night. Similarities were so close and very happy to see how a common set of principles can keep us sober. As long as we do practice them! Other feelings come out as we listen, and also we get tuned into conflicts and potential disputes. Always alert these days, toes get trodden on and anger and resentments are but moments from expression, life is difficult... acceptance?

I missed a meeting yesterday and today waking up, I felt alone. Morning meditations helped me. And then contact with another human being by phone helped me feel more myself. If I know how I am feeling, and why I can make conscious contact and speak with another person... Steps 1 2 3 and serenity prayer, now feel good enough for today...

Diverse, unique and authentic, with clear similarities, in the moment of now ~ Maya Angelou "While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation." -/-

We need find our own path, understand the truth of now and find how to cherish living ~ Thomas Jefferson "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." -/- Fear, a brave face, ego closes us down, faith courage and confidence opens us to every possibility life affords..

In recovery it is often suggested we find our own conception of God ~ Thomas Jefferson "It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no God." To God as you understand this day, and to thine own self, be true..

-/-

AA Daily Reflection: AS WE UNDERSTAND HIM MARCH 16 My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea . . . “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 12

I remember the times I looked up into the sky and reflected on who started it all, and how. When I came to A.A., an understanding of some description of the spiritual dimension became a necessary adjunct to a stable sobriety. After reading a variety of versions, including the scientific, of a great explosion, I went for simplicity and made the God of my understanding the Great Power that made the explosion possible. With the vastness of the universe under His command, He would, no doubt, be able to guide my thinking and actions if I was prepared to accept His guidance. But I could not expect help if I turned my back on that help and went my own way. I became willing to believe and I have had 26 years of stable and satisfying sobriety.

-/-

Just For Today, and every day cherish always...

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AA Official Online Site: Daily Reflections

http://www.aa.org/lang/en/aareflections.cfm