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Dianne’s Missives Oct 31

Thought to Consider . . .

“We alcoholics are undisciplined. So, we let God discipline us . . .”
A.A. is not something you join, it’s a way of life.
Working with alcoholics in committees is like trying to herd cats.
Without unity, the heart of A.A. would cease to beat; . . .
Isolation is a darkroom where we develop negatives.

AACRONYMS

EG O = Easing God Out
A B C = Acceptance, Belief, Change
H A L T = Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired

“We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: ‘Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.’ Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever.”

Discipline

“Unless each A.A. member follows to the best of his ability our suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalties inflicted by people in authority; they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles . . . Great suffering and great love are A.A.’s disciplinarians; we need no others.”

Each A.A. member is challenged on a daily basis to accept a program of honesty.
My Higher Power created me for a purpose in life. I ask him to accept my honest efforts to continue on my journey in the spiritual way of life. I call on Him for strength to know and seek His will.

Comradeship in Peril

“We A.A.’s are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck, when camaraderie, joyousness, and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to captain’s table. Unlike the feelings of the ship’s passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of sharing in a common peril – relapse into alcoholism – continues to be an important element in the powerful cement which binds us of A.A. together.”

Principles

“Experience shows that few alcoholics will long stay away from a group just because they don’t like the way it is run. Most return and adjust themselves to whatever conditions they must. Some go to a different group, or form a new one. In other words, once an alcoholic fully realizes that he cannot get well alone, he will somehow find a way to get well and stay well in the company of others.”

“Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.”

“We who have traveled a path through agnosticism or atheism beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion. We have learned that, whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions. People of faith have a rational idea of what life is all about. Actually, we used to have no reasonable conception whatever. We used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices, when we might have seen that many spiritually minded persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness, and usefulness that we should have sought for ourselves.”

Dianne

 

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