Thoughts for the Day – Choices

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A.A. Thoughts for the Day

Choices

“During the day, we can pause where situations must be met and decisions made, and renew the simple request: ‘Thy will, not mine, be done.’ If at these points our emotional disturbance happens to be great, we will more surely keep our balance, provided we remember, and repeat to ourselves, a particular prayer or phrase that has appealed to us in our reading or meditation. Just saying it over and over will often enable us to return to the surest help of all – our search for God’s will, not our own, in the moment of stress.”
Bill W., Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pp. 102-103
As Bill Sees It, p. 78

Thought to Consider…

“As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.”
Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 87

AACRONYMS

F E A R
False Evidence Appearing Real

Just for Today

Conference
From “The Three Legacies of Alcoholics Anonymous”

“In the late 1940s most of the nonalcoholics on the Board at the time had been institutional [non-profit organization] men. Bernard Smith on the other hand was a businessman and lawyer. From the time he had joined the Board, three years earlier, he had always favored corporate management for the A.A. office and an elected conference to sit with the Trustees as the final plan of service structure for Alcoholics Anonymous.
Chairman Leonard Harrison appointed Bernard Smith Chairman of the Trustees Committee on the proposed Conference [despite] their differences of opinion.
Bernard Smith has a remarkable faculty for persuasion and negotiation. Moreover, his ideas about a conference had already taken a deeper hold than any of us realized. [H]e took up the task of convincing the Trustees committee on the Conference. He put this question to the committee: Shall we set up this Conference of delegates, or shall we forget about it? To my astonishment the committee unanimously said, ‘Let’s give the Conference a try.’ It seemed like a miracle.”
2001 AAWS, Inc.
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, p. 212

Daily Reflections

HEALING HEART AND MIND

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 55

Since it is true that God comes to me through people, I can see that by keeping people at a distance I also keep God at a distance. God is nearer to me than I think and I can experience Him by loving people and allowing people to love me. But I can neither love nor be loved if I allow my secrets to get in the way.

It’s the side of myself that I refuse to look at that rules me. I must be willing to look at the dark side in order to heal my mind and heart because that is the road to freedom. I must walk into darkness to find the light and walk into fear to find peace.

By revealing my secrets – and thereby ridding myself of guilt – I can actually change my thinking; by altering my thinking, I can change myself. My thoughts create my future. What I will be tomorrow is determined by what I think today.
Copyright 1990
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS WORLD SERVICES, INC.

As Bill Sees It

We Are Not Fighting

“We have ceased fighting anything or anyone – even alcohol. For by this time sanity has returned. We can now react sanely and normally, and we find that this has happened almost automatically. We see that this new attitude toward liquor is really a gift of God. That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is how we react – so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.”
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pp. 84-85

Big Book Quote

“If there be divorce or separation, there should be no undue haste for the couple to get together. The man should be sure of his recovery. The wife should fully understand his new way of life. If their old relationship is to be resumed it must be on a better basis, since the former did not work. This means a new attitude and spirit all around. Sometimes it is to the best interests of all concerned that a couple remain apart. Obviously, no rule can be laid down. Let the alcoholic continue his program day by day. When the time for living together has come, it will be apparent to both parties.”
Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition
Working With Others, p. 99

Twenty Four Hours a Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

The A.A. program is one of charity because the real meaning of the word charity is to care enough about other people to really want to help them. To get the full benefit of the program, we must try to help other alcoholics. We may try to help somebody and think we have failed, but the seed we have planted may bear fruit some time. We never know the results even a word of ours might have. But the main thing is to have charity for others, a real desire to help them, whether we succeed or not. Do I have real charity?

Meditation for the Day

All material things, the universe, the world, even our bodies, may be Eternal Thought expressed in time and space. The more the physicists and astronomers reduce matter, the more it becomes a mathematical formula, which is thought. In the final analysis, matter is thought. When Eternal Thought expresses itself within the framework of space and time, it becomes matter. Our thoughts, within the box of space and time, cannot know anything firsthand, except material things. But we can deduce that outside the box of space and time is Eternal Thought, which we can call God.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may be a true expression of Eternal Thought. I pray that God’s thoughts may work through my thoughts.
Hazelden Foundation PO Box 176 Center City, MN 55012