I thank everyone who keep coming back to meetings,pulling up a chair and keeping the meetings going for the newcomers.
I have choices to day and I choose to make all of AA a big part of my life. I need to for without AA I would die...
Meetings
"Sobriety and a plan for living that produces a personality change and a spiritual awakening are imperative. Through AA, many receive the needed change and awakening just by trying to live by AA principles and with AA people. We do this by going to many AA meetings with an open mind and a desire to live the good-feeling life without chemicals-- liquid or otherwise." Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 459 Thought toConsider . . . Seven days without an AA meeting makes one weak.
I asked for friends and they were there.
Friendship
"We commenced to make many fast friends and a fellowship has grown up among us of which it is a wonderful thing to feel a part of. The joy of living we really have, even under pressure and difficulty. I have seen hundreds of families set their feet in the path that really goes somewhere; have seen the most impossible domestic situations righted; feuds and bitterness of all sorts wiped out. I have seen men come out of asylums and resume a vital place in the lives of their families and communities. Business and professional men have regained their standing. There is scarcely any form of trouble and misery which has not been overcome among us." Bill W., Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 15
They taught me how to cope with life.
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. 102-3 As Bill Sees It, p. 78 Thought toConsider . . . "As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action." Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 87
I no longer had to fight and feel alone, I no longer had a desire to drink, this was replaced with new found friends and a Gof of my understang. I found you both in the meeting. Yes I thank you always.
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
*~*~*~*^TwentyFourHoursADay^*~*~*~* 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?
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may put much effort into acquiring spiritual things. I pray that I may not expect good things until I am right spiritually.
Thank you all for being here for me today and helping me sat sober another day. But most of all thank you for you love and understanding.
I had to surrender to win and have a total acceptance of step one..
This is not my share but I wanted to repost and share with you.
Surrender to win
Surrender to Win was one of those AA slogans that used to utterly bamboozle me in my early days. It was on the wall at pretty much every meeting I attended. Yet in my arrogance Id decided not to even attempt to understand its meaning or how it could ever apply to a smart cookie like my good self. Contempt prior to investigation and no mistake!
And guess what? As a consequence, I kept going back out drinking repeatedly. I would get about six weeks tops of so-called sobriety. Of course, the term sobriety was actually a cruel joke at that stage in my life, a sad misnomer because this was truly terrible, white-knuckle, dry-drunk stuff - a million miles from the genuine good-quality sobriety Ive experienced ever since that moment when I did actually surrender to win - when the obsession for alcohol finally lifted once and for all.
So what did I do to achieve this remarkable state of surrender? To be honest, Im not entirely sure how it happened. Its a few years back now thank goodness (and thanks especially to my Higher Power too). But this is my recollection of events.
I was doing loads of meetings, every single day, in fact. Id joined a brilliant group (theyre all brilliant I hear you say). Id got an excellent sponsor and was working my way steadily (and thoroughly) through the Twelve Step Programme. And above all I wasnt lifting one drink for one day for oneself.
At this stage, my ego had been totally deflated after so many failed attempts at getting sober, courtesy of my own self-will. Or sometimes it had been an equally ineffectual mixture of my obstinate self-will and perhaps a few cherry-picked morsels that appealed to me from the AA Programme but that never worked of course. As the Big Book makes clear: Half measures availed us nothing. Yet stubbornly I had to keep on finding that out for myself. I think I was convinced I was going to end up as one of those poor unfortunates the Big Book talks about, who would never achieve sobriety
But every time I did return to drink I always kept coming back to AA and that was absolutely crucial. It was perhaps the single most important factor in my recovery. Somehow I knew there was no place else for me. I was an alcoholic and if I continued to drink out there then it was insanity or (premature) death that would befall me. Either or both of those ferocious predators were waiting to pounce on me for sure!
And every time I came back I found I had been bludgeoned and battered a little deeper into the gutter. So now with my ego totally demolished I started to embrace the full package of what AA was offering. I was no longer a smart-ass trying to intellectualise away all those slogans - or any of the wonderful AA message that was there for free for me to pick up.
In other words I was showing some humility at long last. I was making myself receptive to every single thing that Alcoholics Anonymous was chucking in my direction and it was invaluable help in every shape and form. Each tiny iota was aimed at getting me sober. At long last I was doing exactly what was asked of me in AA. I believed the Big Book implicitly when it told me: Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.
Yet after a while I realised I still didnt feel quite right inside - the way I thought a properly sober person in the image of AA ought to feel. I understand now that I still hadnt fully surrendered. During the worst excesses of my active alcoholism I had been kicked out of the house but I had now been invited back home on a kind of probationary basis since my family saw that I was genuinely trying to get myself sorted out. Id been dry (not sober) for eight or nine months. Then one day after some silly row with my wife about nothing, I lifted a furtive drink. (Id heard of course that resentment was the number one offender but that didnt apply of course to a clever - still arrogant - chap like me!)
It wasnt much Id taken, a couple of units at most but within about 90 seconds of downing that poisonous potion of alcohol I started swearing and verbally abusing my long-suffering wife disgracefully. I literally couldnt help myself. In the blink of an eye Id been transformed from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. Id turned into Dracula or a Werewolf (select your own ugly monster of choice from one of those frightful options!). Anyway, it was horrific and terrifying. I could not believe the dramatic personality change that Id undergone. It suddenly hit home that I could not remotely control myself once Id consumed even the teeniest drink.
Bewildered, I went upstairs to think about the implications of this and there and then on the half landing I suddenly stopped. There was a voice in my head - my own voice. It was telling me in no uncertain terms: Do you understand Graeme? You are an alcoholic. You cannot drink! And at that very nanosecond I surrendered. It was like a colossal load being lifted from my shoulders. The obsession for drink had gone. I had accepted my alcoholism. I was free at last! For the very first time I understood deep in my heart and soul that I am an alcoholic and that drink should play no part whatsoever in my life.
Its vital that I reinforce this magical state of surrender every single day. Im in a good solid group. I do lots of meetings (5-6 a week). Ive been through the Twelve Step Programme officially with my sponsor but its also essential that I endeavour to work the Programme each and every day in my life. For me, the Programme is a kind of practical manual for living - as a considerate, responsible, decent human being instead of the self-centred drunken waste of space I used to be when I was a practising alcoholic!
Its a continuing, marvellous journey - even with all the ups and downs that life throws in ones path. And I cant thank the fantastic Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous enough for showing this one poor unfortunate how to finally surrender to win!
For me today I am unable to live without the continued support and sharing that we hear '''' within the rooms of AA.'''.
Meetings -- A wonderful place to heal and to find 'life-long' friends ...
Meetings -- A safe retreat from all that brings you pain and burdens ...
Meetings -- A great place to see and watch God 'in action' ... Miracles happen at meetings ... (the 'raving alcoholic' is often tamed ... and goes on to live a sensible, purposeful life) ...
God Bless, Pappy
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
