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Rationalization
We "constructively criticized" someone who needed it, when our real motive was to win a useless argument. We were depressed and complained we felt bad, when in fact we were mainly asking for sympathy and attention. This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom. Learning daily to spot, admit, and correct these flaws is the essence of character-building and good living.
Bill W.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pp. 94-5
Thought to Consider . . .
A victim is a spectator in his life.
*~*AACRONYMS*~*
FEAR
Face Everything And Recover!
*~*^Just For Today!^*~*
Anonymity
"The intense drive that most of us alcoholics have for money, prestige, and power then crashed into the open by way of broken anonymity at the public level. This development of the 1945-1950 period was made even more dangerous by the fact that most of the anonymity breakers meant well. Sometimes these folks wanted to use the A.A. name publicly in order to help other good causes. Sometimes they just wanted their names and pictures in the papers always, of course, to help A.A. [W]e saw that the risk to A.A. would be appalling if all our power-drivers finally got loose at the public level. Scores of them were already doing it.
"So A.A. Headquarters got to work. We wrote remonstrances, kind ones, of course, to every breaker. We sent letters to nearly all press, radio, and publishing outlets, explaining why A.A.'s should not break their anonymity before the general public. Group feeling, combined with the Headquarters efforts, finally squeezed the anonymity breakers down to a mere handful within a few years. Had this tendency not been checked, the whole character of our society could have changed, and its future could have been fearfully compromised."
2001 AAWS Inc.
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, pg. 209
*^Daily Reflections^*
LOVE AND FEAR AS OPPOSITES
All these failings generate fear, a soul-sickness in its own right.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 49
"Fear knocked at the door; faith answered; no one was there." I don't know to whom this quote should be attributed, but it certainly indicates clearly that fear is an illusion. I create the illusion myself.
I experienced fear early in my life and I mistakenly thought that the mere presence of it made me a coward. I didn't know that one of the definitions of "courage" is "the willingness to do the right thing in spite of fear." Courage, then, is not necessarily the absence of fear.
During the times I didn't have love in my life I most assuredly had fear. To fear God is to be afraid of joy. In looking back, I realize that, during the times I feared God most, there was no joy in my life. As I learned not to fear God, I also learned to experience joy.
Copyright 1990
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS WORLD SERVICES, INC.
*~*^As Bill Sees It^*~*
Face the Music
"Don't be too discouraged about that slip. Practically always, we drunks learn the hard way. "Your idea of moving on to somewhere else may be good, or it may not. Perhaps you have got into an emotional or economic jam that can't be well handled where you are. But maybe you are doing just what all of us have done, at one time or another: Maybe you are running away. Why don't you try to think that through again carefully? "Are you really placing recovery first, or are you making it contingent upon other people, places, or circumstances? You may find it ever so much better to face the music right where you are now, and, with the help of the A.A. program, win through. Before you make a decision, weigh it in these terms."
LETTER, 1949
*~*^Big Book Quote^*~*
"It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."
~Alcoholics Anonymous 4th Edition
Into Action, pg. 85~
*^Twenty Four Hours A Day^*
A.A. Thought for the Day
Every time we go to an A.A. meeting, every time we say the Lord's Prayer, every time we have a quiet time before breakfast, we're paying a premium on our insurance against taking that first drink. And every time we help another alcoholic, we're making a large payment on our drink insurance. We're making sure that our policy doesn't lapse. Am I building up an endowment in serenity, peace, and happiness that will put me on easy street for the rest of my life?
Meditation for the Day
I gain faith by my own experience of God's power in my life. The constant, persistent recognition of God's spirit in all my personal relationships, the ever accumulating weight of evidence in support of God's guidance, the numberless instances in which seeming chance or wonderful coincidence can be traced to God's purpose in my life. All these things gradually engender a feeling of wonder, humility, and gratitude to God. These in turn are followed by a more sure and abiding faith in God and His purposes.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that my faith may be strengthened every day. I pray that I may find confirmation of my life in the good things that have come into my life.
Hazelden Foundation PO Box 176 Center City, MN 55012
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