AA Thought For Today - August

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AA Thought for the Day

August 24

Suggestions
I remember my sponsor's answer when I told him the Steps were "suggested."
He replied that they are "suggested" in the same way that,
if you were to jump out of an airplane with a parachute,
it is "suggested" that you pull the ripcord to save your life.
- Daily Reflections, p. 344

Thought to Ponder . . .
All of AA's suggestions are free.
The ones I don't take are the ones I end up paying for.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
S T E P S = Solutions Through Each Positive Step.

~*~A.A. Thoughts For The Day~*~

Jittery
"We believe and hope this book contains
all you will need to begin.
We know what you are thinking.
You are saying to yourself:
'I'm jittery and alone. I couldn't do that.'
But you can.
You forget that you have just now tapped
a source of power much greater than yourself.
To duplicate, with such backing,
what we have accomplished is only a matter
of willingness, patience and labor."
1976AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 163

Thought to Consider . . .
It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
W H O M E ? = Willingness, Honesty, Openmindedness, Must Exist

*~*~*~*~*^Just For Today!^*~*~*~*~*

HP
From "The Three Legacies of Alcoholics Anonymous":

"We were still arguing about the Twelve Steps. All this time I had refused to budge on these steps. I would not change a word of the original draft, in which I had consistently used the word 'God,' and in one place the expression 'on our knees' was used. Praying to God on one's knees was still a big affront to Henry. He was positive we would scare off alcoholics by the thousands when they read those Twelve Steps. Though at first I would have none of it, we finally began to talk about the possibility of compromise. Who first suggested the actual compromise words I do not know, but they are words well known throughout the length and breadth of A.A. today: In Step Two we decided to describe God as a 'Power greater than ourselves.' In Steps Three and Eleven we inserted the words 'God as we understood Him.' From Step Seven we deleted the expression 'on our knees.' And, as a lead-in sentence to all the steps we wrote these words: 'Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a Program of Recovery.' A.A.'s Twelve Steps were to be suggestions only."
2001 AAWS, Inc.; Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, pgs. 166-67

*~*~*~*~*^ Grapevine Quote ^*~*~*~*~*

"Everyone around me said, 'Quit drinking,' but no one was able to tell me how."
Austin, Texas, November 2004
"The Perfect Curve"
Voices of Long-Term Sobriety

*~*~*~*~*^ Big Book & Twelve N' Twelve Quotes of the Day ^*~*~*~*~*

"If we are sorry for what we have done, and have the honest desire to
let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and
will have learned our lesson. If we are not sorry, and our conduct
continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink. We are not
theorizing. These are facts out of our experience."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, How It Works, pg. 70~

"Though there is no way of proving it, we believe that early in our
drinking careers most of us could have stopped drinking. But the
difficulty is that few alcoholics have enough desire to stop while
there is yet time."
Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, More About Alcoholism, pg. 32

“There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.”
-Alcoholics Anonymous p. 58

“When we are honest with another person, it confirms that we have been honest with ourselves and with God.”
-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p. 60 (Step Five)

Misc. AA Literature - Quote

There can be no absolute humility for us humans. At best, we can merely glimpse the meaning and splendor of such a perfect ideal. Only God himself can manifest in the absolute; we human beings must needs live and grow in the domain of the relative. So we seek progress in humility for today.
Few of us can quickly or easily become ready even to look at spiritual and moral perfection; we want to settle for only as much development as may get us by in life, according, of course, to our various and sundry ideas of what will get us by. Mistakenly, we strive for a self-determined objective, rather than for the perfect objective which is of God.

Prayer for the Day: God remove the Selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear that has cropped up in my life right now. Help me to discuss this with someone immediately and make amends quickly if I have harmed anyone. Help me to cease fighting anything and anyone. Show me where I may be helpful to someone else. Help me react sanely; not cocky or afraid. How can I best serve You - Your will, not mine be done. Amen