AA Thoughts For Today - August

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AA Thought for the Day

August 24

Freedom From Fear

When, with God’s help, we calmly accepted our lot, then we found we
could live at peace with ourselves and show others who still suffered
the same fears that they could get over them, too. We found that
freedom from fear was more important than freedom from want.
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, (Step Twelve) p. 122

Thought to Ponder
Situations I fear are rarely as bad as the fear itself.

AA-related 'Alconym'
F E A R = Forgetting Everything's All Right.

~*~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 ^*~*~*~*~*

"There is very little in life that I must personally handle or that someone else couldn't do as well. On the other hand, no
one else in the world can take my place at my meetings."
Washington Township, New Jersey
"Distilled Spirits,"
AA Grapevine

*~*~*~*~*^ 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