Tuesday 20 March 2012

March 20 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 3 | 2012 | Alcoholics Anonymous

March 20 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 3 "Let Go" | 2012 | Today's AA daily reflection: "love and tolerance…" I've often heard it said that words can be cheap and indeed actions speak louder than words. Love and tolerance need start with ourselves and it is an action in recovery, starting with sober one day at a time…



Understanding how step one, powerless and unmanageable, step two, being restored to sanity on a daily basis and step three letting go and making room for new knowledge, skills and actions. When anyone says, "let go and move on," letting go the self harm and shame and guilt is an on-going action. We do not simply let go and move on, we need to work at it and letting go self prejudice opens the door to forgiveness for being a human being with an ailment. At the same time there are consequences for how we have behaved. Love and tolerance is part of letting go and accepting new living...



Forgiveness, tolerance and love are all part of the journey in life. The more people have been hurt by us or by others, the more difficult the road because people who've been hurt am more able to hurt other people back. Letting go old behaviour, the fear, shame and guilt associated with how we were, needs to be understood first by ourselves and then through expression and contrition by making amends when possible and not doing further harm. Our past experiences then become part of the toolkit to a better life, being included and useful in recovery…



Expectations are resentments under construction according to many I have heard and I feel like I can completely agree that no one deserves anything more than another person be it good or bad fortune. Usually fear is behind the emotions we feel for a whole variety of reasons. I never expected other chronic conditions in recovery, but I appreciate that I'm alive long enough to get them. Real life can bite deeply and nobody is immune to nature or the harsher side of life including health. For today I have gratitude to have been alive long enough to see much of the world as it really is. A consequence and not always a benefit…

-/-

DonInLondon 2005-2011



As Bill sees it... 276 A Higher Power for Atheists "I have had many experiences with atheists, mostly good. Everybody in A.A. has the right to his own opinion. It is much better to maintain an open and tolerant society than it is to suppress any small disturbances their opinions might occasion. Actually, I don't know anybody who went off and died of alcoholism because some atheist's opinions on the cosmos.



"But I do always entreat these folks to look to a `Higher Power' -- namely, their own group. When they come in, most of their A.A. group is sober, and they are drunk. Therefore, the group is a `Higher Power'. That's a good enough start, and most of them do progress from there. I know how they feel, because I was once that way myself." Bill W

-/-



We need find forgiveness for our human condition, always fallible, always learning, imperfectly perfect.. ~ Hannah More "Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits" -/- tolerance and love helps let go the heartbreak of self harm and harm we did to others



Gerald Jampolsky "Forgiveness means letting go of the past" -/-



Jessica Lange "Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons" -/-



Bruce Springsteen "Certainly tolerance and acceptance were at the forefront of my music" -/-



When we realise reality offers the best connection to spiritual we understand ~ Kurt Cobain "Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with your self esteem" -/- So similar, living one day at a time as life is, joyful or sad, unique and authentic in our experience...

-/-



AA Daily Reflection: LOVE AND TOLERANCE Love and tolerance of others in our code. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 84



I have found that I have to forgive others in all situations to maintain any real spiritual progress. The vital importance of forgiving may not be obvious to me at first sight, but my studies tell me that every great spiritual teacher has insisted strongly upon it. I must forgive injuries, not just in words, or as a matter of form, but in my heart. I do this not for the other persons’ sake, but for my own sake. Resentment, anger, or a desire to see someone punished, are things that rot my soul. Such things fasten my troubles to me with chains. They tie me to other problems that have nothing to do with my original problem.

-/-



Step 3 "Let Go" Reading Video Link:



"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him"

-/-

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