April 22 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 4 "Inventory" | Alcoholics Anonymous Today's AA daily reflection: "new soil… New roots." "Roots of reality, supplanting the neurotic underbrush." I enjoyed reading this reflection this morning, every day really is a new beginning about the reality of now and serenity in a spiritual sense, is coping with what happens next, right now in the imperfectly perfect moment of now…
April, all about step four in the AA daily reflections helps me and reminds me of just how muddled my outlook was at the end of my last drink… Every element of me turned inside out, coming out of oblivion into the harshest days. Not the harshest days of my life, the harshest days were not lost in time, they were relived over and over and were of grief and loss and heartbreak fuelled by alcohol and extremes of feeling I just could not handle…
In recovery we do not forget how difficult it was to be a newcomer to sobriety. I remember waking up one morning and the usual feeling of "fear we go again, or rather here we go again." I opened the curtains to a blast of sunlight, staggering backwards and falling onto the bed, a bottle of vodka next to me and another in the fridge… In my head my inner voice said, "I cannot do this on my own and it can get no worse." It did get worse, but I realised I needed help and I asked for it… And the answers was yes.
Step four, a self appraisal to help me fear life less, a fearless moral inventory. I was so full of shame and guilt, not wanting to make life difficult for anyone else ever again. I had heard my doctor say I needed to forgive myself on several occasions for being ill. The harshness I felt towards myself and my failure was a death sentence. Left to my own judgement and without help I would have perished…
In recent times, connecting with newcomers and reconnecting with very human human beings who have come back to recovery reminds me just how important tolerance, love and forgiveness need be. Anyone can be overwhelmed by life, find themselves in the most difficult circumstances and just say, "to hell with it!" And there we are in hell. I don't need to judge anyone living in hell or how they got there, I just need help them and if I cannot help myself, I try find a way to connect them with those who can…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
How we respond to the truth of now helps define us and helps us make best choices ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson "This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it" -/- Truth, love and wisdom of others, constant companions if we choose, with our eyes open..
Living In Reality, the purpose of the 12 steps: We learn powerless over alcohol and our unmanageability, being restored to sanity with help, how to let go and let in good choices and then our inventory of “back then”, so we may progress and “live in the now,” as our attitudes and behaviours change to responding to truth and needs rather than wants and fantasy...
-/-
AA Daily Reflection: NEW SOIL . . . NEW ROOTS Moments of perception can build into a lifetime of spiritual serenity, as I have excellent reason to know. Roots of reality, supplanting the neurotic underbrush, will hold fast despite the high winds of the forces which would destroy us, or which we would use to destroy ourselves. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 173
I came to A.A. green–a seedling quivering with exposed taproots. It was for survival but it was a beginning. I stretched, developed, twisted, but with the help of others, my spirit eventually burst up from the roots. I was free. I acted, withered, went inside, prayed, acted again, understood anew, as one moment of perception struck. Up from my roots, spirit-arms lengthened into strong, green shoots: high-springing servants stepping skyward. Here on earth God unconditionally continues the legacy of higher love. My A.A. life put me “on a different footing. . . [my] roots grasped a new soil.”
-/-
As Bill Sees It ~ Beneath the Surface... Some will object to many of the questions that should be answered in a moral inventory, because they think their own character defects have not been so glaring. To these, it can be suggested that a conscientious examination is likely to reveal the very defects the objectionable questions are concerned with.
Because our surface record hasn't looked too bad, we have frequently been abashed to find that this is so simply because we have buried these self same defects deep down in us under thick layers of self justification. Those were the defects that finally ambushed us into alcoholism and misery. TWELVE AND TWELVE, PP. 53-54
As Bill Sees It ~ 319 Two Authorities Many people wonder how A.A. can function under a seeming anarchy. Other societies have to have law and force and sanction and punishment, administered by authorized people. Happily for us, we found that we need no human authorities which are far more effective. One is benign, the other malign. There is God, our Father, who very simply says, "I am waiting for you to do my will." The other authority is named John Barleycorn, and he says, "You had better do God's will or I will kill you."
-/-
Step 4 "Fearless Inventory" Reading Video Link:
"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"
-/-
I do not speak for Alcoholics Anonymous I speak for myself. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of unique and authentic people who speak for themselves where they will to share experience, strength and hope about recovery on a daily basis. Anonymity affords sanctuary to find how to live sober and be open, honest and willing to learn life day by day. For me "truth," "love" and "wisdom" offer the best spiritual experience by living reality today. Into the fabric of recovery from alcoholism are woven the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions, steps to be open, honest and willing to learn, traditions to live unity, service and recovery.
The A.A. Traditions are neither rules, regulations, nor laws. We obey them willingly because we want to. Perhaps the secret of their power lies in the fact that these life-giving communications spring out of living experience and are rooted in love. 1. A.A. COMES OF AGE, P. 105
-/-
April, all about step four in the AA daily reflections helps me and reminds me of just how muddled my outlook was at the end of my last drink… Every element of me turned inside out, coming out of oblivion into the harshest days. Not the harshest days of my life, the harshest days were not lost in time, they were relived over and over and were of grief and loss and heartbreak fuelled by alcohol and extremes of feeling I just could not handle…
In recovery we do not forget how difficult it was to be a newcomer to sobriety. I remember waking up one morning and the usual feeling of "fear we go again, or rather here we go again." I opened the curtains to a blast of sunlight, staggering backwards and falling onto the bed, a bottle of vodka next to me and another in the fridge… In my head my inner voice said, "I cannot do this on my own and it can get no worse." It did get worse, but I realised I needed help and I asked for it… And the answers was yes.
Step four, a self appraisal to help me fear life less, a fearless moral inventory. I was so full of shame and guilt, not wanting to make life difficult for anyone else ever again. I had heard my doctor say I needed to forgive myself on several occasions for being ill. The harshness I felt towards myself and my failure was a death sentence. Left to my own judgement and without help I would have perished…
In recent times, connecting with newcomers and reconnecting with very human human beings who have come back to recovery reminds me just how important tolerance, love and forgiveness need be. Anyone can be overwhelmed by life, find themselves in the most difficult circumstances and just say, "to hell with it!" And there we are in hell. I don't need to judge anyone living in hell or how they got there, I just need help them and if I cannot help myself, I try find a way to connect them with those who can…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
How we respond to the truth of now helps define us and helps us make best choices ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson "This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it" -/- Truth, love and wisdom of others, constant companions if we choose, with our eyes open..
Living In Reality, the purpose of the 12 steps: We learn powerless over alcohol and our unmanageability, being restored to sanity with help, how to let go and let in good choices and then our inventory of “back then”, so we may progress and “live in the now,” as our attitudes and behaviours change to responding to truth and needs rather than wants and fantasy...
-/-
AA Daily Reflection: NEW SOIL . . . NEW ROOTS Moments of perception can build into a lifetime of spiritual serenity, as I have excellent reason to know. Roots of reality, supplanting the neurotic underbrush, will hold fast despite the high winds of the forces which would destroy us, or which we would use to destroy ourselves. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 173
I came to A.A. green–a seedling quivering with exposed taproots. It was for survival but it was a beginning. I stretched, developed, twisted, but with the help of others, my spirit eventually burst up from the roots. I was free. I acted, withered, went inside, prayed, acted again, understood anew, as one moment of perception struck. Up from my roots, spirit-arms lengthened into strong, green shoots: high-springing servants stepping skyward. Here on earth God unconditionally continues the legacy of higher love. My A.A. life put me “on a different footing. . . [my] roots grasped a new soil.”
-/-
As Bill Sees It ~ Beneath the Surface... Some will object to many of the questions that should be answered in a moral inventory, because they think their own character defects have not been so glaring. To these, it can be suggested that a conscientious examination is likely to reveal the very defects the objectionable questions are concerned with.
Because our surface record hasn't looked too bad, we have frequently been abashed to find that this is so simply because we have buried these self same defects deep down in us under thick layers of self justification. Those were the defects that finally ambushed us into alcoholism and misery. TWELVE AND TWELVE, PP. 53-54
As Bill Sees It ~ 319 Two Authorities Many people wonder how A.A. can function under a seeming anarchy. Other societies have to have law and force and sanction and punishment, administered by authorized people. Happily for us, we found that we need no human authorities which are far more effective. One is benign, the other malign. There is God, our Father, who very simply says, "I am waiting for you to do my will." The other authority is named John Barleycorn, and he says, "You had better do God's will or I will kill you."
-/-
Step 4 "Fearless Inventory" Reading Video Link:
"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"
-/-
I do not speak for Alcoholics Anonymous I speak for myself. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of unique and authentic people who speak for themselves where they will to share experience, strength and hope about recovery on a daily basis. Anonymity affords sanctuary to find how to live sober and be open, honest and willing to learn life day by day. For me "truth," "love" and "wisdom" offer the best spiritual experience by living reality today. Into the fabric of recovery from alcoholism are woven the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions, steps to be open, honest and willing to learn, traditions to live unity, service and recovery.
The A.A. Traditions are neither rules, regulations, nor laws. We obey them willingly because we want to. Perhaps the secret of their power lies in the fact that these life-giving communications spring out of living experience and are rooted in love. 1. A.A. COMES OF AGE, P. 105
-/-
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