May 27 2012 | AA 12 Steps In Action | Step 5 Admit And Accept | Alcoholics Anonymous Today's AA daily reflection: "no maudlin guilt…" Thank goodness it's a one-day programme. Learning to live to good conscience offers a daily opportunity to make progress and we are not looking to be perfect, simply we are imperfectly perfect! Every day we will be pulled in many directions, the inner voice muttering, the outer world chattering and somewhere we find balance in the moment…
Twelve practical steps for practical living: In step four, an inventory of our liabilities and our assets. Step six, liabilities or defects of character which we explore daily and assets we develop in step seven again developing each and every day. My liabilities, fear without foundation, putting on a brave face to cover up shame and guilt and not being good enough and ego, eggshell brittle easily smashed by harsh moments. My assets, developing a faith in doing the next right thing, courage to keep on changing and building confidence by learning from my mistakes each and every day…
In today's AA reflection, it is all about doing, being free to make choices and about endeavour. It is about making good and repairing where we can, learning from what happened and doing things different. It is all about working out what is good today, what we can do and cannot do and working in a way which helps us keep to good conscience and for the good of everyone. It's not about me, it is about everyone today…
A peaceful start my morning, my mood? I haven't developed a mood yet! Which makes me smile and so my feelings and mood are pretty good in the moment. Morning routine, step one, powerlessness over people places and things and everything can be discussed in what next today. Step two, a day of sanity and happiness on offer as long as I don't think I'm in charge. Let go and let in the world, people places and things so I get greater understanding of what is possible today. And the serenity prayer for can do and cannot do and learning the wisdom as we go moment by moment…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
Our "can do" program, we learn to be human beings "being human" today. There are no don'ts, simply suggestions as we learn what works for us. "And so, my fellows in recovery, ask not what our fellowship can do for you; ask what we can do for our? fellowship" adapted from JFK
Similarities in recovery: Unique & authentic we are... expressing our experience strength and hope. Not one voice in recovery, many voices, how life was back then, how life is today and our hope. Twelve steps work just for today and then every day as we trudge our path of destiny...
AA Daily Reflections ~ "NO MAUDLIN GUILT Day by day, we try to move a little toward God’s perfection. So we need not be consumed by maudlin guilt… AS BILL SEES IT, p. 15
When I first discovered that there is not a single “don’t” in the Twelve Steps of A.A., I was disturbed because this discovery swung open a giant portal. Only then was I able to realize what A.A. is for me:
A.A. is not a program of “don’ts, but of “do’s.
A.A. is not martial law; it is freedom.
A.A. is not tears over defects, but sweat over fixing them.
A.A. is not penitence; it is salvation.
A.A. is not “Woe to me” for my sins, past and present.
A.A. is “Praise God” for the progress I am making today."
-/-
May 27 2007
God or Good Conscience DonInLondon ‘Day In the Life’
Tolerance and Love
For all my life I have been gifted with an outlook which helps me understand diversity, tolerance and love. As you may have noticed over the last few years I have had to find a way to live life in recovery from addiction to alcohol. Many people I meet these days have found help in fellowship. The fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous has helped me find a spiritual path to living simply one day at a time. There are many fellowships which provide ways to live and make life work.
I have the greatest respect for anyone who believes in God and the same respect applies to those who do not, or don’t have an opinion or like me have not found it necessary to make up my mind and rely on “Good Conscience.”
For me “good conscience” is our collective wisdom and understanding about how we live in society and share our lives. We all learn what is right and wrong? I accept we do and we are best served by tolerance and love and utilising the collective wisdom we all have from experience and history.
One day we will find peace and harmony, acceptance and equality. All the good mankind can do will help us all live in peace and harmony. We are a long way away from those days to come.
A Spiritual Path
For me life is about a spiritual path. Seeing reality as it is, with less denial or filters I might have as my own outlook and sometimes prejudice get in the way of good living and harmony, tolerance and love.
The spiritual path in its simplest form is working to live and experience life as real as it can be, the good and the bad, and learning to know the difference between right and wrong. We learn how we may live to good conscience as we experience this world. Spiritual is our true connection to this time and place, as real as it may be. And simply living life the best we can.
Alcoholics Anonymous
Whether I am living with “God Consciousness” or and living to ”Good Conscience,” I have found the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous has helped me find a spiritual path. That is to work and live to the good, be honest and willing to endeavour to the best of my ability. It has been and continues to be a remarkable journey in sobriety.
I have come to understand that fellowship, a set of steps to help me change my attitudes and behaviour to live well with what I can do let go what I cannot do.
Simply being true as I can be and sharing and supporting each other, this remarkable fellowship saved my life and many others.
Sometimes when we become enthusiastic and find a path which seems so right and proper we can often get single minded.
In a fellowship so diverse with people unique and authentic, we simply have one purpose to maintain. A desire to stop drinking and live sober.
Whether you believe in God or good conscience or both, if anyone needs help to make life work and get into recovery a day at a time, then AA may be right for you.
AA helps us get our personal choices back. It also makes life work a day at a time. If you are a tolerant and loving person, can accept some people believe in god and God’s will, or Good Conscience, or indeed as most people I find are somewhere in between and undecided.
This programme works if you work at it. It cannot fix a person, a person learns to live well and to their personal principles and Good or God’s conscience. Be flexible and live well as we all learn a sober and spiritual approach to living a day at a time can be the greatest gift as we live in peace. Excited by living and relishing each day as best we can. And for some of us who have incapacities and other maladies, it can work just as well too.
We work at living, as hard as we can, no fixing or running away. With a great deal of help from our friends and fellowships of course! If we work hard at recovery life will turn out as best it can. We are not superhuman, we have every human frailty as much as anyone. And we find a way to live as we may, just one day at a time and as we can.
For those who need help, seek it. For those who have medical support, use it and always get advice from trusted sources and people you can identify as helpful to you.
Common sense is what we learn most, and wisdom to live life without fear as much as we may.
Here are two versions of the twelve steps of change. Change is what we do, we don’t fix, we live life as best we may, making progress.
Progress not Perfection!
Twelve Step Fellowship
For anyone who would like to work the steps, these versions of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous provide a platform for changing our lives and outlook to sober living one day at a time.
God Conscious 12 Steps Spiritual
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Good Conscience 12 Steps Spiritual
For anyone who would like to work the steps, this version of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous provides slightly different wording of the six steps that make reference to God or a Higher Power. This version of the Twelve Steps seems to have originated in agnostic A.A. groups in California.
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe and to accept that we needed strengths beyond our awareness and resources to restore us to sanity.
[Original: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.]
3. Made a decision to entrust our will and our lives to the care of the collective wisdom and resources of those who have searched before us.
[Original: Made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.]
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to ourselves without reservation, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
[Original: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.]
6. Were ready to accept help in letting go of all our defects of character.
[Original: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.]
7. With humility and openness sought to eliminate our shortcomings.
[Original: Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.]
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through meditation to improve our spiritual awareness and our understanding of the AA way of life and to discover the power to carry out that way of life.
[Original: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.]
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Serenity
God or and Good Conscience
“Grant me the serenity, to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference…"
May 27 2007
God or Good Conscience DonInLondon ‘Day In the Life’
Tolerance and Love
For all my life I have been gifted with an outlook which helps me understand diversity, tolerance and love. As you may have noticed over the last few years I have had to find a way to live life in recovery from addiction to alcohol. Many people I meet these days have found help in fellowship. The fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous has helped me find a spiritual path to living simply one day at a time. There are many fellowships which provide ways to live and make life work.
I have the greatest respect for anyone who believes in God and the same respect applies to those who do not, or don’t have an opinion or like me have not found it necessary to make up my mind and rely on "Good Conscience."
For me "good conscience" is our collective wisdom and understanding about how we live in society and share our lives. We all learn what is right and wrong? I accept we do and we are best served by tolerance and love and utilising the collective wisdom we all have from experience and history.
One day we will find peace and harmony, acceptance and equality. All the good mankind can do will help us all live in peace and harmony. We are a long way away from those days to come.
A Spiritual Path
For me life is about a spiritual path. Seeing reality as it is, with less denial or filters I might have as my own outlook and sometimes prejudice get in the way of good living and harmony, tolerance and love.
The spiritual path in its simplest form is working to live and experience life as real as it can be, the good and the bad, and learning to know the difference between right and wrong. We learn how we may live to good conscience as we experience this world. Spiritual is our true connection to this time and place, as real as it may be. And simply living life the best we can.
Alcoholics Anonymous
Whether I am living with "God Consciousness" or and living to "Good Conscience," I have found the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous has helped me find a spiritual path. That is to work and live to the good, be honest and willing to endeavour to the best of my ability. It has been and continues to be a remarkable journey in sobriety.
I have come to understand that fellowship, a set of steps to help me change my attitudes and behaviour to live well with what I can do let go what I cannot do.
Simply being true as I can be and sharing and supporting each other, this remarkable fellowship saved my life and many others.
Sometimes when we become enthusiastic and find a path which seems so right and proper we can often get single minded.
In a fellowship so diverse with people unique and authentic, we simply have one purpose to maintain. A desire to stop drinking and live sober.
Whether you believe in God or good conscience or both, if anyone needs help to make life work and get into recovery a day at a time, then AA may be right for you.
AA helps us get our personal choices back. It also makes life work a day at a time. If you are a tolerant and loving person, can accept some people believe in God or do not, live and abide to God’s will, or simply Good Conscience. Or indeed as most people I find are somewhere in between and undecided, follow good principles of living and endeavour as Nature and Providence provide.
This fellowship of AA works if you work at changing yourself, accepting help and support and living to good principles. It cannot fix a person, a person learns to live well and to their personal principles and Good or God’s conscience. Be flexible and live well as we all learn a sober and spiritual approach to living a day at a time can be the greatest gift as we live in peace. Excited by living and relishing each day as best we can. And for some of us who have incapacities and other maladies, it can work just as well too.
We work at living, as hard as we can, no fixing or running away. With a great deal of help from our friends and fellowships of course! If we work hard at recovery life will turn out as best it can. We are not superhuman, we have every human frailty as much as anyone. And we find a way to live as we may, just one day at a time and as we can.
For those who need help, seek it. For those who have medical support, use it and always get advice from trusted sources and people you can identify as helpful to you.
Common sense is what we learn most, and wisdom to live life without fear as much as we may.
Here are two versions of the twelve steps of change. Change is what we do, we don’t fix, we live life as best we may, making progress.
Progress not Perfection!
Twelve Step Fellowship
For anyone who would like to work the steps, these are two versions of the Twelve Steps. the first is the current and original twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. the second is an amended form which is offered as an "Agnostics" 12 Steps and provide a platform for changing our lives and outlook to sober living one day at a time whether you are a believer in God or and Good Conscience.
For me as a believer in the common good and tolerance and love, I have come to believe AA is a fellowship of loving people who live life as good as life offers. And simply have one desire, to live sober one day at a time. What we believe is personal choice and as we come to understand life. May this always be so and as we know,
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man..
-- Shakespeare
God Conscious - AA 12 Steps Spiritual
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Good Conscience 12 Steps Spiritual
For anyone who would like to work the steps, this version of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous provides slightly different wording of the six steps that make reference to God or a Higher Power. This version of the Twelve Steps seems to have originated in agnostic A.A. groups in California.
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe and to accept that we needed strengths beyond our awareness and resources to restore us to sanity.
[Original: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.]
3. Made a decision to entrust our will and our lives to the care of the collective wisdom and resources of those who have searched before us.
[Original: Made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.]
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to ourselves without reservation, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
[Original: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.]
6. Were ready to accept help in letting go of all our defects of character.
[Original: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.]
7. With humility and openness sought to eliminate our shortcomings.
[Original: Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.]
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through meditation to improve our spiritual awareness and our understanding of the AA way of life and to discover the power to carry out that way of life.
[Original: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.]
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Serenity
God or and Good Conscience
"Grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the Things I can
And Wisdom to know the Difference"
To accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the Things I can
And Wisdom to know the Difference”
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