Alcoholics Anonymous Videos | DonInLondon

Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | March 9 2004 - 2014 | DonInLondon | Step 3 "Your Higher Power"

March 9 Video

DonInLondon March 9, 2014: step three month: "made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him." Fellowship: friends in recovery. Dealing with the good, bad and ugly of life, sharing experience strength and hope. Surrendering to the truth of now. Whenever possible, we do surrender to the truth, even if we don't like it, and feel angry and resentful. We always have somewhere to go and we can share about what is going on. Through sharing we let go the dark and make room for some more lighter moments hopefully.

A beautiful day yesterday and I've been missing some of my friends by going to the early-morning meetings and not going to meetings later in the day. I feel very fortunate to have so many around me in recovery. Actually they are not around me, that reads as if I am egocentric. And I am not egocentric, I like to feel included and be a part of something bigger than me and feel like I belong. And the great news is that nobody is in charge of anyone, we are simply making our way as best we can. The sky is blue just now, I'm going to see the girl I love very shortly, she knows I might come round and I will once I'm done here.

Listening to how people cope with their reality, is a truly wonderful way to get perspective on my life. If I were able to gather all this wisdom and then utilise it from moment to moment? Half of what goes on, and the good things I hear, I forget, at least half of it. By the end of the meeting, I feel hope more than anything else, and can see that it is okay to be me, no bigger or smaller than anybody else, no better or worse than anybody else and just able to ask the help. If I need it, I can ask, if somebody else asks for help, maybe I might have a suggestion, but I don't know any of this, if I am outside Fellowship, trying to live life on my own. Of course I could live quite well on my own? I prefer not to, I love Fellowship and everything. I learn every day about love.

Writing about the positive aspects of Fellowship is all well and good. And being a human, being human, I am learning day by day. There were many upsets earlier in the week, sad losses and much grief shared. And the perspective we gain about those who have perished. And those who are still living, we try to do our best to be supportive and helpful. At the same time we do not instruct, we simply suggest if we are truly being fellows in Fellowship. No rules, no laws, and no regulations to bind or imprison. Emotional and spiritual living is about the freedom to choose and get on with life as we can, not conforming to any pattern that anyone might have for us. And letting go, pride, ego and fear, the need to control anything is understood through powerlessness and step one.

Full Daily Blog Link 2014:

DonInLondon 2004 - 2013

Alcoholics Anonymous | March 9 2013 | Steps In Action | Step 3 "Your Higher Power" "always suggestions, never instructions trudging the road of happy sobriety, even when life might be good, bad or ugly or all three together!" When we find ourselves in the company of like-minded people with a desire to stay stopped from their addiction and sober, suggestions may be taken on board, instructions hardly ever because an instruction tends to make a person in recovery quite deaf one day at a time…

A single human on their own struggling with addiction tends to be a drowning person, drowning in a philosophy created by whatever culture we may come from: standing on your own two feet, not showing weakness, trying to overcome any impediment because that is what we do. And if a single human being cannot stop themselves, how can we expect family and friends to be able to stop the addiction? In fellowship we know, no single human has the time, or the endurance to keep another person sober on their own. Working in unity, recovery is made possible by the many who support each other with their experience, strength and hope and working together always to help another single human make it into recovery, if the single human is willing to have a go one day at a time…

In the endeavour in recovery we are all equal, we all have experience, strength and hope, we are all able to share either one-to-one or in groups, and we have a primary purpose to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. Whatever we call it, team effort, each person can play a role, and simply by being part of fellowship and a presence in a meeting without saying anything, or doing anything, they can enrich, the experience of now. A fellowship founded on love, learning the emotional and spiritual journey one day at a time offers hope to anyone anywhere, and pretty much at any time with the help of modern communications. Social networks, fellowship websites abound these days. And the same is true of the medicine men who may have snake oil to sell you, when fellowship asks nothing of you, other than maybe to keep coming back. One day at a time…

So if you are looking for a higher power, you won't find it in a single person in the fellowship of AA. A single person in the fellowship of AA has a lot of experience, strength and hope to share. But no amount of experience, strength and hope, from one person can be as powerful as the many voices sharing experience, strength and hope on a daily basis. Experience over the years has shown me, if one person leans too heavily on another person, both can suffer dreadfully. When people rely on the many, listen to the many, share with many, the wisdom shared, and the experience, strength and hope is far more powerful than any single human being in keeping people sober. Your higher power is all around you, inside and outside fellowship, whatever you call it, it is there if you ask for help. And the problem can be, that some voices become so loud, they deafen out other voices who share softly, and yet more powerfully, because they really do know what they're talking about today…

Beware anyone in fellowship who suggests you deny your feelings, because your feelings are always there even if you don't like your feelings, or sometimes you do… Emotional and spiritual, your feelings in the moment of now will determine how you think and act in any given moment. If you feel good, you are likely to think good, and your actions are good. If you feel bad, you might try hide your bad feelings, but they are there and you have them, so thinking is doubly hard to overcome your negativity and your actions are laboured and cumbersome and mule-ish… An emphatic no can be better than a half-hearted yes when you feel wrong about doing something, share the feeling and work it out, rather than stew about it behave badly and with obstinacy today…

Although my wisdom is limited to my experiences, the higher power, always comes out in other people as their: "truth, love and wisdom." Listening to the truth of other people, that it can be based on love and their experience of life, always offers me a new outlook and can improve my own outlook on any given day. As God works through people who are open, honest and willing, the devil is also available through people who are closed down, dishonest and unwilling to let go bad behaviour. We all still need to work out the good from the bad and the ugly. And sometimes the brightest and most shiny are the most superficial and indifferent to you. They need you, you don't need them one day at a time…

How am I feeling today? I felt really rough this morning, I had the shakes and was not myself. Not enough insulin on this occasion left me foggy… And then a call from my best friend, very busy at work, not feeling the love this morning, so I gave her some love over the airwaves. A quick conversation, some laughter and recognising the simple and straightforward things we need do, to ask ourselves. Are we hungry, angry, lonely or tired, or a combination of them in the moment of now? HALT is the quickest way to understand what's on our case when we ignore our feelings and our consumed by thinking and acting. If we are consumed by thoughts and actions, getting the job done and not concentrating on feelings, we forget what makes a good day turn bad or and ugly… I feel good, right now. I am able to write and make sense that there are powers greater than me, always available when I ask, and the answer is simply to be patient, rest when one can. And still get the job done with a better outlook just for today… Oh and in my case, inject the right amount of insulin. So the fog clears and there is clarity today…!

Alcoholics Anonymous | March 9 2012 | Steps In Action | Step 3 "Your Higher Power" Today's AA daily reflection: "surrendering self-will and a desire to stop drinking." In my case, decades of ignorance and a desire for oblivion in a material world and emotional desert, meant self-will and desires had no meaning to me. As a newcomer I needed time to find any of my wits again…

Video For Today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxbDNbuSmUQ

The good habits and bad habits and routines of life. Letting go and letting good things happen, meant I needed to stop harmful activities. And the primary purpose to stay sober seemed impossible on my own. I had been self-sufficient, self-determined and driven, not bad qualities in the commercial world. Not much use in beginning sober recovery, let go and let people help me, let go knowing the answers and put the action into being open, honest and willing to change just for today… Hard enough!

The care of God as I understand him? A very good question only to be answered by each of us in our own way. Many sleepless nights my head arguing one way or another and another and another… Conclusions, I was not God, could not define him for myself or anyone else. But the universe is full of wisdom usually shared by people with integrity, a truth they understand and the wisdom of living sober one day at a time. And accepting this proposition, my world started to turn again…

Fortunately from birth we have both nature and nurture working for us. Nature and the instincts to survive develop and grow ebbing and flowing as life will. Nurture, what we learn from our environment, people places and things. Nature produces what it can with the raw materials at hand. Nurture, mankind at its best and its worst in any given day. Experience, strength and hope offers learning what we need and do not need, can do and cannot do in the moment and just for today…

DonInLondon 2005-2011

No matter how much one wishes to try, exactly how can one turn his own will and his own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is?

Progress not perfection, a daily programme of learning ~ Jim Rohn "It doesn't matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions." -/- Decisions made in the moment of now with courage, faith and confidence...

When we can, look for truth, and support in life choices ~ Robert H. Schuller "Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come." -/- A helicopter view often helps and a weather map of our human heart...

Holding on too long to self-will? Letting go and letting in providence ~ B. F. Skinner "I did not direct my life. I didn't design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That's what life is." -/- We do have life choices as life unfolds...

Listening to our good conscience, wisdom of others guides our life decisions and choices ~ Thomas S. Monson "I hope that you will learn to take responsibility for your decisions. Don’t take counsel of your fears." -/- Just for today, courage to change...

AA Daily Reflection: SURRENDERING SELF-WILL

MARCH 9, 2011 Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 34

No matter how much one wishes to try, exactly how can one turn his own will and his own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is? In my search for the answer to this question, I became aware of the wisdom with which it was written: that this is a two-part Step. I could see many times where I should have died, or at least been injured, during my previous style of living, and it never happened. Someone, or something, was looking after me. I choose to believe my life has always been in God’s care. He alone controls the number of days I will be granted until physical death. The matter of will (self-will or God’s will) is the more difficult part of the Step for me. It is only when I have experienced enough emotional pain, through failed attempts to fix myself, that I become willing to surrender to God’s will for my life. Surrender is like the calm after the storm. When my will is in line with God’s will for me, there is peace within.

Step Three Video 12 And 12