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Expectations...For so many years my life revolved solely around myself. I was consumed by self in all forms -- self-centeredness, self-pity, self-seeking, all of which stemmed from pride. . . Until I could honestly look at myself and see that I was the problem in many situations and react appropriately inside and out; until I could discard my expectations and understand that my serenity was directly proportional to them, I could not experience serenity and sound sobriety. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Happiness...Happiness happens when results exceed expectations. Maybe this is working after all. Deep down, there is also a warm, small ball of faith, always there, never dimmed, unexplainable, asking nothing, but giving much. To define it or try to bounce it would distort or destroy it. It just is, that’s all. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Reality... Above all, we reject fantasizing and accept reality. The more I drank, the more I fantasized everything. I imagined getting even for hurts and rejections. In my mind’s eye I played and replayed scenes in which I was plucked magically from the bar where I stood nursing a drink and was instantly exalted to some position of power and prestige. I lived in a dream world. AA led me gently from this fantasizing to embrace reality with open arms. And I found it beautiful! For, at last, I was at peace with myself. And with others. And with God. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Easy Does It... We must learn to walk before we can run. That’s why we have these slogans. I use that "Easy Does It" every day, to slow me down a little. I have to watch myself all the time. So I don’t just take the inventory at night -- I take it continually throughout the day. Before I step out and do anything, I stop and check it over first, and then let my conscience be my guide. For me, AA has become a way of life. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Laughter... AA has filled my days with friends, laughter, growth, and the feeling of worth that is rooted in constructive activity. My faith in, and contact with, my Higher Power shines more brightly than I dreamed it could. . . I am free to laugh all my laughter, free to trust and be trusted, free to both give and receive help. I am free from shame and regret, free to grow and work. I have left that lonely, frightening, painful express train through hell. I have accepted the gift of a safer, happier journey through life. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Laughter... AA has filled my days with friends, laughter, growth, and the feeling of worth that is rooted in constructive activity. My faith in, and contact with, my Higher Power shines more brightly than I dreamed it could. . . I am free to laugh all my laughter, free to trust and be trusted, free to both give and receive help. I am free from shame and regret, free to grow and work. I have left that lonely, frightening, painful express train through hell. I have accepted the gift of a safer, happier journey through life. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Defenseless... The fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice to drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
A Way of Life... AA is not a plan for recovery that can be finished and done with. It is a way of life, and the challenge contained in its principles is great enough to keep any human being striving for as long as he lives. We do not, cannot, outgrow this plan. As arrested alcoholics, we must have a program for living that allows for limitless expansion. Keeping one foot in front of the other is essential for maintaining our arrestment. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Convincing Evidence... My abuse of alcohol was the exterior manifestation of a disease much more complex and consuming than simple drunkenness, and similarly, my abstinence is the exterior manifestation of a wellness much more rewarding than simple sobriety. The most convincing evidence I have is that Alcoholics Anonymous is working for me. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Service... All I thought about as I was making the coffee was making the coffee and how people could enjoy it. At my sponsor’s suggestion, I stood near the coffeepot and welcomed everyone who came by. I must have experienced a million smiles in a very short time. And when I pushed the broom all I concentrated on was the dust rising from it as I moved across the floor. My troubles were gone for the time that I was doing these things. And so it can be for you. If you can’t live and you can’t die, make coffee. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Solitude... Solitude can be sought and experienced in many ways -- in the silence of nature, in reading poetry, in listening to music, in looking at pictures, and in sincere thoughtfulness. We are alone, but not lonely. . . Some of us long to become creative in some realm of life. But we cannot become or remain creative without solitude. One hour of conscious solitude will enrich our creativity far more than hours of trying to learn the creative process. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Love and Laughter... Love will teach us values in life. It shows us that the things that count are never held in the hand but always in the heart. And people who are loving always live in the now. They cannot afford to live in the past or project into tomorrow. People who love laugh more and believe that a day without laughter is a lost day. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Acceptance... And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Easier, Softer Way... When I couldn't find an easier, softer way I looked for the person with the magic wand, the one person in AA who could make me all better, right now. This was a frustrating task, and I finally realized that if I wanted this life, I was going to have to do what the others had done. No one made me drink, and no one was going to make me stay sober. This program is for people who want it, not people who need it. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Membership... You are an AA member if you say so. You can declare yourself in; nobody can keep you out. No matter who you are, no matter how low you've gone, no matter how grave your emotional complications -- even your crimes -- we still can't deny you AA. We don't want to keep you out. We aren't a bit afraid you'll harm us, never mind how twisted or violent you may be. We just want to be sure that you get the same great chance for sobriety that we've had. So you're an AA member the minute you declare yourself. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Sacrifices... At the beginning we sacrificed alcohol. We had to, or it would have killed us. But we couldn't get rid of alcohol unless we made other sacrifices. Big-shotism and phony thinking had to go. We had to toss self-justification, self-pity, and anger right out the window. We had to quit the crazy contest for personal prestige and big bank balances. We had to take personal responsibility for our sorry state and quit blaming others for it. Were these sacrifices? Yes, they were. To gain enough humility and self-respect to stay alive at all we had to give up what had been our dearest possession (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Twelve Steps... The Twelve Steps of our AA program are not crammed down anybody's throat. They are not sustained by any human authority. Yet we powerfully unite around them because the truth they contain has saved our lives, has opened the door to a new world. Our experience tells us these universal truths work. The anarchy of the individual yields to their persuasion. He sobers up and is fed, little by little, to complete agreement with our simple fundamentals. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Habits... Our drinking was connected with many habits -- big and little. Some of them were thinking habits, or things we felt inside ourselves. Others were doing habits -- things we did, actions we took. In getting used to not drinking, we have found that we needed new habits to take the place of those old ones. . . After we spent a few months practicing these new, sober habits or ways of acting and thinking, they became almost second nature to most of us, as drinking used to be. Not drinking has become natural and easy, not a long, dreary struggle. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Hope... Did I, an alcoholic, have a defective character? Of course I did. Was I, an alcoholic, also a sick man? Yes, very. To what extent I was personally responsible for my drinking, I don't know. Yet I'm not one to take complete refuge in the idea that I was a sick man only. In earlier years I certainly had some degree of free will. That free will I used badly, to the great misery of my mother and countless others. I am deeply ashamed. As one who knows me a little, you may have heard how, ten years ago, a friend, himself a liberated alcoholic, came to me bearing the light which finally led me out of the toils. There will come a day like that for you and yours -- I'm so confident! (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Trudging... Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny. May God bless you and keep you -- until then. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Building an Arch... Have I, as the Big Book predicted, finished building that arch through which I shall walk a free man? Frankly, no. I'm still not entirely free of admitting I'm wrong. But I'm better than I was, I have improved, I'm freer. Perhaps the quality of my sobriety is not all it should be. But my lowest quality sobriety is better thank my highest quality drunk. And the Steps have given me uninterrupted sobriety, to my daily and, I hope, continual gratitude. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Humility... Every newcomer is told, and soon realizes for himself, that his humble admission of powerlessness over alcohol is his first step toward liberation from its paralyzing grip. So it is that we first see humility as a necessity. But this is the barest beginning. To get completely away from our aversion to the idea of being humble, to gain a vision of humility as the avenue to true freedom of the human spirit, to be willing to work for humility as something to be desired for itself, takes most of us a long, long time. A whole lifetime geared to self-centeredness cannot be set in reverse all at once. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Airborne... Although the disease of alcoholism inside of me is like gravity, just waiting to pull me down, AA and the Twelve Steps are like the power that causes an airplane to become airborne. It only works when the pilot is doing the right thing to make it work. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
HOW... The AA members who sponsored me told me in the beginning that I would not only find a way to live without having a drink, but that I would find a way without wanting to drink, if I would do these simple things. They said if you want to know how this program works, take the first word of your question -- the "H" is for honesty, the "O" is for open-mindedness, and the "W" is for willingness; these our Big Book calls the essentials of recovery. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
No Defense... At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected. The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. . . We are without defense against the first drink. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Protection... Like other men and women, we AA's look with deep apprehension upon the vast power struggle about us, a struggle in myriad forms that invades every level, tearing society apart. I think we AA's are fortunate to be acutely aware that such forces must never be ruling among us, lest we perish altogether. The Tradition of personal anonymity and no honors at the public level is our protective shield. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Fact... "The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves." (courtesy AAOnline.net)
We SURRENDER TO WIN... On the face of it, surrendering certainly does not seem like winning. But it is in AA. Only after we have come to the end of our rope, hit a stone wall in some aspect of our lives beyond which we can go no further; only when we hit "bottom" in despair and surrender, can we accomplish sobriety, which we could never accomplish before. We must, and we do, surrender in order to win. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Hangovers... When a drunk has a terrific hangover because he drank heavily yesterday, he cannot live well today. But there is another kind of hangover which we all experience whether we are drinking or not. That is the emotional hangover, the direct result of yesterday's and sometimes today's excesses of negative emotion -- anger, fear, jealousy and the like. If we would live serenely today and tomorrow, we certainly need to eliminate these hangovers. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Communication... From the beginning, communication in AA has been no ordinary transmission of helpful ideas and attitudes. It has been unusual and sometimes unique. Because of our kinship in suffering, and because our common means of deliverance are effective only when carried to others, our channels of contact have always been charged with the language of the heart. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Online... I'm thrilled that at any hour I can find someone to talk to. Twice this week, I've had tormented thoughts at three A.M. Do I have to phone and wake someone up for support? No, because other sober insomniacs are online, ready to help me make it through the night. I didn't want a drink, I just needed the loving support of the Fellowship. Knowing I can talk and apply the Steps to my chaotic thoughts and feelings at three A.M. makes a world of difference to me. As to whether online meetings violate Traditions, I say, "Bah, humbug!" I can't go to a meeting in Pakistan today -- does that make it not a real meeting? Online meetings are like any other -- if you get there, you are welcome there. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Serenity... That word "serenity" looked like an impossible goal then we didn't even want to aim at it. But we found that serenity meant no such thing. When it comes to us now, it is more as plain recognition -- a clear-eyed, realistic way of seeing the world, accompanied by inner peace and strength. Serenity is like the gyroscope that lets us keep our balance no matter what turbulence swirls around us. And that is a state of mind worth aiming for. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Challenges... I know now I have a lot of work to do. There are more amends to be made, letters to be sent. Twelfth Step work to be done, responsibilities to be assumed, and honest talks to be had with loved ones. Life is meant to be lived by facing the challenges it brings. Otherwise, I'm not living, just existing. God didn't give me this gift of sobriety to sit in a rocking chair, imagining myself as some wise old woman who has arrived somewhere. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Not-worrying... Each of us has to do something each day -- work in an office or a factory, soldier, take care of a house, or whatever. None of us has to understand God or worry about things beyond our control. We can indulge ourselves in the luxury of not-worrying. Any of us can handle just one day; all each of us has to try at is our own job, our own family life. We don't have to try fixing up the whole world or understanding what no theologian of any faith has ever understood. We simply stop messing in God's business. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Living Sober... Somewhat to our surprise, staying sober turns out not to be the grim, wet-blanket experience we had expected! While we were drinking, a life without alcohol seemed like no life at all. But for most members of AA, living sober is really living -- a joyous experience. We much prefer it to the troubles we had with drinking. One more note: anyone can get sober. We have all done it lots of times. The trick is to stay and to live sober. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Gifts... When I face a fear, I am given courage: when I support a brother or sister, my capacity to love myself is increased; when I accept pain as part of the growing experience of life, I realize a greater happiness; when I look at my dark side, I am brought into a new light; when I accept my vulnerabilities and surrender to a Higher Power, I am graced with unforeseen strength. I stumbled through the doors of AA in disgrace, expecting nothing from life, and I have been given hope and dignity. Miraculously, the only way to keep the gifts of the program is to pass them on. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
First Things First... This is strictly a matter of survival for us. We have learned that alcoholism is a killer disease, leading to death in a large number of ways. We prefer not to activate that disease by risking a drink. . . When we view alcoholism as the life-or-death matter it is, the answer is plain. If we do not save our health -- our lives -- then certainly we will have no family, no job, and no friends. If we value family, job, and friends, we must first save our own lives in order to cherish all three. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Expectations... Perhaps the best thing of all for me is to remember that my serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations. The higher my expectations . . . the lower is my serenity. I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations. . . I must keep my magic magnifying mind on my acceptance and off my expectations, for my serenity is directly proportional to my level of acceptance. When I remember this, I can see I've never had it so good. Thank God for AA! (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Action... In shame and despair, I went to my first AA meeting. By some minor miracle, I was able to suspend opinion, analysis, judgment, and criticism, and instead to listen and hear. I heard someone say that AA works for those who work for it, those who put action into the program. . . I heard that I should forget about yesterday and instead concentrate on today and staying away from the first drink today -- now. I tried it and it worked. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
The Tyrant... In the life of each AA member, there lurks a tyrant. His name is alcohol. He is cunning, ruthless. And his weapons are misery, insanity, and death. No matter how long we may be sober, he always stands at each man's elbow, ever watchful of an opportunity to resume his destruction. Like an agent of the Gestapo he ever threatens each AA citizen with torture or extinction. Unless, of course, the AA citizen is willing to live unselfishly, often placing the welfare of AA as a whole ahead of his own personal plans and ambitions. Apparently no human being can force alcoholics to live happily and usefully together. But Mr. John Barleycorn can -- and he often does! (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Complacency... When things are going great, so well you feel almost on a non-alcoholic high -- look out! At such times (even after several years of sobriety), the thought of a drink may seem quite natural, and the misery of our old drinking days temporarily dims. Just one drink begins to seem less threatening, and we start thinking that it wouldn't be fatal, or even harmful. Sure enough, one would not be -- for the average person. But our experience with a drinking problem shows us what that one supposedly harmless, fateful drink would do to us unaverage people. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Sanity... "My actions drunk or sober, before AA, were not those of a sane person. My desire to be honest with myself made it necessary for me to realize that my drinking was irrational. It had to be, or I could not have justified my erratic behavior as I did. I've been benefited from a dictionary definition I found that reads: 'rationalization is giving a socially acceptable reason for socially unacceptable behavior, and socially unacceptable behavior is a form of insanity." (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Entanglements... Tying our sobriety to someone we are emotionally involved with proves flatly disastrous. "I'll stay sober if so-and-so does this or that" puts an unhealthy condition on our recovery. We have to stay sober for ourselves, no matter what other people do or fail to do. We should remember, too, that intense dislike also is an emotional entanglement, often a reversal of past love. We need to cool any overboard feeling, lest it flip us back into the drink. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Resentments... If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don't really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Humility... You get just a little sobriety, and you get just a little humility. Not much, just a little. Not the humility of sackcloth and ashes, but the humility of a man who's glad he's alive and can serve. You get just a little tolerance, not too much, but just enough to sit and listen to the other guy. Somewhere along the line, if you've forgotten how to pray, you learn a little about that too. . . And you realize that if you put all this together, you get a little humility, a little tolerance, a little honesty, a little sincerity, a little prayer -- and a lot of AA. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Ninety Days... Angry doesn't begin to describe how I felt when I had to admit I was an alcoholic. Even though I was grateful not to be nuts, as I'd first supposed, I felt cheated. All the people I saw sitting around the tables of AA had been granted many more years of drinking than I. It just wasn't fair! Someone pointed out to me that life was rarely fair. I wasn't amused, but extending my drinking career simply wasn't an option anymore. Ninety days sober cleared my thinking enough to make me realize I'd hit bottom. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Attitudes... Personally, I take the attitude that I intend never to drink again. This is somewhat different from saying, "I will never drink again." The latter attitude sometimes gets people in trouble because it is undertaking on a personal basis to do what we alcoholics could never do. It is too much an act of will and leaves too little room for the idea that God will release us from the drink obsession provided we follow the AA program. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Freedom... Freedom for me is both freedom from and freedom to. The first freedom I enjoy is freedom from the slavery of alcohol. What a relief! The I begin to experience freedom from fear -- fear of people, of economic insecurity, of commitment, of failure, of rejection. Then I begin to enjoy freedom to -- freedom to choose sobriety for today, freedom to be myself, freedom to express my opinion, to experience peace of mind, to love and be loved, and freedom to grow spiritually. . . What a joy to be free! (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Criticism... "Now and then all of us fall under heavy criticism. When we are angered and hurt, it's difficult not to retaliate in kind. Yet we can restrain ourselves and then probe ourselves, asking whether our critics were really right. If so, we can admit our defects to them. This usually clears the air for mutual understanding. . . Maybe a sense of humor can be our saving grace -- thus we can both forgive and forget." (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Anonymity... I place myself where I want to be, and so I choose anonymity. I want my God to use me, humbly, as one of His tools in this program. Sacrifice is the art of giving of myself freely. With sobriety, I suppress that urge to cry out to the world, "I am a member of AA" and I experience inner joy and peace. I let people see the changes in me and hope they will ask what happened to me. I place the principles of spirituality ahead of judging, fault-finding, and criticism. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Escape Act... I was at a dead halt -- spiritually, mentally, and physically. Depression smothered my muffled thinking even more. . . Thank God I never gave up on meetings, so my Higher Power finally got through to me. I realized I'd been playing the great escape act all this time. I know now I have a lot of work to do. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Sharing... Sharing problems at meetings with other alcoholics to whom I relate, or privately with my sponsor, can change aspects of the positions in which I find myself. Character defects are identified and I begin to see how they work against me. When I put my faith in the spiritual power of the program, when I trust others to teach me what I need to do to have a better life, I find that I can trust myself to do what is necessary. (courtesy AAOnline.net)
Isolation... Isolation sneaks up on us. We can mask it with familiar props that are not in themselves bad. We can isolate ourselves in an attempt to clean up our apartments (and then not do the cleaning); we can isolate ourselves in churches or in sleep; we can use family, sweethearts, compulsive working, television. The list is long. The nicest way to end it is the way you and I do: together. Reach out -- people can't read your mind. Say ouch! Someone hears. Always. (courtesy AAOnline.net)