May 19 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: GIVING WITHOUT STRINGS. And he well knows that his own life has been made richer, as an extra dividend of giving to another without any demand for a return. (AS BILL SEES IT, p. 69) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 18 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: FREEDOM TO BE ME. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. (ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p 83) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 17 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: … AND FORGIVE. Under very trying conditions I have had, again and again, to forgive others-also myself. (AS BILL SEE IT p. 268) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 16 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: WE FORGIVE …. Often it was while working on this Step with our sponsors or spiritual adviser that we first felt truly able to forgive others, no matter how deeply we felt they had wronged us. Our moral inventory had persuaded us that all-round forgiveness was desirable, but it was only when we resolutely tackled Step Five that we inwardly knew we'd be able to receive forgiveness and give it, too. (TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 58) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 15 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: KNOW GOD; KNOW PEACE. It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. . . . But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. (ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p 66) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 14 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: IT’S OKAY TO BE ME. Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives … they have turned to easier methods. .But they had not learned enough humility. (ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pp. 72-73) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 13 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: Twenty-Four Hours A Day. May 13 A.A. Thought For The Day In A.A. we find fellowship and release and strength. And having found these things, the real reasons for our drinking are taken away. Then drinking has no more justification in our minds. We no longer need to fight against drink. Drink just naturally leaves us. At first, we are sorry that we can't drink, but we get so that we are glad that we don't have to drink. Am I glad that I don't have to drink? Meditation For The Day Try never to judge. The human mind is so delicate and so complete that only its Maker can know it wholly. Each mind is so different, actuated by such different motives, controlled by such different circumstance, influenced by such different sufferings, you cannot know all the influences that have gone to make up a personality. Therefore, it is impossible for you to judge wholly that personality. But God knows that person wholly and He can change it. Leave to God the unraveling of the puzzles of personality. And leave it to God to teach you the proper understanding. Prayer For The Day I pray that I may not judge other people. I pray that I may be certain that God can set right what is wrong in every personality. #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 12 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: THE PAST IS OVER. A.A. experience has taught us we cannot live alone with our pressing problems and the character defects which cause or aggravate them. If Step Four has revealed in stark relief those experiences we'd rather not remember … then the need to quit living by ourselves with those tormenting ghosts of yesterday gets more urgent than ever. We have to talk to somebody about them. (TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 55) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 11 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: A NEW SENSE OF BELONGING. Until we had talked with complete candor of our conflicts, and had listened to someone else do the same thing, we still didn't belong. (TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 57) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 10 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: FREE AT LAST. Another great dividend we may expect from confiding our defects to another human being is humility - a word often misunderstood … it amounts to a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be. (TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 58) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 9 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: WALKING THROUGH FEAR. If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing. (ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 76) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 8 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: A RESTING PLACE. All of A.A.'s Twelve Steps ask us to go contrary to our natural desires … they all deflate our egos. When it comes to ego deflation, few Steps are harder to take than Five. But scarcely any Step is more necessary to longtime sobriety and peace of mind than this one. (TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 55) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 7 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: RESPECT FOR OTHERS. Such parts of our story we tell to someone who will understand, yet be unaffected. The rule is we must be hard on ourself, but always considerate of others. (ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 74) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 6 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: “HOLD BACK NOTHING”. The real tests of the situation are your own willingness to confide and your full confidence in the one with whom you you share your first accurate self-survey. Provided you hold back nothing, your sense of relief will mount from minute to minute. The dammed-up emotions of years break out of their confinement, and miraculously vanish as soon as they are exposed. As the pain subsides, a healing tranquility takes its place. (TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS p. 61-62,) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 4 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: “ENTIRELY HONEST”. We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world. (ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 73-74) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 3 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: CLEANING HOUSE. Somehow, being alone with God doesn't seem as embarrassing as facing up to another person. Until we actually sit down and talk aloud about what we have so long hidden, our willingness to clean house is still largely theoretical. (TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p 60) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 2 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: LIGHTING THE DARK PAST. Cling to the thought that, in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have - the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them. (ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p 124) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

May 1 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: HEALING HEART AND MIND. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. (TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 55) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

Apr 30 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: A GREAT PARADOX. These legacies of suffering and of recovery are easily passed among alcoholics, one to the other. This is our gift from God, and its bestowal upon others like us is the one aim that today animates A.A.'s all around the globe. (TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 151) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps

Apr 29 Alcoholics Anonymous Daily Reflection: GROUP AUTONOMY. Some may think that we have carried the principle of group autonomy to extremes. For example, in its original 'long form,' Tradition Four declares: 'Any two or three gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation.' . . . . But this ultra-liberty is not so risky as it looks. (A.A. COMES OF AGE, pp. 104-05) #sober #hope #recovery #12steps