Your Daily Reprieve

Your Daily Reprieve for Wednesday February 26, 2014

From Stuart, Florida

Self-respect is the root of discipline:

The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
~Abraham Joshua Heschel

Think back to those days when we would creep back to our dens where we were holed up, and there like animals try to satisfy our appetites alone─so horribly alone. Just drinking, drink after drink, and dying slowly of despair. If we had a friend in the world we didn’t know it. We just wanted to drink and die alone.It was people who brought us out of this pit, people of marvelous sympathy and understanding, and now, joining hands with these people, we have learned the joy of living─not alone, but with, and part of a community of people. ~The Eye Opener

Material abundance without character
is the surest way to destruction.
~ Thomas Jefferson

"Our Traditions are set down on paper. But they were written first in our hearts. For each of us knows, instinctively I think, that AA is not ours to do with as we please. We are but caretakers to preserve the spiritual quality of our Fellowship; keep it whole for those who will come after us and have need of what has so generously been given to us." ~Grapevine: Bill W., November 1950

Big Book Quote

"the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than
in his body."

~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, There Is A Solution, Page 23~

Daily Share!

AA Share of the Day

KEITH DRUM - AUSTIN, MN 10-15-04

Keith, from Yorba Linda, California gave this Alcoholics Anonymous talk at the 16th annual Hiawatha Land Get-Together in Austin, MN on October 15th, 2004. Keith has been sober since May of 1976. He was reared in Oklahoma, “Where the men are men and the sheep run scared.” While going to get some beer, Keith had a hit-and-run accident at the age of 12. He was incarcerated for several years because of that incident. At one point Keith’s drinking got so bad that they preformed shock treatments on him, but they did no good. Keith says he once came out of a blackout in the middle of an AA meeting and it scared the hell out of him. He wanted to leave the meeting but he didn’t know who had brought him. Keith’s got a great, often humorous story of recovery; well worth listening to

http://tinyurl.com/nyqmbl4

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Celebrate Your Anniversary Here

SHOW HOW IT WORKS!!!

If you are celebrating an anniversary this month,

please send along the date and any message you would

like to share with the other 2200 people on this email list and

perhaps as many as 10000 others who have it forwarded.

You need to remind me every year!

Send your day, your location and number of years to:

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February 2014 Anniversaries

2/1 Trish S. (Stuart, FL)…..1

2/1 Sue D. (Middleton, MA)…..15

2/1 Todd S. (Pittsburg, PA)…..2

2/1 Sean D. (Waterloo, NY)…..6

2/1 Danielle C. (Weymouth, MA)…..6

2/1 Gilly L. (London, UK)…..14

2/2 Tom R. (New York, NY)…..7

2/2 Susan B. (Hobe Sound, FL)…..13

2/2 Maureen B. (Oyster Bay, NY)…..25

2/2 Michele M. (Lighthouse Point, F)…..7

2/2 Karen S. (Warminster, PA)…..6

2/3 Meredith T. (Santa Fe, NM)…..17

2/4 John A. (Houston, TX)…..5

2/5 Jane S. (Goffstown, NH)…..5

2/6 Marni P. (Australia)…..9

2/6 Paul K. (So. Hadley, Cape Cod, MA & Key Largo, FL)…..30

2/7 Lorin C. (East Sandwich, MA)…..17

2/7 Tom M. (Georgetown, MA)…..32

2/7 Nate B. (Stuart, FL)…..8

2/7 Jordan G. (New York, NY)…..9

2/7 Wendy (Ringwood, UK)…..3

2/8 Leo H. (Newport, So Wales, UK)…..9

2/9 Darlene A. (Largo, FL)…..20

2/10 Woody N. (Bernardsville, NJ)…..26

2/10 Collette C. (Nantucket, MA)…..6

2/10 Kay H. (Lake Monticello, Palmyra, VA)...25

2/10 Paul B. (Portsmouth, NH)…..39

2/11 Steve B. (Ipswich, MA)…..34

2/12 Katy S. (Far Hills, NJ) …..1

2/12 Betty P. (Valparaiso, IN)…..32

2/12 Paul E. (Fort Lauderdale, FL)…..34

2/14 Yisrael C. (Jerusalem, Israel)…..34

2/14 Vanessa G. (Whitehorse, Yukon)…..3

2/15 Steve Y. (Kabul, Afghanistan)…..26

2/15 John T. (Tortola, B.V.I./Clinton, Conn)…..27

2/15 Ed G. (Stowe, VT/Nantucket, MA)…..27

2/17 Kristen B. (Stuart, FL)…..1

2/17 Pete R. (Basking Ridge, NJ)…..3

2/17 Woody W. (Michigan City, IN)…..31

2/17 Noel S. (Harrison, NY)…..5

2/17 David H. (Rye, NH)…..36

2/17 Kristen B. (Stuart, FL)…..1

2/17 David B. (Tortola, BVI/New Zealand)…..23

2/18 Scott W. (Hopewell, NJ)…..30

2/18 Mike R. (Weymouth, MA)…..3

2/18 Allan C. (No. Andover, MA)…..3

2/19 Barry K. (Marlowe, UK)…..3

2/20 Mary Stuart C. (Raleigh, NC)…..12

2/20 Jackie M. (Basking Ridge, NJ)…..8

2/20 Breon O. (Mamarone1ck, NY)…..

2/20 Cami M. (Lafayette, LA)…..4

2/22 Marshall T. (Nantucket, MA)…..16

2/23 Casey Q. (Hookset, NH)…..21

2/24 Stephanie S. (USVI)…..6

2/24 Matt L. (Kauai, HI)…..5

2/25 Jay S. (Stuart, FL)…..3

2/25 Alexandra M. (Belgrade, Serbia)…..2

2/25 Marty M. (Astoria, NY)…..6

2/26 Brooks M. (Stuart, FL)…..9

2/27 Jim M. (Bloomington, IN)…..9

2/28 Amy L. (Murray Hill, NY)…..9

2/28 Brian B. (Portsmouth, NH)…..4

826 Total Years of Sobriety

12&12

Tradition Seven - "Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions."

"To my surprise, the response of the groups was slow. I got mighty sore about it. Looking at this avalanche of mail one morning at the office, I paced up and down ranting how irresponsible and tightwad my fellow members were. Just then an old acquaintance stuck a tousled and aching head in the door. He was our prize slippee. I could see he had an awful hangover. Remembering some of my own, my heart filled with pit. I motioned him to my inside cubicle and produced a five-dollar bill. As my total income was thirty dollars a week at the time, this was a fairly large donation. Lois really needed the money for groceries, but that didn't stop me. The intense relief on my friend's face warmed my heart. I felt especially virtuous as I thought of all the ex-drunks who wouldn't even send the Foundation a dollar apiece, and here I was gladly making a five-dollar investment to fix a hangover.

pp. 162-163

Twenty Four Hours

A.A. Thought For The Day

When we came into A.A., we came to believe in a Power
greater than ourselves. We came to believe in that Divine
Principle in the universe which we call God, and to whom
we could turn for help. Each morning we have a quiet
time. We ask God for the power to stay sober for the next
twenty-four hours. And each night we thank Him for
helping us to keep sober for that day. Do I believe that
each man or woman I see in A.A. is a demonstration of the
power of God to change a human being from a drunkard
to a sober person?

Meditation For The Day

I should pray for more faith as a thirsty man prays for
water in a desert. Do I know what it means to feel sure
that God will never fail me? Am I sure of this as I am
sure that I still breathe? I should pray daily and most
diligently that my faith may increase. There is nothing
lacking in my life because really all I need is mine,
only I lack the faith to know it. I am a king's son who
sits in rags and yet all around me are stores of all I
could desire.

Prayer For The Day

I pray for the realization that God has everything I need.
I pray that I may know that His power is always available.

Daily Thought

^*^*^*^*^
(\ ~~~ /)
( \(AA)/ )
(_ /AA\ _)
/AA\
^*^*^*^*^
Results
We found that as soon as we were able
to lay aside prejudice
and express even a willingness
to believe in a Power greater than ourselves,
we commenced to get results,
even though it was impossible for any of us
to fully define or comprehend that Power,
which is God.
c. 2001AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 46
^*^*^*^*^
Thought to Consider . . .

God seldom becomes a reality
until God becomes a necessity.

*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
G I F T = God Is Forever There

Daily Reflection

NO ORDINARY SUCCESS STORY

A.A. is no success story in the ordinary sense of the word. It

is a story of suffering transmuted, under grace, into

spiritual progress.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 35

Upon entering A.A. I listened to others talk about the

reality of their drinking: loneliness, terror and pain. As I

listened further, I soon heard a description of a very

different kind—the reality of sobriety. It is a reality of

freedom and happiness, of purpose and direction, and of

serenity and peace with God, ourselves and others. By

attending meetings I am reintroduced to that reality, over

and over. I see it in the eyes and hear it in the voices of

those around me. By working the program I find the

direction and strength with which to make it mine. The joy

of A.A. is that this new reality is available to me.

Pot Luck

"Stay in the middle of this program;
it's hard to fall off the middle." (ed)

I don't know about you, but I see them. People who come to meetings late, sit near the door, smoke outside during the meeting, jet out the door right after the meeting. These people scare me because they seem to be half in the program and half out. One foot out the door as they say. That's a scary and dangerous place to be.

When people who have gone out come back in (those who make it back in, that is), they all tell a familiar story: "I drifted away. First I stopped working with a sponsor, then I stopped taking commitments, then I went to less and less meetings. Before I knew it, I had a cold beer (or glass of wine) in my hand." And their stories all go downhill from there.

I was taught early on in my recovery that I needed to stay in the middle of the pack. The lion called alcoholism picks off the outside stragglers, but I'm safe if I stay in the middle. Today I still arrive early to meetings and speak to newcomers. I sit at the very front of meetings so I'm not distracted, and I take on commitments so I'm forced to show up even when I think I don't need to. Because of this I feel I'm in the middle, and I feel much better there than on the edge. I hope you do, too.

http://www.thewisdomoftherooms.com

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