“As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day ‘Thy will be done.’ ” (p. 87-88)

God, I’m agitated and doubtful right now. Help me to stop and remember that I’ve made a decision to let You be my God. Give me the right thoughts and actions. God save me from fear, anger, worry, self-pity or foolish decisions that Your will not mine be done. Amen
(see above)

And the one we are all familiar with – The Prayer of St Francis of Assisi -

“Lord, make me a channel of thy peace – that where there is hatred, I may bring love – that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness – that where there is discord, I may bring harmony – that where there is error, I may bring truth – that where there is doubt, I may bring faith – that where there is despair, I may bring hope – that where there are shadows, I may bring light – that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted – to understand, than to be understood – to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. Amen.”

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11th Step Prayers

The Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred . . . let me sow love
Where there is injury . . . pardon
Where there is doubt . . . faith
Where there is despair . . . hope
Where there is darkness . . . light
Where there is sadness . . . joy

Divine Master,
grant that i may not so much seek
To be consoled . . . as to console
To be understood . . . as to understand,
To be loved . . . as to love
For it is in giving . . . that we receive,
It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned,
It is in dying . . . that we are born to eternal life

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How To Turn A Negative Into A Positive

“Occasionally…. We are seized with a rebellion so sickening that we simply won’t pray. When these things happen we should not think too ill of ourselves. We should simply resume prayer as soon as we can, doing what we know to be good for us.”

From my experience, these moments truly are sickening. Yet knowing they are sickening and then extracting myself from them are two separate stories.

The negative thinking and anger are soooo familiar. I wore them like a safety blanket for a very long time. Stepping out into a faith and trust in a Higher Power who hadn’t seemed to be there for me for such a long time is very difficult.

For a very long time I wasn’t the person my God wanted me to be. AA changed that but those I hurt have never gotten past it. When I found news about one of my children that could have been offered to me (I don’t live a secret life in the real world) it hurt and sent me into a tailspin away from my God.

It’s been a challenge turning back to Him. This quote from our literature helps immensely.

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Often A Lifesaver

From pages 14-15;

“Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic! For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. If he did not work, he would surely drink again, and if he drank, he would surely die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us it is just like that.”

Then, from page 16;

“Most of us feel we need look no further for Utopia. We have it with us right here and now.”

Some day, perhaps…

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With Us It Is Just Like That

“How It Works” tells us;

“It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.”

Yesterday I was not in a spiritual state of mind and brought that to a meeting. My good friend Don, who has just picked up a 25 yr. coin, told me in no uncertain terms, that I better find that spiritual state of mind again – and damn quick!

I will…

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God Opened The Gates of Hell and Let Me Out

From pages 104-105 in AA’s 12&12;

“We discover that we do receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order and on our terms.”

I’m going to tell you from personal experience not to get your expectations up even though you’ve stopped placing demands upon the God you understand.

“Almost any experienced A.A. will tell how his affairs have taken remarkable and unexpected turns for the better as he tried to improve his conscious contact with God.”

Not today or yesterday…

“He will also report that out of every season of grief or suffering, when the hand of God seemed heavy or even unjust, new lessons for living were learned, new resources of courage were uncovered, and that finally, inescapably, the conviction came that God does ‘move in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.’”

Never-ending emotional pain is just that – a royal pain. Alcohol is not the solution! There is nothing I am feeling right now that pouring alcohol on wouldn’t make worse by untold numbers. I’m grateful I understand that today.

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The Hand of God Seemed Heavy or Unjust

When we were drinking (or using or whatever) and we prayed, how often were our prayers answered to our satisfaction? Now that we’re early into recovery, without having practiced the Twelve Steps, how much do you think our praying has changed?

So, if you’re feeling disconnected after a few months, or feeling restless, irritable, and discontented, and think that prayer is the answer, think again.

Oh no! I said prayer isn’t the answer… Well, not right now because of the way we pray when we haven’t learned how to pray rightly.

Rather than praying “Grant me my wishes” we ought to be praying “Thy will be done.” How many know how to do that? Plus, how many of us realize what placing demands upon God really are? Why? Simply because “we discover that we do receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order and on our terms.”

Heck, we don’t even realize we’re requiring God to cough up our desires as we wish them to be. We think we’re actually praying and will thus receive what we want.

How discouraging has it been for you to realize that sometimes God’s answers to our prayers is “no!” Or “not now.”

Folks, the easier, softer way out of our troubles is to change through the Twelve Steps, not to simply ask God to remove our troubles expecting Him to fulfill that request because we asked.

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God Is Not A Puppeteer

Daily Reflections

Forming True Partnerships

“But it is from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most. We have been especially stupid and stubborn about them. The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being.”

Can these words apply to me, am I still unable to form a true partnership with another human being? What a terrible handicap that would be for me to carry into my sober life! In my sobriety I will meditate and pray to discover how I may be a trusted friend and companion.

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What happens when I have stopped twisting the relations with my family, friends and society at large? What happens when I am no longer as stupid and stubborn as I had been? What happens when I am no longer unable to form true partnerships?

When I feel tortured and alone… I look to this reflection and find that I am still alone though I have found the ability to form true partnerships.

This is the reading that leads me to believe something contrary to “Do the right thing and the right thing will happen.” According to whom? What will happen will happen according to God. If I do the right thing something other than what I think is best is liable to happen and it is then that I must practice 3 and 11!

Thy Will, Not Mine, Be Done…

Because I’m soooo smart – I think I know what the right thing is!

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From Which You May Get To Practice Three And Eleven

As I do so often – from “The Language of the Heart” page 237-238 (I ought to set up a cot on these pages)

“My basic flaw had always been dependence – almost absolute dependence – on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like.”

It’s that “and the like” stuff that gets me! Bill doesn’t talk about love, affection, attention, a feeling of worthiness, a feeling of being needed, in this area. “And the like.” He does speak of depression, which I am subject to on and off, depending on my spiritual condition and my self-esteem.

“Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought them for years. And when defeat came, so did my depression.”

I remain ever grateful for some strange things like – getting divorced (at this moment, this wasn’t true yesterday). Driven to seeking help due to Twelve Steps I learned something about me and I’m thankful I learned it! My brain perceives things differently than I do! Yeah, I know, that can’t be, eh? Well, if you’re an alky like me you know for certain that the look on a particular person’s face will tell you they hate you, don’t want to be near you, think lowly of you etc. etc. Doesn’t mean that’s what they’re thinking! Just means that’s what I think they’re thinking! And when I think that’s what they’re thinking my brain perceives that as rejection! Not quite what Bill speaks of but it’s close enough for me…

“Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed, upon any set of circumstances whatsoever.”

It becomes exhausting. Very, very tiring to exert every ounce so many times, making small progress – but making progress!

“Then only could I be free to love as (St.) Francis had. Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing love appropriate to each relation of life.”

And – God will reveal to me the appropriateness of each relationship.

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My Basic Flaw Has Always Been Dependence

The Tablemate was an early A.A. set of beginners lessons entitled ‘Alcoholics Anonymous: An Interpretation of the Twelve Steps,’ put out in the form of a little pamphlet. It was (and still is) the most successful set of A.A. beginners lessons ever devised.

And I’m drawing content from the Hindsfoot site, laboriously prepared by Glenn C. and others… We are now in Discussion No. 2: The Spiritual Phase (III) (see part I and part II)

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Step No. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

The meaning of this step is clear: prayer, humility.

1. Prayer No man can tell another how to pray. Each one has, or works out for himself, his own method.

• If we cannot pray, we just talk to God and tell him our troubles. Meditate (think clearly and cleanly) and ask God to direct our thoughts.
• Christ said, “ask and ye shall receive.” What method is simpler? – - merely ask.
• If you cannot pray, ask God to teach you to pray.
  

2. Humility This simply is the virtue of being ourselves and realizing how small we are in a big world full of its own trouble.

• Drop all pretense.
• We must not be Mr. Big Shot – - bragging, boasting.
• Shed false pride.
• Tell the simple, plain, unvarnished truth.
• Act, walk, and talk simply.
• See the little bit of good that exists in an evil man; forget the little bit of evil that exists in a good man.
• We must not look down on the very lowest of God’s creations or man’s mistakes.
• Think clearly, honestly, fairly, generously.
  

3. The shortcomings we ask God to remove are the very defects in character that make us drink – - the same defects we drink to hide or get away from.

Step No. 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.

1. We pray each night – - every night – - a prayer of thanks.
2. We pray each morning – - every morning – - for help and guidance.
3. When we are lonely, confused, uncertain – - we pray.

Most of us find it well to – -

1. Choose, for each day, a “quiet time” to meditate on the program, on our progress in it.
2. Keep conscious contact with God and pray to make that contact closer.
3. Pray that our will be laid aside and that God’s will direct us.
4. Pray for calmness – - quiet – - relaxation – - rest.
5. Pray for strength and courage to enable us to do today’s work today.
6. Pray for forgiveness for yesterday’s errors.
7. Ask for hope for better things tomorrow.
8. Pray for what we feel we need. We will not get what we want – - we will get what we need, what is good for us.

Conclusion

We find that no one need have difficulty with the spiritual side of the program. Willingness, Honesty, and Open-Mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable.

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The Tablemate – Discussion No. 2 The Spiritual Phase Part III