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Dianne’s Missives September 18, 2026

Thought to Consider…

There is no such thing as being “a little bit alcoholic.”
Take a walk with God. He will meet you at the Steps.
I have learned that I did not get here a day early or a drink short.
God enters us through our wounds.

AACRONYMS

H E L P= Hope, Encouragement, Love, and Patience
Y A N A = You Are Not Alone
A S A P = Always Say A Prayer
D E N I A L = Don’t Even Notice I Am Lying

Delusion

“We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we were like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.”

Trouble

“There was a time when we ignored trouble, hoping it would go away. Or, in fear and in depression, we ran from it, but found it was still with us. Often, full of unreason, bitterness, and blame, we fought back. These mistaken attitudes, powered by alcohol, guaranteed our destruction, unless they were altered. Then came A.A. Here we learned that trouble was really a fact of life for everybody – a fact that had to be understood and dealt with. Surprisingly, we found that our troubles could, under God’s grace, be converted into unimagined blessings.”

Beneath the Surface

Some will object to many of the questions that should be answered in a moral inventory, because they think their own character defects have not been so glaring. To these, it can be suggested that a conscientious examination is likely to reveal the very defects the objectionable questions are concerned with. Because our surface record hasn’t looked too bad, we have frequently been abashed to find that this is so simply because we have buried these selfsame defects deep down in us under thick layers of self-justification. Those were the defects that finally ambushed us into alcoholism and misery.

Tradition Three: The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.

Why did A.A. finally drop all its membership regulations? Why did we leave it to each newcomer to decide himself whether he was an alcoholic and whether he should join us? Why did we dare say, contrary to the experience of society and government everywhere, that we would neither punish nor deprive any A.A. of membership, believe anything, or conform to anything?
The answer, now seen in Tradition Three, was simplicity itself. At last experience taught us that to take away any alcoholic’s full chance was sometimes to pronounce his death sentence, and often to condemn him to endless misery. Who dared to be judge, jury, and executioner of his own sick brother?

Alone No More

“Alcoholism was a lonely business, even though we were surrounded by people who loved us.
We were trying to find emotional security either by dominating or by being dependent upon others. Even when our fortunes had not totally ebbed, we nevertheless found ourselves alone in the world. We still vainly tried to be secure by some unhealthy sort of domination or dependence. For those of us who were like that, A.A. has a very special meaning. In this Fellowship we begin to learn right relations with people who understand us; we don’t have to be alone anymore.”

What I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter what hardships and losses I’ve endured in sobriety, I have not had to go back to drinking. As long as I work the program, keep being of service, go to meetings, and keep my spiritual life together, I can live a decent life.

Satisfactions of Right Living

“How wonderful is the feeling that we do not have to be specially distinguished among our fellows in order to be useful and profoundly happy. Not many of us can be leaders of prominence, nor do we wish to be. Service gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God’s help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the fact that in God’s sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we can fit and belong in God’s scheme of things – these are the satisfactions of right living for which no pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes.”

What draws newcomers to A.A. and gives them hope? They hear the stories of men and women whose experiences tally with their own. The expressions on the faces of the women, that undefinable something in the eyes of the men, the stimulating atmosphere of the A.A. clubroom, conspire to let them know that there is haven at last. The very practical approach to their problems, the absence of intolerance of any kind, the informality, the genuine democracy, the uncanny understanding that these people in A.A. have is irresistible.

Dianne

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Dianne’s Missives April 3, 2026

Thought to Consider…

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the action in spite of fear.
“Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.”
I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there. And for that: I am responsible.
Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.

AACRONYMS

A B C = Acceptance, Belief, Change Thought to Consider…
S L I P = Sobriety Loses Its Priority

Self-will

“The philosophy of self-sufficiency doesn’t pay off. Plainly enough, it is a bone-crushing juggernaut whose final achievement is ruin. Therefore, we can consider ourselves fortunate indeed. Each of us has had his own near-fatal encounter with the juggernaut of self-will, and has suffered enough under its weight to look for something better.”

WE Cannot Live Alone

“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 the Fifth. Scarcely any Step is more necessary to long-time sobriety and peace of mind. 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, than 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. If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking.

“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. When we are honest with another person, it confirms that we have been honest with ourselves and with God.”

Strength

Strength comes from the fellowship you find when you come into A.A. Just being with men and women who have found the way out gives you a feeling of security. You listen to the speakers, you talk with other members, and you absorb the atmosphere of confidence and hope that you find in the place.
Strength also comes from coming to believe in a Higher Power that can help you. You can’t define this Higher Power, but you can see how it helps other alcoholics. You hear them talk about it and you begin to get the idea yourself. You try praying in a quiet time each morning and you begin to feel stronger, as though your prayers were heard. So, you gradually come to believe there must be a Power in the world outside yourself, which is stronger than you and to which you can turn for help.

Life Is Not a Dead End

“When a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and resources alone. He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being.”
“He has been set on a path which tells him he is really going somewhere, that life is not a dead end, not something to be endured or mastered. In a very real sense he has been transformed, because he has laid hold of a source of strength which he had hitherto denied himself.”

“We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. ‘Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe, that there is a Power greater than myself?’ As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built.”

Keystone of the Arch
“Faced with alcoholic destruction, we became open-minded on spiritual matters. In this respect alcohol was the great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness.”
“We had to quit playing God. It didn’t work. We decided that hereafter, in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He would be the Principal; we, His agents. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new triumphal arch through which we passed to freedom.”

Dianne

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Dianne’s Missives March 6, 2026

Thought to Consider…

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
Sobriety is a journey, not a destination.
Prayer is asking a question. Meditation is listening for the answer.
The ankle-biters of everyday struggles will eat away at me unless I go to meetings and call my sponsor.
The Twelve Steps are but suggestions, as is pulling the rip cord on a parachute.

AACRONYMS

A S A P = Always Say A Prayer

Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics who have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it. Some will be willing to term themselves ‘problem drinkers,’ but cannot endure the suggestion that they are in fact mentally ill. They are abetted in this blindness by a world which does not understand the difference between sane drinking and alcoholism. ‘Sanity’ is defined as ‘soundness of mind.’ Yet no alcoholic, soberly analyzing his destructive behavior, whether the destruction fell on the dining-room furniture or his own moral fiber, can claim ‘soundness of mind’ for himself.

Resentment

Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.
When we harbored grudges and planned revenge for defeats, we were really beating ourselves with the club of anger we had intended to use on others. We learned that if we were seriously disturbed, our very first need was to quiet that disturbance, regardless of who or what we thought caused it.”

Neighbors

Near you, alcoholics are dying helplessly like people in a sinking ship. If you live in a large place, there are hundreds. High and low, rich and poor, these are future fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous. Among them you will make lifelong friends. You will be bound to them with new and wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey. Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life. You will learn the full meaning of “Love Thy neighbor as thyself.”

Hope

He had lain awake all night. Down in the pit of his depression, new hope had suddenly been born. The thought flashed through his mind, “If they can do it, I can do it!” Over and over he said this to himself. Finally, out of his hope, there burst conviction. Now he was sure. Then came a great joy. At length peace stole over him, and he slept.

MYSTERIOUS PARADOXES

Such is the paradox of A.A. regeneration: strength arising out of complete defeat and weakness, the loss of one’s old life as a condition for finding a new one.
What glorious mysteries paradoxes are! They do not compute, yet when recognized and accepted, they reaffirm something in the universe beyond human logic. 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 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 A.A. 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.

“Loners” – but Not Alone

“What can be said of many A.A. members who, for a variety of reasons, cannot have a family life? At first many of these feel lonely, hurt, and left out as they witness so much domestic happiness about them. If they cannot have this kind of happiness, can A.A. offer them satisfactions of similar worth and durability?
Yes – whenever they try hard to seek out these satisfactions. Surrounded by so many A.A. friends, the so-called loners tell us they no longer feel alone. In partnership with others -women and men – they can devote themselves to any number of ideas, people, and constructive projects. They can participate in enterprises which would be denied to family men and women. We daily see such members render prodigies of service, and receive great joys in return.”

Hope

Hope is the key that unlocks the door of discouragement. The program promises me that if I do not pick up the first drink today, I will always have hope. Having come to believe that I keep what I share, every time I encourage, I receive courage. It is with others that, with the grace of God and the Fellowship of A.A., I trudge the road of happy destiny. May I always remember that the power within me is far greater than any fear before me. May I always have patience, for I am on the right road.

Dianne

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