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Dianne’s Missives October 09, 2026

Thought to Consider…

The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.
We are not living just to be sober; we are living to learn, to serve, and to love.
The ankle-biters of everyday struggles will eat away at me unless I go to meetings and call my sponsor.
Life didn’t end when I got sober – it started.

AACRONYMS

G I F T S = Getting It From The Steps
S P O N S O R = Sober Person Offering Newcomers Suggestions On Recovery
D E A D =Drinking Ends All Dreams

Consequences

“In some circumstances we have gone out deliberately to get drunk, feeling ourselves justified by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy or the like. But even in this type of beginning we are obliged to admit that our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened. We now see that when we began to drink deliberately, instead of casually, there was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be.”

“. . . 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.”

“Perhaps there is a better way – we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.”

Help

“If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help. This we did because we honestly wanted to, and were willing to make the effort.”

Showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worth while to us now. 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.

Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives.

“A spiritual experience is something that brings about a personality change. By surrendering our lives to God as we understand Him, we are changed. The nature of this change is evident in recovered alcoholics. This personality change is not necessarily in the nature of a sudden and spectacular upheaval. We do not need to acquire an immediate and overwhelming God consciousness, followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. In most cases, the change is gradual.”

Flimsy Reed

“We sought escape with all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy reed, has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God. A new life has been given us or, if you prefer, a ‘design for living’ that really works.”

Dianne

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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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