Tag: vigilance

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Dianne’s Missives April 17, 2026

Thought to Consider…

Minds are like parachutes – they won’t work unless they’re open.
Service is spirituality in action.
We’re responsible for the effort – not the outcome.
Laughter is the sound effect of recovery.
Every recovery from alcoholism began with one sober hour.

AACRONYMS

D E A D = Drinking Ends All Dreams
A B C = Acceptance, Belief, Change

Fear

“At heart we had all been abnormally fearful. It mattered little whether we had sat on the shore of life drinking ourselves into forgetfulness or had plunged in recklessly and willfully beyond our depth and ability. The result was the same – all of us had nearly perished in a sea of alcohol.”

“God Is Good”

“Before A.A., I could not, or would not, admit I was wrong. My pride would not let me. And yet I was ashamed of me. Caught in this conflict, I banished God from my life because I felt He asked me to adhere to a behavior pattern too high for a person of my human frailty. Somehow, I believed that there could be no forgiveness of any failure, that God required me to be all good. The moral of the story of the Prodigal Son eluded me. Since I thought trying was not enough, I stopped trying. That made me feel guilty. For a while, alcohol blotted out the guilt. Then alcohol became the greatest cause of my guilt. I had to be beaten to a pulp physically, mentally and emotionally, become bankrupt in all facets of my being, before I could give up my pride and admit defeat. Unfortunately, admitting was not sufficient. My situation got worse until I had to surrender completely. From the depths of my hell, I called out, ‘Oh God, help,’ and He led me to a place where I could find a way out of the maze and then sent me a group of people to lead the way.”

Self-Respect Through Sacrifice

“At the beginning we sacrificed alcohol. We had to, or it would have killed us. But we couldn’t get rid of alcohol unless we made other sacrifices. We had to toss self-justification, self-pity, and anger right out the window. We had to quit the crazy contest for personal prestige and big bank balances. We had to take personal responsibility for our sorry state and quit blaming others for it. Were these sacrifices? Yes, they were. To gain enough humility and self-respect to stay alive at all, we had to give up what had really been our dearest possessions – our ambition and our illegitimate pride.”

Willingness

When drinking, I lived in spiritual, emotional, and sometimes, physical confinement. I had constructed my prison with bars of self-will and self-indulgence, from which I could not escape. Occasional dry spells that seemed to promise freedom would turn out to be little more than hopes of a reprieve. True escape required a willingness to follow whatever right actions were needed to turn the lock. With that willingness and action, both the lock and the bars themselves opened for me. Continued willingness and action keep me free – in a kind of extended daily probation – that need never end.

When I came into A.A., I came into a new world. A sober world. A world of sobriety, peace, serenity, and happiness. But I know that if I take just one drink, I’ll go right back into that old world. That alcoholic world. That world of drunkenness, conflict, and misery. That alcoholic world is not a pleasant place for an alcoholic to live in. Looking at the world through the bottom of a whiskey glass is no fun after you’ve become an alcoholic.

“. . . In All Our Affairs”

“The chief purpose of A.A. is sobriety. We all realize that without sobriety we have nothing. However, it is possible to expand this simple aim into a great deal of nonsense, so far as the individual member is concerned. Sometimes we hear him say, in effect, Sobriety is my sole responsibility. After all, I’m a pretty fine chap, except for my drinking. Give me sobriety, and I’ve got it made! As long as our friend clings to this comfortable alibi, he will make so little progress with his real-life problems and responsibilities that he stands in a fair way to get drunk again. This is why A.A.’s Twelfth Step urges that we ‘practice these principles in all our affairs.’ We are not living just to be sober; we are living to learn, to serve, and to love.”

Vigilance

“Now that we’re in A.A. and sober, winning back the esteem of our friends and business associates, we find that we still need to exercise special vigilance. As an insurance against the dangers of big-shot-ism, we can often check ourselves by remembering that we are today sober only by the grace of God and that any success we may be having is far more His success than ours.”

Responsibility

“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.”

Dianne

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Dianne’s Missives September 26

Thought to Consider…

Don’t give up before the miracle happens.
The tongue must be heavy indeed, because so few people can hold it.
The task ahead of us is never as great as the Power behind us.
The peaks and valleys of my life have become gentle rolling hills.

AACRONYMS

A C T I O N = Any Change Toward Improving One’s Nature

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: Job or no job – wife or no wife – we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.
Let us begin a short study of the Twelve Suggested Steps of A.A. These Twelve Suggested Steps seem to embody five principles. The first step is the membership requirement step. The second, third, and eleventh steps are the spiritual steps of the program. The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and tenth steps are the personal inventory steps. The eighth and ninth steps are the restitution steps. The twelfth step is the passing on of the program, or helping others, step. So the five principles are membership requirement, spiritual basis, personal inventory, restitution, and helping others.
Step One is, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.” This step states the membership requirement of A.A. We must admit that our lives are disturbed. We must accept the fact that we are helpless before the power of alcohol. We must admit that we are licked as far as drinking is concerned and that we need help. We must be willing to accept the bitter fact that we cannot drink like normal people. And we must make, as gracefully as possible, a surrender to the inevitable fact that we must stop drinking.

Restraint
“Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint. This carries a top priority rating. When we speak or act hastily or rashly, the ability to be fair-minded and tolerant evaporates on the spot. One unkind tirade or one willful snap judgment can ruin our relation with another person for a whole day, or maybe a whole year. Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen.” and Text.

Awakening

“Is sobriety all that we are to expect of a spiritual awakening? Again, the voice of A.A. speaks up. No, sobriety is only a bare beginning, it is only the first gift of the first awakening. If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go on. And if it does go on, we find that bit by bit we can discard the old life – the one that did not work – for a new life that can and does work under any conditions whatever. Regardless of worldly success or failure, regardless of pain or joy, regardless of sickness or health or even of death itself, a new life of endless possibilities can be lived if we are willing to continue our awakening.”

VIGILANCE

We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.” Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever. If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol.
Today I am an alcoholic. Tomorrow will be no different. My alcoholism lives within me now and forever. I must never forget what I am. Alcohol will surely kill me if I fail to recognize and acknowledge my disease on a daily basis. I am not playing a game in which a loss is a temporary setback. I am dealing with my disease, for which there is no cure, only daily acceptance and vigilance.
“. . . 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.”
Dianne
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