Tag: willingness

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Dianne’s Missives May 15, 2026

 

Thought to Consider

A.A. is not something you join, it’s a way of life.

The Road to Recovery

The road to recovery is always under construction.

Premature Funerals

“I have been to too many premature funerals due to our good friend alcohol.”

Spiritual and Physical Health

“When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.”

Control

“Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will Control and Enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.”

Sunlight

“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 worthwhile. 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.”

To Handle Sobriety

“The more I drank, the more I fantasized everything . . . I lived in a dream world. A.A. led me gently from this fantasizing to embrace reality with open arms. And I found it beautiful! For, at last, I was at peace with myself. And with others. And with God.”

Our Survival

“The HONESTY expressed by the members of A.A. in meetings has the power to open my mind. Nothing can block the flow of energy that HONESTY carries with it. The only obstacle to this flow of energy is inebriation, but even then, no one will find a closed door if he or she has left and chooses to return. Once he or she has received the gift of sobriety, each A.A. member is challenged on a daily basis to accept a program of HONESTY.”

Ego Deflation

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 Five. But scarcely any Step is more necessary to longtime sobriety and peace of mind than this one.

Big Book Quote

“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.”

Prayer

“In A.A. we have found that the actual good results of prayer are beyond question. They are matters of knowledge and experience. All those who have persisted have found strength not ordinarily their own. They have found wisdom beyond their usual capability. And they have increasingly found a peace of mind which can stand in the face of difficult circumstances.”

The Way of Strength

“We need not apologize to anyone for depending upon the Creator. We have good reason to disbelieve those who think spirituality is the way of weakness. For us, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that men of faith seldom lack courage. They trust their God. So we never apologize for our belief in Him. Instead, we try to let Him demonstrate, through us, what He can do.”

Dianne

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Dianne’s Missives May 8, 2026

Thought to Consider…

“Admission of powerlessness is the first step in liberation.”
“Many people haven’t even a nodding acquaintance with humility as a way of life.”
The task ahead of us is never as great as the Power behind us.
When a person tries to control their drinking they have already lost control.

AACRONYMS

S T E P S = Solutions To Every Problem in Sobriety
N E W = Nothing Else Worked
F E A R = False Evidence Appearing Real

Powerless

“Who cares to admit complete defeat? Practically no one, of course. Every natural instinct cries out against the idea of personal powerlessness. No other kind of bankruptcy is like this one. Alcohol, the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all self-sufficiency and all will to resist its demands. But upon entering A.A. we soon take quite another view of this absolute humiliation. Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built.”

“At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected.”

Troubles

“So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying our own power. We had to have God’s help.”

Willingness Is the Key

“No matter how much one wishes to try, exactly how can he turn his own will and his own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is? A beginning, even the smallest, is all that is needed. Once we have placed the key of willingness in the lock and have the door ever so slightly open, we find that we can always open it some more. Though self-will may slam it shut again, as it frequently does, it will always respond the moment we again pick up the key of willingness.”

Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

“To avoid falling into confusion over the names these defects should be called, let’s take a universally recognized list of major human failings the Seven Deadly Sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. It is not by accident that pride heads the procession. For pride, leading to self-justification, and always spurred by conscious or unconscious fears, is the basic breeder of most human difficulties, the chief block to true progress. Pride lures us into making demands upon ourselves or upon others which cannot be met without perverting or misusing our God-given instincts. When the satisfaction of our instincts for sex, security, and society becomes the sole object of our lives, then pride steps in to justify our excesses.”

Meetings

“Sobriety and a plan for living that produces a personality change and a spiritual awakening are imperative. Through A.A., many receive the needed change and awakening just by trying to live by A.A. principles and with A.A. people. We do this by going to many A.A. meetings with an open mind and a desire to live the good-feeling life without chemicals – liquid or otherwise.”

JOYFUL DISCOVERIES

We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven’t got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.

We Are Not Fighting

“We have ceased fighting anything or anyone – even alcohol. For by this time sanity has returned. We can now react sanely and normally, and we find that this has happened almost automatically. We see that this new attitude toward liquor is really a gift of God. That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is how we react – so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.”

Dianne

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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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Episode 0055 Joel B’s Journey – ESH

Joel’s story is a blunt reminder that rock bottom doesn’t always involve handcuffs or headlines. In this episode, Joel opens up about childhood trauma, addiction, ego, control, relapse, and the moment his internal voice shifted from self hatred to hope. He shares how detox, honesty, service work, music, and community, especially Bridging the Gap, became the foundation of his recovery. This episode explores shame, guilt, faith without dogma, the danger of isolation, and why “the only thing waiting in the comfort zone is alcoholism.” If you’re new to recovery, stuck in the middle, or questioning whether change is possible, Joel’s experience offers a grounded, lived example of how growth happens one honest step at a time.

New Year One Honest Challenge – you can use the links below to submit.

Text Us at 501-613-8915

Leave a voicemail 501-613-8915

Email us team@shoutoutfromthepit.com

Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | RSS | Subscribe to the Podcast Feed

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Dianne’s Missives November 8

Thought to Consider….

It isn’t difficult to make a mountain out of a molehill – just add a little dirt.
Isolation is a darkroom where we develop negatives.
I didn’t know how sick I was until I started getting better.
Newcomers are the lifeblood of the program, but our oldtimers are the arteries.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him. . .

“The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole Society has sprung and flowered.”

During this 17-year period [1918-1935], Dr. Bob had worked out a grim routine that permitted him to drink and somehow still maintain his medical practice. Careful never to go near the hospital while he was drinking, he would stay sober until four o’clock in the afternoon. It was really a horrible nightmare, this earning money, getting liquor, smuggling it home, getting drunk, morning jitters, taking large doses of sedatives to make it possible for me to earn more money, and so on ad nauseum, he wrote. “I used to promise my wife, my friends, and my children that I would drink no more – promises which seldom kept me sober through the day, though I was very sincere when I made them.”

Principles

“Experience shows that few alcoholics will long stay away from a group just because they don’t like the way it is run. Most return and adjust themselves to whatever conditions they must. Some go to a different group, or form a new one. In other words, once an alcoholic fully realizes that he cannot get well alone, he will somehow find a way to get well and stay well in the company of others.”

“The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.”

“Spirituality is an awakening or is it all the loose ends woven together into a mellow fabric? It’s understanding or is it all the knowledge one need ever know? It’s freedom if you consider fear slavery. It’s confidence or is it the belief that a higher power will see you through any storm or gale? It’s adhering to the dictates of your conscience or is it a deep, genuine, living concern for the people and the planet? It’s peace of mind in the face of adversity. It’s a keen and sharpened desire for survival.”

Recovery

“Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial. We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable”

“The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we did – then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen – Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair.”

Dianne

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