Tag: wisdom

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Dianne’s Missives April 10, 2026

Thought to Consider…

Spirituality is the ability to get our minds off ourselves.
Serenity isn’t freedom from the storm; it is peace within the storm.
Joy isn’t the absence of pain – it’s the presence of God.
“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.”

AACRONYMS

H O P E = Hearing Other Peoples’ Experience
W I S D O M = When Into Self, Discover Our Motives

Will Power and Choice

“We A.A.’s know the futility of trying to break the drinking obsession by will power alone. However, we do know that it takes great willingness to adopt A.A.’s Twelve Steps as a way of life that can restore us to sanity. ‘No matter how grievous the alcohol obsession, we happily find that other vital choices can still be made.’ For example, we can choose to admit that we are personally powerless over alcohol; that dependence upon a ‘higher Power’ is a necessity, even if this be simply dependence upon an A.A. group. Then we can choose to try for a life of honesty and humility, of selfless services to our fellows and to ‘God as we understand Him.’ As we continue to make these choices and so move toward these high aspirations, our sanity returns and the compulsion to drink vanishes.”

“. . . the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience.”

Humility

“Our A.A. program is spiritually centered. Most of us have found enough humility to believe in and depend upon God. We have found that humility by facing the fact that alcoholism is a fatal malady over which we are individually powerless.”
“Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power.”

The Past

“Showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worthwhile 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.”

From Loneliness to Solitude

“As the sober weeks go by, we can enjoy and treasure the few moments of solitude we are able to find in the rush and hurry of life today. When we cease to fear loneliness and begin to cherish and use our solitude to advantage, we have come a long way. We realize a little solitude is necessary to think and to try to work some of the Steps. In solitude, we take our inventories. In solitude, we admit to ourselves the exact nature of our wrongs. In solitude, our spirits seek that Power greater than we are; in solitude, we seek through prayer and meditation to be aware of God’s will for us.”

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 firm in the face of difficult circumstances.”

“I knew I had to have a new beginning, and this beginning had to be here. I could not start anywhere else. I had to let go of the past and forget the future. As long as I held on to the past with one hand and grabbed at the future with the other hand, I had nothing to hold on to today with. So, I had to begin here, now.”

CHARACTER BUILDING

When I uncovered my need for approval in the Fourth Step, I didn’t think it should rank as a character defect. I wanted to think of it more as an asset (that is, the desire to please people). It was quickly pointed out to me that this “need” can be very crippling. Today I still enjoy getting the approval of others, but I am not willing to pay the price I used to pay to get it. I will not bend myself into a pretzel to get others to like me. If I get your approval, that’s fine; but if I don’t, I will survive without it. I am responsible for speaking what I perceive to be the truth, not what I think others may want to hear.
Similarly, my false pride always kept me overly concerned about my reputation. Since being enlightened in the A.A. program, my aim is to improve my character.

Dianne

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Dianne’s Missives December 26

Thought to Consider…

Turn your wounds into wisdom.
If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always be where you’ve always been.
We live life in the moment but understand it looking back with the tool of gratitude.
The peaks and valleys of my life have become gentle rolling hills.

AACRONYMS

O D A A T = One Day At A Time
A B C = Acceptance, Belief, Change
S T E P S = Solutions To Every Problem in Sobriety

“Most of us have seen death close up . . . but we also have known the sort of hope that makes the heart sing. . . . If you are a problem drinker, you already know enough about pain and loneliness. We’d like you to find some of the peace and joy we have found in meeting the reality of life’s ups and downs with a clear head and a steady heart.”

“We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this.”

Alternatives

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.

Letting Go

Letting go of everything at once was both painful and terrifying. I could never have accomplished this alone. It took the help, understanding and wonderful companionship that was given so freely to me by my ex-alkie friends. This and the program of recovery embodied in the Twelve Steps. In learning to practice these steps in my daily living, I began to acquire faith and a philosophy to live by. Whole new vistas were opened up for me, new avenues of experience to be explored, and life began to take on color and interest.

Freedom

“Through A.A., we can experience freedom from self. After all, it was self (you, me) that stood in our own way, that ran the show and ran ourselves into bankruptcy, that hurt the ones we loved. All Twelve Steps of A.A. are designed to kill the old self (deflate the old ego) and build a new, free self.”

Freedom from Bondage

“The A.A. members who sponsored me told me in the beginning that I would not only find a way to live without having a drink, but that I would find a way to live without wanting to drink, if I would do these simple things. They said if you want to know how this program works, take the first word of your question the ‘H’ is for honesty, the ‘O’ is for open-mindedness, and the ‘W’ is for willingness; these our Big Book calls the essentials of recovery.”

Shed peace, not discord, wherever you go. Try to be part of the cure of every situation, not part of the problem. Try to ignore evil, rather than to actively combat it. Always try to build up, never to tear down. Show others by your example that happiness comes from living the right way. The power of your example is greater than the power of what you say.

Dianne

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