NO REGRETS

 Hi Dear Friend Good Morning!!!

 

God grant me the Serenity

to accept the things

I cannot change;

Courage to change

the things I can;

and Wisdom

to know the difference.

Thy will, not mine, be done.

 

*~*~*~*~*^Daily Reflections^*~*~*~*~*

 

January 14, 2024

 

NO REGRETS

 

We will not regret the past

nor wish to shut the door on it.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p.83

 

Once I became sober,

I began to see how wasteful my life had been

and I experienced

overwhelming guilt and feelings of regret.

The program’s Fourth and Fifth Steps

assisted me enormously

in healing those troubling regrets.

I learned that my self-centeredness and dishonesty

stemmed largely from my drinking

and that I drank because I was an alcoholic.

Now I see how

even my most distasteful past experiences

can turn to gold because, as a sober alcoholic,

I can share them to help my fellow alcoholics,

particularly newcomers.

Sober for several years in A.A.,

I no longer regret the past;

I am simply grateful to be conscious of God’s love

and of the help I can give to others in the Fellowship.

 

*****************************************************

Seeking Fool’s Gold

 

Pride 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 a place in society

becomes the primary object of our lives,

then pride steps in to justify our excesses.

I may attain “humility for today”

only to the extent that I am able

to avoid the bog of guilt and rebellion

on one hand and, on the other hand,

that fair but deceiving land which is strewn

with the fool’s-gold coins of pride.

This is how I can find and stay

on the highroad to humility,

which lies between these extremes.

Therefore, a constant inventory which can reveal

when I am off the road is always in order.

1. 12 & 12, pp. 48-49

2. Grapevine, June 1961

 

*************************************************

Regret is an appalling waste of energy,

you can't build on it;

it's only good for wallowing in.

--Katherine Mansfield

 

Newcomer

 

Someone I hoped would be

an important part of my life for years to come has left.

I'm devastated.

I don't know how much of what happened is my fault;

I keep thinking, "If only I hadn't said what I said......"

 

Sponsor

 

Human lives are filled with all kinds of separation.

Friends, mates, and family members –

the people in our lives are only lent to us.

If they accompany us for some part of our journey,

we're blessed.

We don't get to control or keep them.

 

Sentences beginning "if only"

can go nowhere but straight to regret.

They support our false belief

that we can control what happens in other people's lives.

"I should have," "I could have," and "I would have"

are all variations on the same theme.

They postpone acceptance and necessary grieving.

 

At times it's we, ourselves, who do the leaving.

We can count it a success, not a failure,

when we've had the courage

to acknowledge the truth of an ending.

 

Today, though I may

go through some pain

as I learn acceptance,

I rejoice in the strength and clarity

it gives me.

 

*******

ALKIESPEAK – Book – Quote

 

I'm hardest to love when I need love the most.

- Anon.