. . . AND NO MORE RESERVATIONS

  

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^*~*~*~*~*

 

March 23, 2024

 

. . . AND NO MORE RESERVATIONS

 

We have seen the truth again and again:

“Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.”

. . . 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. . . .

To be gravely affected,

one does not necessarily have to drink

a long time nor take the quantities

some of us have.

This is particularly true of women.

Potential female alcoholics

often turn into the real thing

and are gone beyond recall in a few years.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 33

 

These words are underlined in my book.

They are true for men and women alcoholics.

On many occasions I’ve turned to this page

and reflected on this passage.

I need never fool myself by recalling

my sometimes-differing drinking patterns,

or by believing I am “cured.”

I like to think that, if sobriety is God’s gift to me,

then my sober life is my gift to God.

I hope that God is as happy with His gift

as I am with mine.

 

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

"Admitted to God . . ."

 

Provided you hold back nothing in taking the Fifth Step,

your sense of relief will mount from minute to minute.

The dammed-up emotions of years

break out of their confinement,

and miraculously vanish as soon as they are exposed.

As the pain subsides, a healing tranquility takes its place.

And when humility and serenity are so combined,

something else of great moment is apt to occur.

Many an A.A., once agnostic or atheist,

tells us that it was during this stage of Step Five

that he first actually felt the presence of God.

And even those who already had faith

often become conscious of God

as they never were before.

TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 62

 

*******

Grapevine quote of the day

 

"Up to now AA seems to have taken

the right turning at each new crossroad.

This could scarcely have been our doing alone.

Our Fellowship has afforded a convincing proof

of that wise old adage which declares

that 'man's extremity is God's opportunity."

AA Co-Founder,

Bill W.,

November 1961

"Again, at the Crossroads"

The Language of the Heart