ACCEPTING OUR HUMANNESS

  

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^*~*~*~*~*

 

April 3, 2024

 

ACCEPTING OUR HUMANNESS

 

We finally saw that the inventory should be ours,

not the other mans’.

So, we admitted our wrongs honestly

and became willing

to set these matters straight.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 222

 

Why is it that the alcoholic is so unwilling

to accept responsibility?

I used to drink because of the things

that other people did to me.

Once I came to A.A. I was told to look at

where I had been wrong.

What did I have to do with all these different matters?

When I simply accepted that I had a part in them,

I was able to put it on paper

and see it for what it was – humanness.

I am not expected to be perfect!

I have made errors before and I will make them again.

To be honest about them allows me to accept them –

and myself – and those with whom I had the differences;

from there, recovery is just a short distance ahead.

 

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Fear as a stepping stone

 

The chief activator of our defects

has been self-centered fear –primal fear

that we would lose something we already possessed

or would fail to get something we demanded.

Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands,

we were in a state of continual

disturbance and frustration.

Therefore, no peace was to be had unless

we could find a means of reducing these demands.

For all its usual destructiveness,

we have found that fear

can be the starting point for better things.

Fear can be a steppingstone

to prudence and to a decent respect for others.

It can point the path to justice, as well as to hate.

And the more we have of respect and justice,

the more we shall begin to find love

which can suffer much, and yet be freely given.

So, fear need not always be destructive,

because the lessons of its consequences

can lead us to positive values.

1. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 76

2. GRAPEVINE, JANUARY 1962

 

**********

"In my disease I was running from the dark.

Now that I am in recovery,

I find that I am walking toward the light."

 

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

Difficulties!!

 

"Mental and emotional difficulties

are sometimes very hard to take

while we are trying to maintain sobriety.

Yet we do see, in the long run,

that transcendence over such problems

is the real test of the A.A, way of living.

Adversity gives us more opportunity

to grow than does comfort or success."

Bill W.

"As Bill Sees It" Page 234