DIDN'T WE HURT ANYBODY?

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^*~*~*~*~* August 15, 2025 DIDN'T WE HURT ANYBODY? Some of us, though, tripped over a very different snag. We clung to the claim that when drinking we never hurt anybody but ourselves. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 79 This Step seemed so simple. I identified several people whom I had harmed, but they were no longer available. Still, I was uneasy about the Step and avoided conversations dealing with it. In time I learned to investigate those Steps and areas of my life which made me uncomfortable. My search revealed my parents, who had been deeply hurt by my isolation from them; my employer, who worried about my absences, my memory lapses, my temper; and the friends I had shunned, without explanation. As I faced the reality of the harm I had done, Step Eight took on a new meaning. I am no longer uncomfortable and I feel clean and light. ************************************************ "Restore Us to Sanity" Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics who have any idea how irrational they are, or, seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it. For example, some will be willing to term themselves "problem drinkers," but cannot endure the suggestion that they are in fact mentally ill. They are abetted in this blindness by a world which does not understand the difference between sane drinking and alcoholism. "Sanity" is defined as "soundness of mind". Yet no alcoholic, soberly analyzing his destructive behavior, whether the destruction fell on the dining-room furniture or his own moral fiber, can claim "soundness of mind" for himself. ~~~~~TWELVE AND TWELVE, PP. 32-33 Heard at a Meeting an AA meeting "Those who piss us off the most are our greatest teachers." *********************************************** Group Conscience We are coming to believe that each group, as well as each individual, is a special entity, not quite like any other. Though AA groups are basically the same, each group does have its own special atmosphere, its own peculiar state of development. We believe every AA group has a conscience. It is the collective conscience of its own membership. The group begins to recognize its own defects of character and, one by one, these are removed or lessened............ Trial and error produce group experience, and out of corrected experience comes custom. When a customary way of doing things is definitely proved to be best, then that custom forms into AA Tradition. The Greater Power is then working through a clear group conscience Reprinted from "The Language of the Heart," Page 78 Gee, guess that means "my" opinion is not "law" and always the correct one!! ************************************************* LIFE "The tragedy of life is what dies in man while he lives." — Albert Schweitzer Addiction progressively takes away the vitality of life. It robs life of meaning. Addiction isolates; it kills by atrophy. People, places and things lose meaning; everything becomes a chore and God is lost. We say to compensate that we are having "fun" — we say this a lot and at times we believe it, but in the silence of the night we know it to be a lie. We lie to others and to ourselves. Sometimes we believe the lie! At this point we begin to die unless we take courage and confront "the lie" in order to live. Today I live because I confronted my lie. I have discovered the spiritual power that was buried deep beneath the progressive addiction. And I am finding it easier and less painful to live. May I continue to breathe a daily "yes" in my life so that I might live. **************** "How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so, into easy, happy, and good living - well, that's not only the neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles. Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot, literally." - Bill W. 1988AAGrapevine, The Language of the Heart, p. 237