Apr 23 Gratitude - Transitions Daily Alcohol Recovery Readings Podcast

Welcome to the Transitions Daily Podcast. Transitions Daily is an online recovery group

that offers a daily distribution of popular recovery resources accompanied by a secret

Facebook group for discussion. We hope you enjoy today's readings.

This is Transitions Daily for April 23rd. I'm Buddy and I'm an alcoholic from Atlanta,

Georgia, AA Thoughts for the Day, Gratitude. One exercise that I practice is to try for

a full inventory of my blessings, and then for a right acceptance of the many gifts that

are mine, both temporal and spiritual. Here I try to achieve a state of joyful gratitude.

When such a brand of gratitude is repeatedly affirmed and pondered, it can finally

displace the natural tendency to congratulate myself on whatever progress I may have been

enabled to make in certain areas of living. I try hard to hold fast to the truth that

a full and thankful heart cannot entertain great conceits. When brimming with gratitude,

one's heart beat must surely result in outgoing love. The finest emotion that we can ever

know, as Bill sees it, page 37, thought to consider, it's a pity we can't forget

our troubles the same way we forget our blessings, acronyms, gifts, getting it from the steps.

Just for today, progress from gutter bravado. Still very impatient, I wanted to hold

ill right away. That's why I related so well to the story about a wide eyed new person

and an old timer. When the newcomer approached the old timer, invading his accomplishments

and many years of sobriety, the old timer slapped down his hand like a gavel and said,

I'll trade you even my 30 years to your 30 days right now. He knew what the newcomer

had yet to find out. The true happiness is found in the journey, not in the destination.

Alcoholics anonymous fourth edition, pages 5, 10 and 5, 11. Daily Reflections. AA is not

a cure all. It would be a product of false pride to claim that AA is a cure all, even

for alcoholism. As Bill sees it, page 285. In my early years of sobriety, I was full

of pride, thinking that AA was the only source of treatment for a good and happy life. It

certainly was the basic ingredient for my sobriety, and even today, with over 12 years in the

program, I am very involved in meetings, sponsorship and service. During the first four

years of my recovery, I found it necessary to seek professional help, since my emotional

health was extremely poor. There are those folks too, who have found sobriety and happiness

in other organizations. AA taught me that I had a choice. To go to any links to enhance

my sobriety, AA may not be a cure all for everything, but it is the center of my sober

living. As Bill sees it, to be fair-minded. Too often, I think, we have deprecated and even

derided projects of our friends in the fields of alcoholism, just because we do not always

see eye to eye with them. We should very seriously ask ourselves, how many alcoholics have

gone on drinking? Simply because we have failed to cooperate in good spirit with these

many agencies, whether they are good, bad or indifferent. No alcoholics should be mad

or die merely because he did not come straight to AA at the beginning. That is from the grapevine

July 1965. Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint. This carries

a top priority rating. When we speak or act hastily or rashly, the ability to be fair-minded

and tolerant evaporates on the spot, 12 and 12 page 91.

Big book quote. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to

Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Get freely of what you find

and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some

of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. Alcoholics anonymous a vision for you, page

164. 24 hours a day. AA thought for the day. Men and women keep coming into AA, licked

by alcohol, often given up by doctors as hopeless cases. They themselves admitting they're

helpless to stop drinking. When I see these men and women get sober and stay sober over

a period of months and years, I know that AA works. The change I see in people who come

into AA, not only convinces me that AA works, but it also convinces me that there must

be a power greater than ourselves, which helps us to make that change. Am I convinced that

a higher power can help me to change? Meditation for the day.

Cooperation with God is the great necessity for our lives. All else follows naturally.

Cooperation with God is the result of our consciousness of His presence. Guidance is

bound to come to us as we live more and more with God, as our consciousness becomes more

and more attuned to the great consciousness of the universe. We must have many quiet times

when we not so much asked to be shown and led by God as to fill and realize His presence.

New spiritual growth comes naturally from Cooperation with God. Prayer for the day. I pray

that God may supply me with strength and show me the direction in which He wants me to

grow. I pray that these things may come naturally from my Cooperation with Him. Hazard in Foundation

PO Box 176, Center City, Minnesota 55012. I'm Buddy and I'm an alcoholic.

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Other than the 24 hours a day reading, unless otherwise specified, all quotes copyright

alcoholics anonymous World Services Inc. 1952 through 2001.