Mar 24 Traditions - Transitions Daily Alcoholics Anonymous 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 March 24th, read by Kurt L. from Albuquerque, New Mexico,

USA. A.A. Thoughts for the Day. Traditions. The 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous are

a distillate of our experience of living and working together. They apply the spirit

of the 12 recovery steps to our group life and security. They deal with the world outside

and with each other. They state our attitudes towards power and prestige, toward property

and money. They would save us from tempting alliances in major controversies. They would

elevate principles far above personal ambitions. And as a token of this last, they request

that we maintain personal anonymity before the open public as a protection to A.A. and

as proof of the fact that our society intends to practice true humility. Bill W. the language

of the heart page 96. Thought to consider. The reason they are called principles is because

they always work. If they didn't always work, we just call them good ideas.

Acronyms. Willing. When I live life, I need God. Just for today. Growth. From a vision

for you. So our fellow worker will soon have friends galore. Some of them may sink and

perhaps never get up. But if our experience is a criterion, more than half of those

approach will become fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous. When a few men in this city have found

themselves and have discovered the joy of helping others to face life again, there will

be no stopping until everyone in that town has had his opportunity to recover if you can

and will. Alcoholics Anonymous pages 163, 164. Daily Reflections. Active. Not passive.

When I was supposed to think and act, he wasn't made in God's image to be in automaton.

As Bill sees it, page 55. Before I joined A.A. I often did not think and reacted to people

and situations. When not reacting, I acted in a mechanical fashion. After joining A.A.

I started seeking daily guidance from a power graded in myself and learning to listen

for that guidance. Then I began to make decisions and act on them rather than react to them.

The results have been constructive. I no longer allow others to make decisions for me and

then criticize me for it. Today and every day with a heart full of gratitude and a desire

for God's will to be done through me, my life is worth sharing, especially with my fellow

alcoholics. Above all, if I do not make a religion out of anything, even A.A. then I can

be an open channel for God's expression.

As Bill sees it, we cannot live alone. All of A.A.'s 12 steps ask us to go contrary

to our natural desires. They all deflate our egos. When it comes to ego deflation, few

steps are harder to take than the fifth. Scarsely, any step is more necessary to long-time

sobriety and peace of mind. A.A. experience has taught us we cannot live alone with our pressing

problems and the character defects which cause or aggravate them. If step 4 has revealed

and stark relief those experiences we'd rather not remember, then the need to quit living

by ourselves with those tormenting ghosts of yesterday gets more urgent than ever. We

have to talk to somebody about them. We cannot wholly rely on friends to solve all

our difficulties. A good advisor will never do all our thinking for us. He knows that each

final choice must be ours. He will therefore help to eliminate fear, expediency, and self-deception,

so enabling us to make choices which are loving, wise, and honest. 12 and 12, page 55. Great

by August 1961. Big book, yes there is a substitute and it is vastly more than that. It

is a fellowship and alcoholics anonymous. There you will find release from care, boredom,

and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most

satisfactory years of your existence lies ahead. Alcoholics anonymous. A vision for you,

page 152. 24 hours a day, A.A. thought for the day. Strength comes from honestly telling

your own experiences with drinking. In religion they call it confession. We call it witnessing

or sharing. You give a personal witness, you share your past experiences, the troubles

you got into, the hospitals, the jails, the breakup of your home, the money wasted, the

debts, and all the foolish things you did when you were drinking. This personal witness

lets out of the things you had kept hidden, brings them out into the open, and you find

release and strength. Am I receiving strength from my personal witnessing? Meditation for

the day. We cannot fully understand the universe. The simple fact is that we cannot even define

space or time. They are both boundless in spite of all we can do to limit them. We live

in a box of space and time, which we have manufactured by our own minds and on that depends

all our so-called knowledge of the universe. The simple fact is that we can never know all

things nor are we made to know them. Much of our lives must be taken on faith. Prayer

for the day. I pray that my faith may be based on my own experience of the power of God

in my life. I pray that I may know this one thing above all else in the universe. Hazel

Zeyn Foundation, PO Box 176, Center City, Minnesota 551-2. My name is Kurt Ellen. I'm

an alcoholic. We hope you enjoy today's readings. You can also receive Transitions Daily,

via email, and discuss today's readings in our secret Facebook group. So for more

information, go to dailyaemails.com today. Other than the 24 hours a day reading, unless

otherwise specified, all quotes copyright alcoholics anonymous World Services Inc. 1952-2001.