From 24 Hours a Day...

Disillusionment and doubt spoil life.  The doubting ones are the  disillusioned ones.  When you are in doubt, you are on the fence.  You are not going anywhere.  Doubt poisons all action.  "Well, I don't know" - so you don't do anything.  You should meet life with a "Yes," an affirmative attitude.  There is good in the world and we can follow that good.  There is power available to help us to do the right thing; therefore we will accept that power.  There are miracles of change in people's lives; therefore we will accept those miracles as evidence of God's power.

Prayer for the Day:
I pray that I will not be paralyzed by doubt.  I pray that I may go along on the venture of faith.

Twenty-Four Hours a Day - Hazelden Meditations, 1954

For me today this says something about what I need to do to get a sponsor - stop doubting and take action despite it.  Have faith about it, and stop waiting to see...

From 24 Hours a Day...

Thought of the Day for June 29th-

"The program... involves a continuous striving for improvement. There can be no long resting period.  We must try to work at it all the time.  We must continually keep in mind that it is a program not to be measured in years, because we never fully reach our goals nor are we ever cured.  Our alcoholism is only kept in abeyance by daily living of the program.  It is a timeless program in every sense.  We live it day by day, or more precisely, moment by moment - now."

Twenty Four Hours A Day, Hazelden Meditations, Reprint Edition 1992

Meditation for the Day...

The spiritual life has two parts.  One is the life apart, the life of prayer and quiet communion with God.  You spend this part of your life apart with God.  Every day your mind can be set in the right direction so that your thoughts will be of the right kind.  The other is the life impart - imparting to others what you have learned from your own meditative experience.  The victories you have won over yourself through the help of God can be shared with others.  You can help them by imparting to them some of the victory and security that you have gained in your life apart.

Twenty-Four Hours A Day, Hazelden Meditations copyright 1954, entry for June 18th

From some of my reading this morning...

In the AA book Living Sober (1), copy right 1975, 1998...

     "Anger in all its aspects is a universal human problem.  But it poses a special threat to alcoholics: Our own anger can kill us.  Recovered alcoholics almost unanimously agree that hostility, grudges, or resentments often make us want to drink, so we need to be vigilant against such feelings.  We have found much more satisfying ways than drinking for dealing with them.
     But we'll get to those later.  First, here is a look at some of the shapes and colors anger seems at time to arrive in:

• intolerance
• contempt
• envy
• hatred
• snobbishness
• rigidity
• cynicism
• discontent
• tension
• sarcasm
• self-pity
• malice
• distrust
• anxiety
• suspicion
• jealousy..."

I learned in treatment that anger is actually a secondary emotion, usually rooted in a primary emotion where we might actually feel hurt, afraid, attacked, offended, disrespected, forced, trapped, or pressured.  So if anger is secondary, then the list from Living Sober would actually become tertiary (in the third order.)  So when we feel these things, although anger may be the root, it is most likely pain, fear or some other primary emotion at the core.  (I googled secondary and tertiary emotions, and they have indeed seem to have been classified this way...)  I italicized some of the ones that I found more interesting, and probably would not have attributed to anger...

From Keep It Simple - June 7th -
     "We can't afford to hold grudges.  We have all felt hurt by others at times.  But when we stay angry at another person, it hurts us. It keeps our wounds open.  It takes our energy away from our healing.
     We can forgive now.  We know that living our program of honesty and love makes us safe.  We don't have to be afraid.  We don't have to be angry. We don't have to let old hurts stand in our way.  We let them go.  We empty the anger from our hearts to clear the way for love."

Nicely coupled with the meditation for the day from Twenty-Four Hours A Day -
     "You not only can live a new life but you also can grow in grace and power and beauty.  Reach ever forward and upward after the things of the spirit.  In the animal world, the very form of an animal changes to enable it to reach that upon which it delights to feed.  Your whole character changes as you reach upward for the things of the spirit - for beauty, for love, for honesty, for purity, and for unselfishness.  Reaching after these things of the spirit, your whole nature becomes so changed so that you can best receive and delight in the wonders of the abundant life."
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(1) Sober Living, AA, copy right 1975, 1998.
(2) Keep It Simple Hazelden Meditations, copyright 1989 - June 7th -
(3) Twenty-Four Hours A Day Hazelden Meditations, copyright 1954, 1975, 1992-