ODAT: March

Here are what I find to be the most useful quotations from the March pages of One Day at at Time in Al-Anon:

True humility does not mean meek surrender to an ugly, destructive way of life—it means surrender to God’s will, which is quite a different thing.

… they do not depend on their own limited resources, but on a Power greater than themselves in Whom they have confidence.

With Divine help I will accept what I cannot change—with courage, composure, and good humour.

I must still guard against impatience, lapses into feeling sorry for myself, resenting the words and actions of others.

Above all, I must not permit myself the tormenting excursions into the bitter past.

And if a crisis arises, or any problem baffles me, I hold it up to the light of the Serenity Prayer and extract its sting before it can hurt me.

I pray to accept, with a serene mind, the things I cannot change, knowing it is futile to be obstinate about the inevitable.

I pray to be resolute to take action in things that must be changed.

For those of us who have lost our faith, or who have always had to struggle along without it, it is often helpful just to accept, blindly and with no reservations.

I found I could give some thought and compassion to them, and then I began to have peace of mind.

I came wanting to find out how to change my spouse, and the first thing I was told was that the only person I can possibly change is myself.

I must remind myself daily that I can save only myself.

I will carefully guard my own mental sobriety.

I pray that I may not fall into the error of anticipating trouble; if it should come, let me meet it with equanimity and love.

If we do finally ask for God’s help, we must do so with absolute confidence.

It is fruitless to take back into our own hands the problem which our powerlessness forced us to turn over to Him.

But I soon learned that complaining about our oppressions and indignities only makes them loom larger and more disturbing.

I ask God to keep me from magnifying my troubles by harping on them continually.

Acceptance means simply admitting there are things we cannot change; accepting them puts an end to our futile struggles and frees our thought and energy to work on things that can be changed.

Surrender means relinquishing our self-will and accepting God’s will and His help.

No one can distort my thinking unless I permit it.

If my life is in chaos, I will look into myself for the cause and cure and use the Twelve Steps to improve my shortcomings.

Now I am learning in Al-Anon to look squarely at each difficulty, not seeking whom to “blame” but to discover how my attitude helped to create my problem or aggravate it.

I must learn to face the consequences of my own actions and words, and to correct myself when I am wrong.

Accepting responsibility is essential to becoming mature.

Whether the alcoholic is drinking or not, I will not look for a scapegoat to excuse my own faults.

There is no advantage, no profit, no growth, in deceiving myself merely to escape the consequences of my own mistakes.

We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us, but we make ourselves true inside by manifesting the truth as we see it.

… we need not burden ourselves with the woes of the past, nor anticipate those that may come in the future.

I will keep always in mind that today is my sole concern, and that I will make it as good a day as I can.

This one small span of time is mine, and I will use it to do the things that need doing and have a little time over for enjoyment and reflection.

Living one day at a time and consciously dividing my time into useful and satisfying activities, can give me the variety that is said to be the spice of life.

[Living one day at a time] has the added benefit of keeping my mind off my problems, which often proves the easiest and most logical way to solve them!

I will make this day a happy one, for I alone can determine what kind of a day it will be.

Things really begin to happen in our lives when we accept the idea that there is a power bigger and wiser than we are.

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God.

But still more fortunate is the newcomer to a group that does not allow such unburdening to continue, meeting after meeting.

There is work to be done, new ideas to be learned, and for that the problems of yesterday and the fears for tomorrow must be put out of the way.

Al-Anon is not a sounding board for continually reviewing our miseries, but a way to learn to detach ourselves from them.

The members of AA have set us a good example in living one day at a time.

We in Al-Anon can, if we work at it, free ourselves from yesterday and tomorrow.

Today is only one little set of 24 hours, a reasonably manageable bit of time that we can concentrate on using well.

Haven’t we tried all sorts of tricks to outwit him—to make him stop drinking, to make him join AA, to make him go to more meetings, or go to fewer meetings?

Attending to my own business will keep me from becoming a slave to a situation; that is why I will not get myself involved too deeply.

Courage is fear that has said its prayers.

A grim and furious silence can be more crushing and wounding than harsh words.

No one can control the insidious effect of alcohol or its power to destroy the graces and decencies of life.

No one can control the alcoholic’s compulsion to drink.

But we do have a power, derived from God, and that is the power to change our own lives.

Acceptance does not mean submission to a degrading situation; it means accepting the fact of a situation and then deciding what we will do about it.

I must remember that I am here for the sole purpose of improving myself and my way of life, and in every meeting there is some good to be gained, no matter what is said or done.

Do I always consider the three elements of Al-Anon’s togetherness before I speak?

Or do I use the meeting time to complain about the alcoholic’s faults?

Do my words, my voice and my manner reveal my self-pity and resentment?

When we are faced with the perplexities of the alcoholic situation, and try to do it on our own, we are stubbornly refusing the help that could be ours in Al-Anon.

Experience has taught me that I couldn’t make any headway by relying on my own devices to bring about the results I wanted.

I am not self-sufficient, I don’t know all the answers.

“God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble.” (Psalms)

We are being good to ourselves when we refuse to be disturbed by anything the alcoholic says or does.

We’re being good to ourselves when we help others and when we fill our lives with pleasant and rewarding activities.

I will not allow myself to drown in the whirlpool of distressed thinking about alcoholism and its results.