first164 - morning readings - 2023 Q2

Readings for each day of the week

Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 86 to 88; Step Eleven, morning

Friday

On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

Saturday

In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.

Sunday

We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.

Monday

If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing.

Tuesday

There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one’s priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.

Wednesday

As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.

Thursday

We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.

It works—it really does.

We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.

Calendar readings

01 April 2023

Honesty, openness, restitution, and willingness to help others are keystones in this approach. Openness means letting “significant others” know us as we really are. It means taking literally the injunction in James 5:16 to “Confess your faults one to another.” On the same subject, the authors of the Old Testament wrote in Proverbs 28:13, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” This powerfully simple prescription is found in both Judaism and Christianity. ... but how often is it used?

Paul Martin, Guilt

02 April 2023

There is nothing outside of you that will help in any kind of lasting way, unless you are waiting for an organ. You can’t buy, achieve, or date it. This is the most horrible truth.

Anne Lamott, Birthday Thoughts

03 April 2023

Invariably, someone asks, “Is there really help in telling others the entire truth about ourselves, including those things we’re most ashamed of?” “Absolutely,” reply those who have tried it.
“If secret confession, to priests and psychiatrists, had a really good record of accomplishment,” says Dr Mowrer, “we should be spared the embarrassment of having the ‘ordinary’ people in our lives know who we are. But the record is not good; and, reluctantly, many people are today experimenting with open confession of one kind or another. When you stop to think of it, secret confession is a contradiction in terms—secrecy is what makes confession necessary. And it is not surprising that the attempt to cope with unresolved personal guilt by means of continued furtiveness does not work very well.”

Paul Martin, Guilt

04 April 2023

Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it more or less together. They are much more like you than you would believe. So try not to compare your insides to their outsides. Also, you can’t save, fix, or rescue any of them, or get any of them sober. But radical self-care is quantum, and radiates out into the atmosphere, like a little fresh air. It is a huge gift to the world. When people respond by saying, ‘Well, isn’t she full of herself,’ smile obliquely, like Mona Lisa, and make both of you a nice cup of tea.

Anne Lamott, Birthday Thoughts

05 April 2023

The New York butcher followed O’Brien’s suggestion and told his group that he had been cheating his customers for years. He came out of that meeting with two commitments: (1) He would go out of business before he would cheat any more, and (2) for the first three days he was back in his butcher shop, he would tell every customer who entered that he had been cheating. Further, he would explain that he was through cheating and would have to raise prices to stay in business.
Two weeks after that meeting, Monsignor O’Brien saw the man again and asked, “How did you make out when you told the truth to your customers?”
“Let me tell you what happened!” exclaimed the butcher. “They threw their arms around me. They cried with me. They said such an honest man in New York they had never seen. Today, my business is better than ever.”

Paul Martin, Guilt

06 April 2023

Earth is Forgiveness School. You might as well start at the dinner table. That way, you can do this work in comfortable pants. When Blake said that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love, he knew that your family would be an intimate part of this, even as you want to run screaming for your cute little life. But that you are up to it. You can do it, Cinderellie. You will be amazed.

Anne Lamott, Birthday Thoughts

07 April 2023

If I’m drowning, I want a life preserver, not a serving of cotton-candy philosophy, theology, or positive thinking. These AAs gave me a life preserver in the Twelve Steps. They spoke to me from experience, not theory, and said, “Do these things and your life will change.” That is precisely what happened. They gave me a way to deal with guilt in Steps Four, Five, Eight, and Nine. The first attempt with the Fifth Step gave me considerable relief from character defects. Continuing work with it by opening up with more and more people in ever-widening circles of personal transparency showed that this was the route to release from these defects.

Paul Martin, Guilt

08 April 2023

Food: try to do a little better.

Anne Lamott, Birthday Thoughts

09 April 2023

Making amends cleared out more sick spots within me. Daily work with Steps Ten and Eleven keeps me aware of the state of my life and alert to trouble areas. Regular reworking of all the Steps helps me become flexible and responsive to God’s will and is the key to growing freedom.
The religion of my youth spoke frequently about God’s forgiveness but provided no method to make me feel forgiven by excising guilt. Being told that God had forgiven me didn’t do it. It has long seemed significant to me that nowhere do the Steps say anything about forgiveness, either divine or human. Instead, they show us how to experience forgiveness. The programme says: Use these principles and wake up spiritually; then, you’ll be able to live freely, joyously, and usefully, because these are the qualities of an awakened soul. This is the message we can carry to other alcoholics.

Paul Martin, Guilt

10 April 2023

The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and our world. To summon grace, say, ‘Help!’ And then buckle up. Grace won’t look like Casper the Friendly Ghost; but the phone will ring, or the mail will come, and then against all odds, you will get your sense of humour about yourself back. Laughter really is carbonated holiness, even if you are sick of me saying it.

Anne Lamott, Birthday Thoughts

11 April 2023

We can either change the past by dealing with it consciously in the present, or spend the rest of our lives reacting to it unconsciously. Positive work on the Steps removes guilt and releases a noticeable amount of energy as a result. With the present no longer a hostage of the past, we begin to live effectively in the moment.

Paul Martin, Guilt

12 April 2023

God: Goodness, Love energy, the Divine, a loving animating intelligence, the Cosmic Muffin. You will worship and serve something, so, like St Bob said, you gotta choose. ... Emerson said that the happiest person on earth is the one who learns from nature the lessons of worship. So go outside a lot, and look up. My pastor says you can trap bees on the floor of a Mason jar without a lid, because they don’t look up. If they did, they could fly to freedom.

Anne Lamott, Birthday Thoughts

13 April 2023

Reality is never ethically neutral. Kick at the universe, and it kicks back. If a man jumps out of a tenth-story window, he doesn’t break the law of gravity; he just proves that it exists.

Paul Martin, Guilt

14 April 2023

Faith: Paul Tillich said the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. ... The love of our incredible dogs and cats is the closest most of us will come, on this side of eternity, to knowing the direct love of God; although cats can be so bitter, which is not the God part: the crazy Love is. Also, ‘Figure it out’ is not a good slogan.

Anne Lamott, Birthday Thoughts

15 April 2023

It’s always useful for me to remember that AA is where the clergymen come to find God’s help to stay sober. It’s the place the psychiatrists and psychologists come to find the kind of group therapy that will bring sobriety and order to their lives.

Paul Martin, Have We Forgotten Dr Bob’s Request?

16 April 2023

Jesus: Jesus would have even loved horrible, mealy-mouth self-obsessed you, as if you were the only person on earth. But He would hope that you would perhaps pull yourself together just the tiniest, tiniest bit—maybe have a little something to eat, and a nap.

Anne Lamott, Birthday Thoughts

17 April 2023

Yes, of course you'll get back to Narnia again some day. ... But don't go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don't try to get there at all. I'll happen when you're not looking for it. And don't talk too much about it even among yourselves. And don't mention it to anyone else unless you find that they've had adventures of the same sort themselves. What's that? How will you know? Oh, you'll know all right. Odd things they say – even their looks – will let the secret out.

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

18 April 2023

Exercise: if you want to have a good life after you have grown a little less young, you must walk almost every day. There is no way around this. If you are in a wheelchair, you must do chair exercises. Every single doctor on earth will tell you this, so don’t go by what I say.

Anne Lamott, Birthday Thoughts

19 April 2023

Several days before the 1975 International Convention in Denver, I listened to a tape of Dr Bob’s last talk. It had been made a quarter of a century earlier (July 1950) in Cleveland, at our Fellowship’s first international gathering. Dr Bob described AA’s beginning and growth up to that date. He then said, “Let’s not louse it all up with Freudian complexes and things that are interesting to the scientific mind but have little to do with our actual AA work.”

Paul Martin, Have We Forgotten Dr Bob’s Request?

20 April 2023

I think that’s it, everything I know. I wish I had shoe-horned in what E. L. Doctorow said about writing: ‘It’s like driving at night with the headlights on. You can only see a little aways ahead of you, but you can make the whole journey that way.’ I love that, because it’s true about everything we do.

Anne Lamott

21 April 2023

Everything is a contest with my girls. Except I have no idea what the prize is.

Bucky, Love the Coopers

22 April 2023

We are here to serve. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.

Vulcan principle

23 April 2023

AA was born because there was no other help for the drunk. It didn’t come into being as one of many successful methods for arresting alcoholism. It began as the only thing that offered hope to drunks like you and me. It’s still the only thing.
Our experience shows overwhelmingly that our salvation is not dependent on expensive therapeutic programmes. Our salvation starts with willingness to cooperate with God’s power and to change through applying the Steps. The programme is a road, not a resting place. In my experience, any alcoholic who will work all these Steps with a continuing, lifelong commitment will find that this programme meets his needs and fulfils his dreams.

Paul Martin, Have We Forgotten Dr Bob’s Request?

24 April 2023

Raffi: He’s in a coma for a reason. It’s protective.
Tallinn: A lot of what we do is protective. That doesn’t mean it’s good for us.

Picard

25 April 2023

Clancy would say that, one day when he was washing dishes in a restaurant, he became convinced that they were bringing in more dishes to wash than the waiters were taking out. He prayed for God’s will. God told him to punch his boss in the face, so he did. Sponsors stop us from doing that.

Story retold by Hal M

26 April 2023

There are many ways to help a friend, and sometimes the best way is to leave them alone.

Deanna Troi

27 April 2023

Hal would thank God every morning for three things: (1) that he is alive (2) that he is sober and (3) that he is a member of AA.

Retold about Hal M

28 April 2023

Humans. They’re all trapped in the past.

The character Q, in Picard

29 April 2023

The laws of physics tell us that two opposing forces cannot occupy the same space. A heart with gratitude has no space for bitterness, fear, or resentment. Develop an attitude of gratitude.

Hal M

30 April 2023

Anthony de Mello, who was a Jesuit priest and mystic, once told the story about a guy who invented fire. As soon as he invents the art of making fire, he takes it to the village in the mountain and teaches them, to use it for cooking and for keeping warm. They were so grateful, but, before they could thank him, he disappeared. He went to another tribe and did the same there—taught them how to make fire. The people were very enthusiastic, but the priests were threatened by his popularity, so they poisoned him. The villagers were suspicious of it, so the priests made a portrait of the man and placed it on an altar and required them to venerate the great inventor of fire and the tools for making fire. The worship of fire went on decade after decade, century after century … but there was no fire.

01 May 2023

When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.

02 May 2023

In the spring of 1948, I heard Paul S. talk at that same meeting. He was one of the early Akron AAs. Over and over, he kept saying, “AA, in and of itself, is sufficient.” I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. But, today I believe it’s true. AA, in and of itself, is sufficient if we work the Steps.

Paul Martin, It Works For Me, around his 60th AA anniversary

03 May 2023

It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live.

Dumbledore

04 May 2023

Dr Clarkson: [About Mrs Crawley] I gather she’s planning to stay in the village for the foreseeable future.

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: No one can foresee the future, Doctor. Not you, not I, and certainly not Mrs Crawley.

Downton Abbey

05 May 2023

No one can live without joy. That is why a person deprived of spiritual joy goes after carnal pleasures.

Thomas Aquinas

06 May 2023

Constraint can be the very progenitor of invention.

The Rings of Power (S01E08)

07 May 2023

If I go around shouting from the rooftops about my alcoholism, it might very possibly prevent me from getting a good job. But—supposing that just one man died because I had, for selfish reasons, kept my mouth shut? No. I was supposed to be doing God’s will, not mine. His road lay clear before me, and I’d better quit rationalising myself into any detours. I could not expect to keep what I had gained unless I gave it away.

Big Book, The Man Who Mastered Fear

08 May 2023

I regularly attend working Step meetings on Wednesday evening and Saturday morning. In the working Step group, the members are committed to working and reworking the Steps. The worst advice I ever got in AA was to work the first nine Steps once and then attempt to exist on Steps Ten, Eleven and Twelve. In 1963, sober sixteen years, I heard a suggestion that there’s great benefit in redoing all of the Steps. It turned out to be absolutely correct. In my experience, AAs who continue to work all of the Steps do not suffer from depression, anxiety, apathy, boredom, and similar symptoms.

Paul Martin, It Works For Me, around his 60th AA anniversary

09 May 2023

Our chief responsibility to the newcomer is an adequate presentation of the programme. If he does nothing or argues, we do nothing but maintain our own sobriety. If he starts to move ahead, even a little, with an open mind, we then break our necks to help in every way we can.

Bill Wilson, 1942 letter

10 May 2023

My belief in God began as a very simple view of the Higher Power. Gradually, as I read everything I could find on the spiritual life, it became very complicated and, in my view, quite advanced. As years have passed, my belief has become simpler and simpler. My relationship with God is dependent on rigorous honesty and continuing work with the Twelve Steps, because this gives me a continuing experience of God in my life.

Paul Martin, It Works For Me, around his 60th AA anniversary

11 May 2023

When the ego re-grows, it is slow, like the process of boiling frogs. If you throw a frog into boiling water, it will jump out. If you slowly boil the water from cold, the frog will not jump out and will die. As the ego grows back, it covers its tracks, and there is a huge danger—even after a spiritual awakening—of your ego getting horribly out of whack and you having no idea that it is even happening. You get sick and do not even know it. Its greatest trick is to convince you it is not there. The ego will take all of your good works and knowledge (which have been wrought through you by God—the fruits of surrender) and turn them into YOUR achievements, for the purposes of self-aggrandisement. This reinforcement of the ego is invariably incremental. No matter how surrendered and plugged in you are at any point, the ego will attempt to grow back, like a bad tumour—yet everyone will be able to see it except you. And you will be convinced you are doing God’s will. The ego presumes it is inspired at all times. How does this link to alcohol? Self crimps the oxygen tube to the soul. The first drink turns the air back on. Ego—me smothering me.

Anonymous AA member

12 May 2023

I did it. I took the brooch. I did. I know. For my sister. I was just being small and petty. I’m always measuring out how much love and attention I’m getting and then giving back just exactly what I think I got. Like I think I’m going to be gypped in some way.

Emma, Love the Coopers

13 May 2023

The ego also can never be satisfied—it can never be fed full. Some catfish live in very deep lakes formed by great dams. There are no restrictions on the size of such catfish provided there is a plentiful food supply and space. Some grow to the size of limousines. The ego is like that. The only thing that restrains us is societal disapproval of megalomania.

Anonymous AA member

14 May 2023

A well-known Chassidic story tells of a young boy who, not knowing how to pray, instead crowed like a rooster. His sincerity was so great, his inner game so in tune with the Divine, that his prayers became legendary.

Recounted by Levi Welton

15 May 2023

The ego has a greater survival mechanism than me. It will kill me in order to be right.

How do you ensure this does not happen?

• Structure and accountability: people with whom to check out the vision of God’s will that comes to you.
• Work and self-sacrifice for others.
• The greatest demonstration of surrender is taking actions you do not believe in.
• Starving that which wants to be fed; feeding that which wants to be starved—a reversal of my natural inclination when I’m disconnected from God.

Anonymous AA member

16 May 2023

Can you imagine how liberating it is to never be disillusioned again, to never be disappointed again? You’ll never feel let down again. Never feel rejected. Want to wake up? You want happiness? You want freedom? Here it is: Drop your false ideas.

Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 2)

17 May 2023

When working with others: grab the person in the window of opportunity to get them into action which will ensure that, once the ego becomes resurgent, there is a set of commitments that tethers them to the programme.

Anonymous AA member

18 May 2023

Contrary to what your culture and religion have taught you, nothing—but absolutely nothing of the world—can make you happy. The moment you see that, you will stop moving from one job to another, one friend or lover to another, one place, one spiritual technique, one guru to another. None of these things can give you a single minute of happiness. They can only offer you a temporary thrill, a pleasure, that initially grows in intensity then turns into pain if you lose them and boredom if you keep them.

Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 4)

19 May 2023

I am compelled to serve something: if I don’t serve God, I will serve myself.

Anonymous AA member

20 May 2023

Bucky: Where are you going?
Ruby: Hot Coffee, Mississippi. I found it on a map when I was 14 years old. It seems like the perfect place for a waitress.
Bucky: Look, I don’t understand. I’m confused. You’ve never been there. It’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard of.
Ruby: But I ... I want to start over. I need ... I need a change.
Bucky: No, no, no, no. Leaving doesn’t change anything. Everything just comes with you.

Love the Coopers

21 May 2023

Surrender: put down all your weapons and wait for someone to tell you what to do. That’s what happens when someone surrenders in a war situation.

Anonymous AA member

22 May 2023

Search within your heart, and you will find something there that will make it possible for you to understand—a spark of disenchantment and discontent. If fanned into flame, it will become a raging forest fire that will burn up the whole of the illusory world you are living in, thereby unveiling to your wondering eyes the kingdom that you have always unsuspectingly lived in.

Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 4)

23 May 2023

“My dear young lady,” said the Professor, suddenly looking up with a very sharp expression at both of them, “there is one plan which no one has yet suggested and which is well worth trying.” “What’s that?” said Susan. “We might all try minding our own business,” said he. And that was the end of that conversation.

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

24 May 2023

Reb Menachem Mendel of Kotzk said, “Whoever does not see G‑d in every place, does not see G‑d in any place.”

Recounted by Levi Welton

25 May 2023

Probably the Queen knew quite well what he was thinking, for she knew, though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish Delight and that anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves.
Edmund was already feeling uncomfortable from having eaten too many sweets, and when he heard that the Lady he had made friends with was a dangerous witch he felt even more uncomfortable. But he still wanted to taste that Turkish Delight again more than he wanted anything else.

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

26 May 2023

All mystics—no matter what the theology and no matter what the religion—are unanimous on one thing: all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. They say you are already happy right now, though you don’t know it. Strange paradox, to be sure. Tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep, even though they don’t know it. They are having a nightmare. They don’t understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing we call human existence.

Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 8)

27 May 2023

Going to war on resentment: “it’s the principle of the matter” should be the inscription over the gateway to hell.

Anonymous AA member

28 May 2023

Make whatever preparations you need to leave the shadow world behind and encounter the fire of the Spirit and the light of God.

Universalis, instructions to Lectio Divina

29 May 2023

The first surrender is by the bottle. The second surrender is being surrendered by life through absolute failure to use self to free self.

Anonymous AA member

30 May 2023

Stop for a moment and contemplate in horror the endless list of attachments that you have become a prisoner to. Think of concrete things and persons, not abstractions. Once your attachment had you in its grip, you began to strive with every waking minute of your life to rearrange the world around you so that you could attain and maintain the objects of your attachment. This is an exhausting task. It leaves you little energy for the business of living and enjoying life fully. It is also an impossible task in an ever-changing world that you simply are not able to control. So, instead of living a life of serenity and fulfilment, you are doomed to a life of frustration, anxiety, worry, insecurity, suspense, and tension. For a few fleeting moments, the world does indeed yield to your efforts and rearranges itself to suit your desires. Then you experience a flash of pleasure and become happy, briefly. But it isn’t happiness at all because it is accompanied by the underlying fear that at any moment this world of things and people that you have painstakingly put in place will slip out of your control and let you down. And sooner or later, it will.

Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 11)

31 May 2023

Alcoholism in the hands of AA, and God is the greatest blessing. A blessing is anything that drags you kicking and screaming into something more than you have been. The greatest promise in AA is that you will be made useful: if you are a person armed with facts about themself, you are a person armed with facts about others.

Anonymous AA member

01 June 2023

It wasn’t until sixteen years after I sobered up on the AA programme that I discovered the benefits of working all the Steps, again and again. Until that time, I had rocking-chair sobriety: a great deal of motion, without going anywhere; a lot of activity, but not much action.

Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?

02 June 2023

You’re a woman with a brain and reasonable ability. Stop whining and find something to do.

Violet Crawley, Downton Abbey

03 June 2023

“Every single thing that a person sees or hears is an instruction to him in his conduct in the service of G‑d.” This may be the most oft-quoted teaching of the Baal Shem Tov. A core tenet of Chassidic philosophy is that “there is no place empty of Him.” G‑d is everywhere, and Divinity exists in everything.

Recounted by Levi Welton

04 June 2023

In short, you’ve been trained to upset yourself. For instance, when other people don’t live up to your computer’s expectations, it torments you with frustration, anger, or bitterness. When things are not under your control, or the future is uncertain, your computer insists that you experience anxiety, tension, or worry. Then you expend a lot of energy coping with these negative emotions by expending even more energy trying to rearrange the world around you so that the demands of your computer will be met. If that happens, you will be granted a measure of precarious peace; it’s precarious because at any moment, some trifle—a plane delay, a smartphone that doesn’t work, an email that hasn’t arrived, a spot on your tie or blouse, you name it—is going to be out of conformity with your computer’s programming, and the computer will insist that you become upset again. These things depend on the criteria society establishes; they depend on your conditioning.

Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (pp. 12-13)

05 June 2023

The Twelve Steps are a direct route to increasing freedom, sanity, and usefulness. Essentially, I drank to be free—free from the painful constrictions and limitations of my ego. I work the AA programme for the same reason. The Steps give me the freedom legitimately that booze provided spuriously. If I continue to work all the Steps, they continue to change me. This looks simple today, even though it took me years to arrive at this realisation. In the area where I got sober, the feeling was that you worked the first nine Steps once and from there on used only the last three Steps for the rest of your life. I entered AA in August 1947 and spent the first sixteen years of my AA life suffering from this unfortunate misconception.

Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?

06 June 2023

Take a look at the society we live in. It is rotten to the core, infected with attachments. What is an attachment? An attachment is an emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy. How is an attachment formed? First, there’s contact with something that gives you pleasure: a car, an attractively advertised modern appliance, a word of praise, or a person’s company. Then comes the desire to hold on to it and to repeat the gratifying sensation that the thing or person caused you. Finally comes the conviction that you will not be happy without that person or thing, for you have equated the pleasure it brings you with happiness. If you look carefully, you will see that the one and only thing that causes unhappiness is attachment. It is composed of two elements, one positive and the other negative. The positive element is the flash of pleasure and excitement, the thrill that you experience when you get what you are attached to. The negative element is the sense of threat and tension that always accompanies the attachment.

Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 14)

07 June 2023

Cora Crawley: Are we to be friends then?
Violet Crawley: We are allies, my dear, which can be a good deal more effective.

Downton Abbey

08 June 2023

Patience. This is a journey. Not every step we take will be forward. It may take time.

The Rings of Power (S01E08)

09 June 2023

Our late friend Dr Harry Tiebout, with his unique talent for clearly delineating the problem of the ego, emphasised that a reduced ego had marvellous recuperative powers and that surrender was an essential disciplinary function and experience. Tiebout pointed out that it took persistent work to keep the ego checked and that part of this lay in “repeated inventories, not just one.”

Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?

10 June 2023

Members of the Oxford Group sought to achieve spiritual regeneration by making a surrender to God through self-examination, confessing their character defects to another human being, making restitution for harm done to others, and giving without thought of reward.

Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers

11 June 2023

Reb Shlomo of Karlin once said, “If you want to pull someone out of the mire, it is not enough to stand above them with an outstretched hand. You yourself have to climb into the muck, immersing yourself fully in the mud. Only then can you grasp them with both hands and pull them out with you.”

Recounted by Levi Welton

12 June 2023

In 1948, Dr Bob … said …, “Almost always, if I measure my decision carefully by the yardsticks of absolute honesty, absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love, and it checks up pretty well with those four, then my answer can’t be very far out of the way.”

Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers

13 June 2023

I’ve read the Big Book many times and am constantly amazed at discovering something in there I’ve never seen before. Not until eight years ago did I notice the paragraph on page 63 that suggests taking Step Three aloud with another person, and I noticed it only because someone else pointed it out to me. Since then, I’ve tried this a number of times and find it a compelling and effective way of trying to turn my will and life over to God. There’s evidently a stronger commitment when we make it aloud in the presence of another.

Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?

14 June 2023

Remembering his own disastrous trip to Atlantic City and Bill’s experiment with keeping liquor on the sideboard to prove it was no longer a temptation, Dr Bob advocated that members stay in dry places whenever possible. ‘You don’t ask the Lord not to lead you into temptation, then turn around and walk right into it.’

Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers

15 June 2023

The Gospel should be read slowly, meditatively, with pauses between sentences or whenever the sense requires it. The aim is not to tell the text to God, who knows it, already, but to let God tell it to us. For this, there have to be silences so that what God is telling us can be heard.

Universalis, instructions to Lectio Divina

16 June 2023

‘You know, Dan,’ he told me, ‘many people coming into AA get the wrong conception of “Easy Does It”, and I hope you don’t. It doesn’t mean that you sit on your fanny, stay home from meetings, and let other people work the programme for you. It doesn’t mean you have an easy life without drinking. “Easy Does It” means you take it one day at a time.’

Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers

17 June 2023

The last half of the last paragraph of the last story in the Big Book [Second Edition] tells it straight. It’s on page 562: “I get everything I need in Alcoholics Anonymous—everything I need I get—and when I get what I need I invariably find that it was just what I wanted all the time.” Apparently, the mind is “the slayer of the real.” We don’t find God through reading, discussing, thinking, studying, arguing, and philosophising. We find him through specific actions which free us from the ignorance created by our self-will. We can’t do it alone. Our actions are met by God’s grace, but certainly we can work as hard as we’re able with the programme he has given us. I find that these Steps are circular and provide fresh understanding and benefits each time around. They give me room within myself to live as a free human being.

Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?

18 June 2023

He told me that, before I could be honest with him or any sponsor or anyone else, I had to ‘get honest with that joker in the glass’.

I didn’t know what he meant by ‘that joker in the glass’. He told me that was the man in the looking glass. ‘When you shave tomorrow, get honest with the man who looks back at you from the looking glass.’

Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers

19 June 2023

My father once told me that the way of The Faithful is committing to pay the price ... Even if the cost cannot be known. And trusting that, in the end, it will be worth it.

The Rings of Power (S01E08)

20 June 2023

Dr Bob said that even then, it wasn’t ‘Easy Does It’ for him. ‘In the morning, when I get up and put my feet on the cold floor, I have a battle all day to stay away from that drink. You know, Dan, there were times in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous when I passed those saloons that I had to pull my car over to the side of the curb and say a prayer.’

Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers

21 June 2023

Among the many benefits emerging from my reuse of all the Steps is a heightened ability to practise prayer and meditation. Persistent removal of the debris blocking me from God opens up a better contact with him. It becomes increasingly evident, too, that prayer is not a device for getting my own way, but rather a means to become what I should be.

Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?

22 June 2023

Whenever you are anxious and afraid, it is because you might lose—or fail to get—the object of your attachment, isn’t it? And any time you feel jealous, isn’t it because someone might make off with what you are attached to? Almost all of your anger comes from someone standing in the way of your attachment, doesn’t it? See how paranoid you become when your attachment is threatened? You can’t think objectively. Your whole vision becomes distorted, doesn’t it? Every time you feel bored, isn’t it because you are not getting a sufficient supply of what you believe will make you happy? Of what you are attached to? And when you are depressed and miserable, the cause is there for everyone to see: Life is not giving you what you have convinced yourself you can’t be happy without.

Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 17)

23 June 2023

Only you can show what you are. You choose by what you do.

The Rings of Power (S01E08)

24 June 2023

On one occasion, the Berditchever Rebbe and Alter Rebbe were walking together. Approaching a narrow doorway, each insisted that the other walk ahead. When it became clear that neither would dishonour the other by taking the lead, the chassidim broke the walls on either side, widening the doorway so they could pass through together. Said the Berditchever Rebbe, “Why break the wall? We have the power to simply walk through it!” Responded the Alter Rebbe, “Not everything that is within one’s ability does one need to act on.”

Recounted by Levi Welton

25 June 2023

Another benefit has been a noticeable increase in vitality. I came into AA at the age of twenty-five. In 1972, I celebrated my fiftieth birthday and twenty-fifth year of sobriety. Although this is older than I intended to be, I’ve noticed that I’m now able to work better and function better as a result of using all the Steps regularly.
If there are events in my past which haven’t been dealt with or relationships that haven’t been repaired, it takes energy to keep this material tamped down so I don’t have to look at it. When I can deal with such a condition consciously and clear it out, I don’t have to spend the rest of my life reacting to it unconsciously, with a consequent reduction in energy and effectiveness.

Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?

26 June 2023

‘Gentleman, please. We’re still members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Let’s carry the principles of AA into these business meetings. You are the servants of your group, here to take the ideas formulated by the committee. Let one man talk at a time, and let us conduct this business meeting as a service to the Lord and a service to our fellow members of Alcoholics Anonymous.’

Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers

27 June 2023

Remember how heartbroken you once were—how you were certain you never would be happy again—because you lost someone or something that was precious to you? But then what happened? Time passed, and you learned to get on pretty well, didn’t you? That should have alerted you to the falseness of your belief, to the trick your programmed mind was playing on you. An attachment is not a fact. It is a belief, a fantasy, in your head, acquired through programming. If that fantasy did not exist inside your head, you would not be attached. You would love things and people, and you would enjoy them thoroughly, but on a nonattachment basis. As a matter of fact, is there any other way to really enjoy something?

Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (pp. 18–19)

28 June 2023

Take a moment now to review all of your attachments. To each person or thing that comes to mind, say: “I am not really attached to you at all. I am merely deluding myself into the belief that without you I will not be happy.” Do this honestly and see the change that comes about within you.

Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 19)

29 June 2023

During nine years in AA I have observed that those who follow the Alcoholics Anonymous programme with the greatest earnestness and zeal not only maintain sobriety but often acquire finer characteristics and attitudes as well. One of these is tolerance. Tolerance expresses itself in a variety of ways: in kindness and consideration toward the man or woman who is just beginning the march along the spiritual path; in the understanding of those who perhaps have been less fortunate in educational advantages, and in sympathy toward those whose religious ideas may seem to be at great variance with our own. I am reminded in this connection of the picture of a hub with its radiating spokes. We all start at the outer circumference and approach our destination by one of many routes. To say that one spoke is much better than all the other spokes is true only in the sense of its being best suited to you as an individual. Human nature is such that, without some degree of tolerance, each one of us might be inclined to believe that we have found the best or perhaps the shortest spoke. Without some tolerance we might tend to become a bit smug or superior—which of course is not helpful to the person we are trying to help, and may be quite painful or obnoxious to others. No one of us wishes to do anything which might act as a deterrent to the advancement of another—and a patronising attitude can readily slow up this process. Tolerance furnishes, as a by-product, a greater freedom from the tendency to cling to preconceived ideas and stubbornly adhered-to opinions. In other words it often promotes an open-mindedness which is vastly important—in fact a prerequisite—to the successful termination of any line of search, whether it be scientific or spiritual. These, then, are a few of the reasons why an attempt to acquire tolerance should be made by each one of us.

Dr Bob

30 June 2023

Guilt and remorse are a substitute for action.

Jim W