:The AA Blog

Prayer brings us clos­er to Our Higher Power.  Making prayer and meditation part of your life is up to you.

Each day of our lives, we are presented with the freedom to choose between good and evil. While The Spirit of the Universe’s knowledge is certainly different than our own, a perspective on time beyond our com­prehension (for in the Universal mind past and future con­verge on the present), our choice coexists with Universe’s knowledge of it. To make the right choice, we have to be in touch and in tune with our Higher Power. Prayerful communication, regardless of method, is a way.

When you don’t pray, you don’t enter into any kind of a dialogue with a Higher Power. Instead, you dis­tance yourself. It’s your responsibility to enter into this dia­logue. You are free to choose, of course. I did.

Open up your heart to prayer. Words will come. Dance. Sing. Pray. Or be silent.

No Comments

A righteous person may fall seven times, yet rise again.

-Proverbs 24:16

 Someone once said that you’re successful if you get up one more time than you’ve been knocked down. It is said that success is not about accumulating things, but about overcoming our inclination toward evil.

Success comes in persisting past setbacks, in getting up again. Nobody is perfect and no sane person enjoys pain. Nevertheless, because of fear of failure, many people stop trying. And there is no way to succeed without really try­ing.

We took a great many risks during our active alcoholism­ perhaps unwittingly-but we took them. Now, we should take healthy risks in recovery. Calling someone for the first time, reaching out to someone, letting our guard down, coming back after a slip-these are all examples of taking a chance on recovery, and that’s the one bet that can payoff beyond your wildest dreams.

You only fail in recovery once you stop trying. The win­ners in the program are the ones who keep trying even on the days they don’t feel like trying.

Take a chance on someone’s recovery. Reach out and make a friend. But not before you work on your own.

No Comments

All of us have been hurt, betrayed, lied to or disappointed in our lives. It goes without saying. If you’re a human, you will develop resentments and grudges. The issue is not whether you should or shouldn’t have them — the question is whether you will release them.

If you hold on to your resentments, you are chained to the past. If you hold on to your grudges, your life is predictable because you will continue to be stuck in repetitive ways of thinking and behaving. And until you forgive, you will never have full access to all of who you are because forgiveness is the hallway between the past and the future. It’s imperative to practice forgiveness and the only way to do that is to move out of your head and into your heart. It’s difficult to do it alone, but all you have to do is ask for divine grace. It’s almost impossible to forgive in your mind because it really has nothing to do with your mind – it has to do with your hurt heart.

Unknowingly, your resentments define who you are and who you can be in the future because you can be only as great as the size of your heart. And if your ability to love from deep in your heart is clouded by the experiences of the past, you are in a lose-lose situation. You first lose your freedom when something penetrates your emotional body and affects you so painfully. And you lose again when you decide to hold on to the bad feelings instead of turning them into powerful fuel for the future.
- Excerpt from The 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse.

 At the core of our 12 Steps is Finding Answers In The Heart (FAITH) and forgiveness is key to the process. Until we forgive others, we can never truly be forgiven. We will not know freedom and our spiritual experience will not be complete. This is a program of action, and that requires working The Steps. It doesn’t matter how sick we perceive someone else to be, if we have resentment against him or her and we haven’t admitted our part then they will continue to occupy space in our head, which blocks our freedom.

Forgiveness is the key to unlocking your greatest future. If you truly want to liberated and live a joyous and free life you have to forgive and release your resentments.

No Comments

The truly humble person is unable to feel anger.

Sure, we get angry. Who doesn’t? But anger gets in the way of recovery and renewal. It’s all-consuming, a kind of undifferentiated negative energy that gets in our way. Anger colors everything. It immobilizes us. We get stuck in it. Anger is one of the many things that led us to our addiction. If we can root out each of our addictions, one at a time, we might be able to find out how we got here in the first place. Not only will such a process of self-inquiry help, but without anger, it may no longer hurt.

In recovery, we transform our anger into humility-and bow our heads before God. Stop blaming yourself or those you love. Without humility, we can’t do Step Seven. What’s humility anyway? Simply a recognition that we’re not so great and that God is greater. That’s why we ask God to help us in the process of removing our shortcomings. In working our Twelve Step Program, we are partners with God, only God is a little more so.

When you feel yourself get­ting angry, look at yourself in a mirror. Think over why others may be angry at you. It’s a humbling experience.

 From: 100 Blessings Every Day

3 Comments

The classic literature on spirituality suggests a more ancient image for the spiritual life-that of building, in which our life’s time is occu­pied in the construction of a spiritual edifice, a kind of “home.” The rich metaphor of architecture offers several advantages. It invites thinking in terms of tools, materials, and choices: Which tools, which materials do we choose to use in shaping our spiritual abode? Building also requires a plan, or at least planning, and so thinking-how and what one chooses to see-makes a difference to the outcome. And finally, although the task of construction is laborious, mistakes can be undone, and what is learned from them can be used to improve the structure as a whole.

While both growth and building add useful shades of meaning to the experience of spirituality, the spirituality of imperfection offers an alternative image for the spiritual life: that of journey. And the practice of storytelling brings the metaphor of journey to life, for the narrative format of “what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now” suggests the particular kind of journey that is a pilgrimage. That “plot” bestows on the storyteller the “identity” revealed by the story, the identity of the kind of “journeyer” who is a pilgrim.

The pilgrimage metaphor conveys spirituality’s open-endedness by reinforcing the essential distinction between confident certainty and the mysteries of uncertainty. A pilgrimage involves not a settled and determined lockstep march to a fixed point, but a winding, turning, looping, crisscrossing, occasionally backtracking peregrination-the ancient name for “pilgrimage” that conveys its wandering essence. It is no accident that Bill Wilson’s favorite image, repeated literally thousands of times in letters to people who sought his advice, de­picted sobriety as “a kind of Pilgrim’s Progress.” “We claim spiri­tual progress rather than spiritual perfection,” reminds the A.A. Big Book.

The paramount discovery gradually dawns as the pilgrimage continues-the realization that the ultimate goal you seek is not some reality “out there,” but the awaken­ing of an identity that lies within.

“Our destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things,” writer Henry Miller noted. Such a destination fits T. S. Eliot’s description in concluding “Little Gidding.”

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

The goal of the pilgrimage that is spirituality is, simply, to keep moving-spiritually–one step at a time. Or as Confucius said, “It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.”

Excerpt from “The Sprituality of Imperfection”

No Comments

When someone does something that causes him to have an unpleasant or painful experience, he almost universally commits never to repeat the unhealthy behavior ever again. How often have you gotten nauseous after consuming too much food or drink and declared never to do it again? Or went to sleep much too late only to be exhausted and irritable the next day, and then committed to yourself to now always be in bed before 11:00 o’clock?

But like most everyone else, after a few days pass and the discomfort has faded into a memory, you’ll then easily repeat the identical negative behavior once again. This is because when the pain of a situation is no longer present and you saw there had been a relief, you will simply lose your once crystal clear clarity.

Imagine someone has a heart attack and is rushed to the emergency room. While recovering in his hospital bed, he prays to God to change his ways and begin to eat better, start an exercise program, and work much less at the office. Sadly, these commitments are often short-lived because when the pain of the experience subsides, the old habits naturally and quickly return.

The fact is if you’re in pain, it’s not very hard to have clarity on the type of behavior you want to begin to have. Anyone can do that. What takes effort and is uncomfortable is to accept God’s will and not drift back to your old ways when you aren’t in any physical discomfort.

A great way to accomplish this is: before you want to repeat a self-destructive behavior, stop and spend a moment to mentally recall the aftermath of the past event. It’s very important actually to take yourself through the whole experience and “bring it back to life.” This will make it real to you all over again.

Although there will always be a part of you that will try to push this negative association away so you can engage in your old ways, the more you’re able to focus on the negative consequence, it will dilute your anticipated pleasure. And just like lifting weights, the more you do this, the stronger and stronger your “God Power” will become, making the behavior easier to and easier to resist. So, reliving it in your mind today will allow you to have a happier and more meaningful life both today – and tomorrow.

1 Comment

Daytona Beach Fla -Man finds himself in critical condition - the victim of a violent act of drunkeness…

man's face on fire because of beer

There are certain truths, commandments and unwritten rulse that all men should understand.

1. What goes up must come Down!

2. Never ever have sex with another man’s wife without his permission!

3. NEVER EVER,EVER, EVER…MESS WITH A MAN”S BEER! There could be painful serious conquences.

Dean Allen Fultz found this out the unpleasant way…after an arguement this weekend with 42-year-old John Harper  over BEER, Cigarettes, and Money. Fultz found himself being draged into the woods by Harper who later poured gasoline on his face and lit him on fire. Fultz in now in an Orlando Hospital in critical suffering from 3rd Deree burns – LUCKY to be alive!

1 Comment

When: September 12, 2009 – 7 am – 4 pm
Where: Bicentennial Park – Downtown Miami, Florida
Who: InTheRooms.com – Rally For Recovery

Rally for Recovery by In The Rooms

Why:
This weekend is the InTheRooms.com 1st annual “Rally For Recovery” in Miami. The Rally for Recovery will be held in Bicentennial Park in beautiful Downtown Miami and will include a festival featuring Eric Burdon and the Animals, Richie Supa and many more.

For a small donation of $9 dollars, you can be part of this great walk and festival – as well as support InTheRooms.com’s non-profit foundation for the recovery community. The folks at InTheRooms.com promise that the event will be full of great music, delicious food and wonderful array of great people from the recovery community.

Want to be part of the 2009 Rally for Recovery? REGISTER HERE!

Eric Burdon and the Animals and Richie Supa are just a couple of the acts set to perform at the rally which is scheduled to be an all day event that begins with registrations at 7 am and the festival doesn’t stop until well past 4 pm.

InTheRooms.com is the fastest growing social networking website on the web. At ITR, you’ll find a friendly and supportive community of people in recovery – including friends and family of people in recovery.

1 Comment

There are currently over a million soldiers in the US army, many have seen combat and survived to live with what they’ve witnessed. Some soldiers manage to cope, others never do, resorting to the use of drugs and alcohol to numb the pain and somehow kill the visions and voices in their heads.

Many soldiers suffer from a variety of psychological problems including nightmares, flashbacks, paranoia and irrational anger for these reasons, Alcohol and Drug abuse is quickly becoming a growing problem among returning war vets, with the number of binge drinkers and narco-users nearly doubling in the past six years. Figures suggest that 11 out of every 1,000 soldiers suffered from alcohol abuse problems in the first have of 2009.

1 Comment

The Department Of Health – Shines a light on new research that links sleep problems with alcohol use. The research states that more the 50% of drinkers are unware of this link. Drinkers often feel that a drink or two will help them fall asleep – not the case.

More often than not your body is in a state of cleaning house meaning that as you slumber your body isn’t really resting at all, therefore the quality of your sleep is affected, leaving you feeling tired and sometimes even hungover the next morning.

To avaiod this feeling of sleepiness, researchers suggest that you avoid drinking too much alcohol prior to bed time, this way your body has enough time to metabolize the alcohol. When you awake you’ll feel more refreshed, and you’ll have a lot less explaining to do, particularly if you had one too many shots of the bottle.

1 Comment