Recovery Universe - Share Your Experience, Strength, and Hope

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Just For Today

Up Or Down

'This is our road to spiritual growth. We change every day.... This growth is not the result of wishing but of action and prayer.'

Basic Text, p. 35-36

Our spiritual condition is never static; if it's not growing, it's decaying. If we stand still, our spiritual progress will lose its upward momentum. Gradually, our growth will slow, then halt, then reverse itself. Our tolerance will wear thin; our willingness to serve others will wane; our minds will narrow and close. Before long, we'll be right back where we started: in conflict with everyone and everything around us, unable to bear even ourselves.

Our only option is to actively participate in our program of spiritual growth. We pray, seeking knowledge greater than our own from a Power greater than ourselves. We open our minds and keep them open, becoming teachable and taking advantage of what others have to share with us. We demonstrate our willingness to try new ideas and new ways of doing things, experiencing life in a whole new way. Our spiritual progress picks up speed and momentum, driven by the Higher Power we are coming to understand better each day.

Up or down - it's one or the other, with very little in between, where spiritual growth is concerned. Recovery is not fueled by wishing and dreaming, we've discovered, but by prayer and action.

Just for today: The only constant in my spiritual condition is change. I cannot rely on yesterday's program. Today, I seek new spiritual growth through prayer and action.

pg. 238

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Sobriety Tools

TOOLS FOR SOBRIETY

1 ) Stay away from that first drink, taking the 1st step daily.
2 ) Attend AA regularly and get involved.
3 ) Progress is made ONE DAY AT A TIME.
4 ) Use the 24 Hour plan.
5 ) Remember, your disease is incurable, progressive and fatal.
6 ) Do first things first.
7 ) Don't become too tired.
8 ) Eat at regular hours.
9 ) Use the telephone. (not just after the fact but during too.).
10) Be active - don't just sit around. Idle time will kill you.
11) Use the Serenity Prayer.
12) Change old routines and patterns.
13) Don't become too hungry.
14) Avoid loneliness.
15) Practice control of your anger.
16) Air your resentments.
17) Be willing to help whenever needed.
18) Be good to yourself, you deserve it.
19) Easy does it.
20) Get out of the "IF ONLY" trap.
21) Remember HOW IT WAS. Your last drunk, the feelings etc.
22) Beaware of your emotions.
23) Help another in his/her recovery, extend your hand, listen.
24) Try to turn your life and your will over to your High Power.
25) Avoid all mood-altering drugs, read labels on all medicines.
26) Turn loose of old ideas.
27) Avoid drinking situations/occasions.
28) Replace old drinking buddies with new AA buddies.
29) Read the Big Book.
30) Try not to be dependent on another (sick relationships).
31) Be grateful and when not make a GRATITUDE list.
32) Get off the "Pity Pot"...the only thing you'll get is a ring around your bottom if you don't.
33) See knowledgeable help when troubled and or otherwise.
34) Face it! You are powerless over alcohol, people, places and things.
35) Try the 12 and 12, not just 1 and 12 or 1, 12 and 13!
36) Let go and Let God.
37) Use the God bag and the answers: yes, no or wait I have something better in store for you. Don't forget to say thanks.
38) Find courage to change through the example of others who have.
39) Don't try to test your will power - give an alcoholic one shovel and one pail and in one hour he/she will need 100 wheel barrels.
40) Live TODAY, not YESTERDAY, not TOMORROW - projection is planning the results before anything even happens.
41) Avoid emotional involvements the first year - you end up putting the other person first and lose sight of "your" program.
42) Remember alcohol is - cunning, baffiling and powerful.
43) Rejoice in the manageability of your new life.
44) Be humble--Humility is not in thinking of your self more, but in thinking more of yourself less often. Watch your ego.
45) Share your experience, strength and hope.
46) Cherish your recovery.
47) Dump your garbage regularly - GIGO = Garbage In Garbage Out.
48) Get plenty of "restful" sleep.
49) Stay sober for you - not someone else - otherwise it won't work.
50) Practice rigorous honesty with yourself and others.
51) Progress is made ONE DAY AT A TIME, not 10 years in one day!
55) Make no major decisions the first year.
56) Get a sponsor and use him/her. (not just selectively share).
57) Know that no matter what your problems, someone's had them before. Don't be afraid to share, as a problem shared is one 1/2 solved.
58) Strive for progress not perfection.
59) When in doubt ask questions. The only stupid question is the one not asked.
You weren't afraid to speak before, so why start now.
60) Use prayer and meditation...not just pillow talk, get on those knees.
Put your shoes under the bed just in case someone's looking.
61) Maintain a balance: spiritual, physical, emotional and mental.
62) Don't use other substances as a maintenance program.
63) Learn to take spot check inventories.
64) Watch out for the RED FLAGS ... things that give excuses for poor
65) Know that its okay to be human ... just don't drink over it.
66) Be kind to yourself; it's about time, don't you think.
67) Don't take yourself so seriously- take the disease seriously!
68) Know that whatever it is that's causing pain - it shall pass.
69) Stay as away from the DRY DRUNK SYNDROME as humanly as possible.
70) Don't give away more than you can afford too, your sobriety comes first and must be the number 1 priority. Protect it at all costs.
71) Take down those bricks from the wall around you; you'll be able to see the daylight better. Let people know who you are.
72) Get a home group and attend it regularly.
73) Know that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train, but actually a ray of hope. Drop the negativity.
74) Know that you are not alone, that's why the "We" is in the steps.
75) Be willing to go to any lengths to stay and be sober.
76) Know that no matter how bleak and dark your past may be, your future is clean, bright and clear if you don't drink today.
77) Stay out of your own way.
78) Don't be in a hurry--remember "TIME = Things I Must Earn".
79) Watch the EGO. "EGO = Ease God Out".
80) Protect your sobriety at all costs. Keep the light on you.
81) Learn to listen, not just hear. Be open-minded and nonjudgmental.
82) Know that if your insides match your outsides, everyone looks good.
83) If the rest of the world looks bad, check yourself out first.
84) Gratitude is in the attitude.
85) When all else fails ... punt! Up the number of meetings!!!
86) Remember FEAR = FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL!
87) Remember FINE = Fouled up, Insecure/insane, Neurotic and Emotionally imbalanced...watch the FINE.
88) Handle what you can and leave the rest, don't overtax yourself. You can only accomplish so much in a given 24 hours.
89) Honesty and consistency are key factors in recovery.
90) Let the little kid in you out - learn how to laugh from the gut.

The Twelve Steps		The Twelve Traditions
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptlym admitted it. 11. Sought though prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.		1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity. 2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority - a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern. 3. The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking. 4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole. 5. Each group has but one primary purpose - to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. 6. An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. 7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. 8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers. 9. A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. 10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy. 11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films. 12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.