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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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The Prescription for Sobriety

The Prescription

We see so many people in meetings, and out on the streets, still stumbling around with the program, hurting, whining and crying, still all covered up with the Great 3 S's of our disease, Self-pity, Self-righteousness, and Self-Bullshit, and wondering why they can't get "IT" . . .

In every meeting the Prescription is read and heard and referred to, on the walls in posters. It is spelled out precisely in the BigBook on Pages 59 and 60.

Unwilling to disregard fear, and the 7 deadlies mentioned in the 12x12 on page 48, you know, pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and SLOTH , people trouble themselves in vain to read the teachings. They see the prescription, but don't take the medicine --- How then can they do away with their illness?"

From the Big Book Page 72, Chapter 6, INTO ACTION . . .

"In actual practice, we usually find a solitary self-appraisal insufficient. Many of us thought it necessary to go much farther. We will be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons why we should do so. The best reason first: If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have turned to easier methods. Almost invariably they got drunk. Having persevered with the rest of the program, they wondered why they fell. We think the reason is that they never completed their housecleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and HONESTY, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else ALL of their life story.

As it was told to me, "Until someone in AA knows everything you know about yourself, you are nowhere."

WHY???
Because, until the steps are done thoroughly, and the garbage resolved and eliminated, the old thought system still has a basis for return.

And they still wonder why they are not Getting "IT"

"Half-measures availed us nothing!!"

On Page 98 of the Big Book, "Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man [and woman] that he [she] can get well regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he [she] trust in God and clean house."

The Steps of the Program are the Mops and Brooms to Clean House.

It isn't any secret, friends, it is all spelled out clearly. There are 12 things to do, and one to not do, no matter what.

If the steps are not done, and done thoroughly, then the individual must live with the consequences of that decision or lack of decision . . . Sorry about that, but that is the way it is, One Day At A Time.

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.