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If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Emily Dickinson
Basically, I need AA meetings because it's where they keep all the robins.
For alcoholics of course,
there's the very real possibility that
no one is trying to "make us" feel anything,
and that we might just be making it about ourselves
when it's not.
Heard this in a meeting this morning and thought it was a great acronym.
And (as I've written about here before) I guard against not only the automatic negative thought undermining my sobriety (and serenity) but also from assuming that a negative thought is somehow "more realistic" than a positive one.
That's just bullshit. Positive thoughts are not unrealistic.
Thoughts are thoughts, some good some bad, some healthy some less so. I may not choose what pops into my head but I can certainly select what I choose to focus on -- which can then be instrumental in getting into action (which is ultimately how I transform my thinking).
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.
These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.
Beautiful people do not just happen.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
In my experience of AA meetings and the people I've met there, everyone -- regardless of how sick they still may be, or whatever they're dealing with -- everyone is, if not moving towards healing and recovery, at least facing in the right direction.
Most of the people in AA have truly experienced an inner darkness, and are now, even if uncertainly, reaching for the light.
And to me that makes them beautiful.
Even those that are my Great Spiritual Teachers -- the ones who push my buttons the hardest. (Albeit maybe more beautiful from a distance right up in my business. Work in progress!)
Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Collected Poems and Translations"
If you can stay sober for
24 hours, you can pretty much
do anything
for 24 hours.
Including stay sober for another 24 hours.
Just take it a day at a time.
An hour at a time, if you need to.
AA's suggestions are not "feel good" mottoes.
They are suggestions based on
practical, successful experience.
How am I so sure?
I am literally living proof.
And I have plenty of company.
In a given day,
a non-alcoholic might think something like
35,000 thoughts.
In that same day,
an alcoholic might think one thought,
35,000 times.
The people who challenge me the most, teach me the most.