God could and would....IF we let Him.

I don't think any words could put it more simply.  The problem is...sometimes, even when I think (there's the problem ;o) ) that I am doing what I am supposed to, I am NOT in fact letting the sunlight of the Spirit guide me. Truthfully, If I were to slow down for just a minute, and pay attention to the un-easiness in my gut, I would know that what I am doing or thinking or saying is not God's will.

I have had a resentment now for a few months...Oh yes, I have done all of the little things that allowed me to "hide from the resentment" and believe that it wasn't really there....or I had worked through it, however, whenever this person's NAME even came up, I would "feel" it.  It came to a head yesterday, I was finally there....STUCK. Not wanting to participate in life in general, not to mention MY OWN!  Pity Pot...what a horribly necessary place to visit! Especially when we are aware that we are there! That place where we KNOW we are angry, we KNOW what that does TO and FOR us, and for some old, sick reason, we justify being there, almost to a point where we say....This is MINE, AND I'M KEEPING IT! I HAVE A RIGHT TO IT, I'M NOT GIVING IT UP!

Geeeezzzz talk about EGO!! ;o) Needless to say...plenty of prayers yesterday evening ;o) Just to awaken to the words.... God Bless ________________. I then began the Mantra.... "I forgive you ____________   _____________, and I release you to the Holy Spirit". Needless to say....Today is a much better day! I am present, and an active participant in my life....Thank God.  And for some strange reason <g> nothing looks quite so "awful" today....it actually appears to be "workable".  

Ahhh yes....it doesn't matter how much time we have....Life still shows up. It's what I choose to do with it at any given moment that is the actual deciding factor.

(Soberly submitted by Vicki M. from Arizona)

What AA has done for me!  What an order I can't go through with it.  There are so many things that AA has done for me and I am sure I will miss some things but I will try to share the most.  First of all, because of AA I have a Higher Power whom I chose to call God.  This is the first thing that AA gave me which allowed me to move forward and work the steps. Granted, I was not a real quick study on this, but I did get them completed.

AA has given me a way to live.  Today it is not always about I, myself and me.  Today much of it is about you and how can I be of service. 

AA has taught me that if I want to keep my sobriety I have to be willing to pass it on and I do it as frequently as is possible.  I don't say no to valid AA requests.

AA has given me the ability to love, not only myself, but you. Learning to love myself has been very slow and very difficult.  I have a wonderful sponsor and in her efforts to get me to love myself she told me to look in the mirror and say "I love myself, I think I'm grand, I'm  going to the movies to hold my hand" kind of a silly little ditty but it works.  It has always been easy to love you but very difficult for me to open up and accept your love.  That is low self-esteem, but getting better all the time. 

for their disease and feel very very grateful that they were the loving parents that I was so fortunate to have. 

AA has taught me to carry the message and not the alcoholic.  Gosh we sure do want everyone who has our disease to recover but unfortunately not all make it.  I am a firm believer that my mother died so I would live.  You see we were great drinking buddies, even went to jail twice together and barely tolerated each other.  She died exactly 5 months to the day of my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.  I know God had a plan and she was so miserable. 

AA has given me the ability to be self supporting through my own contributions and thank God as I have absolutely no one to fall back on except God. 

AA has given me a family.  My blood family is very small, a few cousins on my mother's side and no contact with my father's side.  No children, no brothers or sisters so you are my family.  I have a wonderful family in my home group of which I have been attending for 22 years, but I have a new family too. I belong to a Wandering group called the Wandering Juiceberries and we get together every Friday night at a different meeting somewhere in Los Angeles or Orange County and then go for coffee after the meeting.  They feel like a bunch of brothers and sisters and I am truly grateful.  I really do love them.  We even bicker like a family on where are we going to go.  Oh, I love it.  They are such neat people, they make me feel young.  The sobriety in the group ranges I believe from 35 years down to about 2 months. 

AA has given me peace of mind, I no longer have to solve my problems with a drink, drink hell, a drunk.  I was a pig.  Today I know that when there is pain, I must be growing and that it will pass and I don't have to have the magic elixir and create more.  This is just a small glimpse of what AA has done for me.  I have been given more than I ever deserved.  I have lived 19 years more  than they predicted I would and it has all been a gift of this program.  Today if the Big Man says my number is up it's okay as I have had a wonderful life, however, hope he waits a few more years, still some things I want to do.

(Soberly submitted by Mary Ann M. from Huntington Beach, CA)

THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD, GO I

I just received a phone call, the AA hotline, telling me of a close friend who had hung himself.  His mother found him hanging in the backyard of the home they shared, from a tree.  She has severe heart trouble and was hospitalized.  As my friend talked about him, I was saying to myself, There but for the Grace of God, Go I, over and over in my mind.   But as I continued to listen, I went back to the first time I met this man.  At my first meeting he was there, talking the talk, telling the group about being clean and sober. 

I watched this man over the years, he talked good, but continued to do the same things that he had been doing all his life using the people, the system and the program to get what he wanted.  He never got honest, never had a sponsor, never worked/lived the steps and never really got clean or sober.  I watched as his life never got any better than what it had been on the outside.  With each time I was with him in a meeting, I saw what just being "Around the program" really meant.  He had been "around the program" for 18 years, never giving the program as much as he had given his drinking.

As I sit here, in the early morning hours, thinking to myself, that I am truly "A Miracle".  I read the words in the 5th Chapter of the Big Book, How It Works..."Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.  Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates.  They are not at fault: they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty".  My friend was one of those "Unfortunates" who never gave himself completely to this simple program.

I know now, anyone can "talk the talk", we have to walk the walk and give ourselves completely to the program to have any recovery at all.

Please, when you say your prayers tonight, mention Randy Moore and those who still suffer, but remember his family and especially his mother who will live with the sight of finding her son hanging in that tree.  But most of all, Thank God for the gift you were given.  The Gift of Recovery!

"There but for the grace of God, go I".  Thank you God!

(Soberly submitted by Gina C. from Elkhart, IN)