Bill W., tells us how to solve personal problems, in his own words.

“Man is supposed to think, and act. He wasn’t made in God’s image to be an automaton.

My own formula along this line runs as follows: First, think through every situation pro and con, praying meanwhile that I be not influenced by ego considerations. Affirm that I would like to do God’s will.

Then, having turned the problem over in this fashion and getting no conclusive or compelling answer, I wait for further guidance, which may come into the mind directly or through other people or through circumstances.

If I feel I can’t wait, and still get no definite direction, I repeat the first  measure several times, try to pick  out the best courser, and then proceed to act. I know if I am wrong, the heavens won’t fall. A lesson will be learned in any case.”

As Bill Sees It. page 55.

What do you think?

“We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give to us on order and on our terms.”

In praying, we ask simply that throughout the day God place in us the best understanding of His will that we can have for that day, and that we be given the grace by which to carry it out.

There is a direct linkage among self-evaluation, meditation and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an  unshakeable foundation in life.”

As Bill Sees it. Page 33.

A Higher Thought just for today

“Strangely, I feel as if I have been incredibly lucky. Logically, I don’t believe in luck. I believe that people make their own lives what they are, but still feel so lucky to have been involved in a group which gave me the opportunity, and incentive, to start to make changes in my life. To understand why I am so angry, why I have been  so self-critical and self-destructing. Understanding why you feel as you do opens the gate for the even harder struggle of changing what you do.” (7)

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Making changes is part of making a life. If I choose to stay mired in the deep pit of depression, I can choose that. I have this as an option. But, if I want to choose and risk changing myself, I have the option of working to construct a different way of looking at my world. Just by changing my attitude about my life and the direction where I want it to go. I can make the hard changes. I want to change my attitude. I will now want to listen to those who have been in recovery for months/and or years and listen to their hopeful attitudes and how they are feeling better now that they are living one day at a time, and no longer fearful that their old nemesis, the sadness, will sneak up and change everything back to the way it was.

I can only change myself. I will try always and keep the focus on how I need to change, not how others around me need to change..

 MEDITATION

God, we are always heartened and healed by the group. Please guide us and let us be led to that healing community of those persons who are struggling to find the serenity that you promise to those who do your will. “Fear not, for I am always with you.”

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for all members of 12 Step fellowship groups. (1993, 1999) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 43. February 27.

Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, MD are my Super Heroes. No, they are not the fantasy figurines so popular these days with our children and grandchildren. Nor are they  the plastic bobbleheads we find in the toy stores.

Bill Wilson, was a Wall Street  stockbroker who since his sobriety day, began to  make investments in peoples lives that had become shattered by alcohol.    Dr. Bob Smith, hearing Bill’s story,  joined him. Bob was  a physician who himself personally   saw the ravages that alcohol did to other human beings, including himself and family.

Together, these two men brought men and women together  as mutual partners in helping to keep each other sober, by what was to be called the Alcoholics Anonymous program of recovery. It was this mutual aid for other alcoholics who were  till suffering  from addiction to alcohol who heard Bill and Bob’s stories of recovery, plus the many other recovering alcoholics  and  who made their stories their own.

Our one-time stockbroker and physician  have given us all, and thousands more around the world, a story about struggle,  where one recovering addict, who by  sharing their own story of recovery, give strength,  hope, sobriety to another human being, one at a time.

“To share your story is to save your life.”

Become a Super Hero your self. Share your story.  Join with Bill W., and Dr. Bob S.,  and become the hero others are looking to for help.

Hugh