BG Daily Post

BG Daily Post — July 01, 2020

July 01 — Daily Reflections

THE BEST FOR TODAY

The principles we have set down are guides to progress.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 60

Just as a sculptor will use different tools to achieve desired effects in creating a work of art, in Alcoholics Anonymous the Twelve Steps are used to bring about results in my own life. I do not overwhelm myself with life’s problems, and how much more work needs to be done. I let myself be comforted in knowing that my life is now in the hands of my Higher Power, a master craftsman who is shaping each part of my life into a unique work of art. By working my program I can be satisfied, knowing that in the doing the best that we can for today, we are doing all that God asks of us.”

AA World Services

July 01 — Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

In following the A.A. program with its twelve steps, we have the advantage of a better understanding of our problems. Day after day our sobriety results in the formation of new habits, normal habits. As each twenty-four-hour period ends, we find that the business of staying sober is a much less trying and fearsome ordeal than it seemed in the beginning. Do I find it easier as I go along?

Meditation For The Day

Learn daily the lesson of trust and calm in the midst of the storms of life. Whatever of sorrow or difficulty the day may bring, God’s command to you is the same. Be grateful, humble, calm, and loving to all people. Leave each soul the better for having met you or heard you. For all kinds of people, this should be your attitude: a loving desire to help and an infectious spirit of calmness and trust in God. You have the answer to loneliness and fear, which is calm faith in the goodness and purpose in the universe.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may be calm in the midst of storms. I pray that I may pass on this calmness to others who are lonely and full of fear.

Hazelden Foundation

July 01 –As Bill Sees It

The Reality of Spiritual Experiences, p. 182

“Perhaps you raise the question of hallucination versus the divine imagery of a genuine spiritual experience. I doubt if anyone has authoritatively defined what a hallucination really is. However, it is certain that all recipients of spiritual experiences declare their reality. The best evidence of that reality is in the subsequent fruits. Those who receive these gifts of grace are very much changed people, almost invariably for the better. This can scarcely be said of those who hallucinate.

“Some might think me presumptuous when I say that my own experience is real. Nevertheless, I can surely report that in my own life and in the lives of countless others, the fruits of that experience have been real, and the benefactions beyond reckoning.

Talk, 1960

AA World Services

July 1 — Eye Opener (1950)

A sinner is usually a sinner because he is thinking wrong, whereas a mean person has a warped and deformed personality.
A sinner’s faults usually lie in his thoughtlessness, but the mean person is nearly always a person of strong will and determination.
Sinning stems from weakness, meanness from strength.
A dog will love a sinner but seldom a mean person.

Hazelden Foundation

July 1 — Big Book Quote

“I was not too well at the time, and was plagued by waves of self-pity and resentment. This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day. Many times I have gone to my old hospital in despair. On talking to a man there, I would be amazingly lifted up and set on my feet. It is a design for living that works in rough going.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, PG.15

July 1 — Walk In Dry Places
NEVER TOO LATE
Self-Expression —

Wasted time and lost opportunities were often the process paid for our problems. In recovery, some people feel they have no opportunity to do certain things because they’re too old or the right time has passed.
this is all false belief, and part of it may grow out of the emphasis on youth, which sees to be greatly prized. We can’t be young forever, but we can always have interests and enthusiasm. We can work to maintain good health and an optimistic outlook.
We can learn something new every day of our lives. We can feel good, we can launch new ventures, and we can try new ways to use our talents. It’s never too late to be what we ought to be.

“Whatever my age or place in life, I’ll know today that wonderful opportunities for creative self-expression are all around me.”

— Mel B.

Hazelden Foundation

Stools & Bottles — Day 01
First Daily Reminder –

Let’s be honest today. Let’s face facts. Alcohol is a beverage for most people but a drug for alcoholics. Our uncontrolled use of this narcotic has made us sick in body, mind and spirit. We are powerless over it. It threatens our lives and sanity.

Daily Inventory –

How alcoholic are we? Do we drink sanely? Are we all through fighting booze? Have we really hit bottom? Will we accept AA?

Suggested Meditation –

As sick alcoholics, we should join AA. As members, we should recall daily that we are arresting an incurable illness. That we are sick — not plain crazy. Our uncontrollable drinking has placed us in a very bad spot. To take it or leave it alone — that is the question. Drinking alcoholics can do neither — that is our problem. To live sanely, we must leave it alone — that is a act. Without AA this is impossible. AA is the best solution to our drinking problem.

Spiritual Contact –

Our Father, give us an understanding of our illness. Strengthen our efforts to overcome it. Lead us in the paths of contented sobriety.

Daily Physical Audit –

AA is made up of the persons who are attempting to compensate for a lifetime of mistakes. That is the premise upon which our recovery program is based. Through study and honest endeavor, we arrest our mental and physical illness. The baffling part of alcoholism is our disregard for health. We depend too much upon curing the disease when we should be building up healthy bodies to prevent it.

Hazelden Foundation

BG Daily Post — June 30, 2020

June 30 — Daily Reflections

SACRIFICE = UNITY = SURVIVAL

The unity, the effectiveness, and even the survival of A. A. will always depend upon our continued willingness to give up some of our personal ambitions and desires for the common safety and welfare. Just as sacrifice means survival for the individual alcoholic, so does sacrifice means unity and survival for the group and for A. A.’s entire Fellowship.
-AS BILL SEES IT, p. 220

I have learned that I must sacrifice some of my personality traits for the good of A. A. and, as a result, I have been rewarded with many gifts. False pride can be inflated through prestige but, by living Tradition Six, I receive the gift of humility instead. Cooperation without affiliation is often deceiving. If I remain unrelated to outside interest, I am free to keep A. A. autonomous. Then the Fellowship will be here, healthy and strong for generations to come.

AA World Services

June 30 — Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

Alcoholics are unable or unwilling, during their addiction to alcohol, to live in the present. The result is that they live in a constant state of remorse and fear because of their unholy past and its morbid attraction, or the uncertain future and its vague foreboding. So the only real hope for the alcoholic is to face the present. Now is the time. Now is ours. The past is beyond recall. The future is as uncertain as life itself. Only the now belongs to us. Am I living in the now?

Meditation For The Day

I must forget the past as much as possible. The past is over and gone forever. Nothing can be done about the past, except to make what restitution I can. I must not carry the burden of my past failures. I must go on in faith. The clouds will clear and the way will lighten. The path will become less stony with every forward step I take. God has no reproach for anything that He has healed. I can be made whole and free, even though I have wrecked my life in the past. Remember the saying: “Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more.”

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may not carry the burden of the past. I pray that I may cast it off and press on in faith.

Hazelden Foundation

June 30 — As Bill Sees It

Imaginary Perfection, p. 181

When we early A.A.’s got our first glimmer of how spiritually prideful we could be, we coined this expression: “Don’t try to be a saint by Thursday!”

That old-time admonition may look like another of those handy alibis that can excuse us from trying for our best. Yet a closer view reveals just the contrary. This is our A.A. way of warning against pride-blindness, and the imaginary perfections that we do not possess.

Only Step One, where we made the 100 per cent admission that we were powerless over alcohol, can be practiced with absolute perfection. The remaining eleven Steps state perfect ideals. They are goals toward which we look, and the measuring sticks by which we estimate our progress.

1. Grapevine, June 1961
2. 12 & 12, p. 68

AA World Services

June 30 — Eye Opener (1950)

We are very apt to travel in the direction we are headed. Even the brightest of sunshiny days appears overcast if we wear black glasses. If we enter a restaurant by the rear door, we will undoubtedly find garbage cans, smoked and grimy walls and hear the discord of pots and pans. If you enter by the front door, you will find cleanliness and order.
Let us enter each new day by the front door.

Hazelden Foundation

June 30 — Big Book Quote

“The doctor’s theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us. As laymen, our opinion as to its soundness may, of course, mean little. But as ex-problem drinkers, we can say that his explanation makes good sense. It explains many things for which we cannot otherwise account”

Alcoholics Anonymous, PG. XXVI

June 30 — Walk In Dry Places
Making all things new
Releasing the Past

A 12 Step program should give us a new way of life, our friends often say. We should have new attitudes, new experiences, new opportunities.
If we’re to grasp this new way of life, we must let go of the old habits of the past. No alcoholic can recover, for example, by choosing to remain in the old drinking environment. We must also “recover” from other relationships and patterns that were destructive or kept us from our highest good.
“Behold, I make all things new,” is the ancient promise. As our thoughts and beliefs change, the old patterns drop away and the new life reveals itself to us.

“Today I’ll drop the negative or outworn relics from the past and press on to find the things that are for my greatest good.”
— Mel B.

Hazelden Foundation

Stools & Bottles — Day 30
Thirtieth Daily Reminder —

The unmanageable lives which we have developed from years of self-centered drinking have taught us our weakness apart from the help and influence of a Higher Power. AA suggests that we avail ourselves of God’s power. It advises us to pray unselfish prayers that help us and are a blessing to mankind.

Daily Inventory —

Have we a relationship with God? Is there a brotherhood of man? Are we our brother’s keeper? Do we understand the power of unselfish prayer?

Suggested Meditation —

Some members claim that AA is a selfish program. Is this true or is AA just the opposite–a program which frees us from self-centeredness? Their statements are well meant but most misleading. It seems that intelligence, not selfishness, actuates our recovery from alcoholism. Step 11 suggests that we pray to lose self-will and that our prayers include welfare of others.

Spiritual Contact —

Our Father, let us see beyond life’s material needs to our 24-hour spiritual needs. Clear our minds of selfishness. May we be guided by Your Will.

Daily Physical Audit —

Most alcoholics require some form of moderate exercise to keep fit physically. Since ignorance of the harm of overexertion does not shield us from its physical penalties, we should work within the individual limits of our strength. Outdoor exercise taken once or twice a week stimulates circulation, help digestion, aids elimination and adds years to our lives.

Hazelden Foundation

BG Daily Post — June 29, 2020

June 29 — Daily Reflections

A RIPPLING EFFECT

Having learned to live so happily, we’d show everyone else how. Yes, we of A.A. did dream those dreams. How natural that was, since most alcoholics are bankrupt idealists. So why shouldn’t we share our way of life with everyone?
-TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 156

The great discovery of sobriety led me to feel the need to spread the “good news” to the world around me. The grandiose thoughts of my drinking days returned. Later, I learned that concentrating on my own recovery was a full-time process. As I became a sober citizen in this world, I observed a rippling effect which, without any conscious effort on my part, reached any “related facility or outside enterprise,” without diverting me from my primary purpose of staying sober and helping other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.

AA World Services

June 29 — Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

The program of Alcoholics Anonymous involves a continuous striving for improvement. There can be no long resting period. We must try to work at it all the time. We must continually keep in mind that it is a program not to be measured in years, because we never fully reach our goals nor are we ever cured. Our alcoholism is only kept in abeyance by daily living of the program. It is a timeless program in every sense. We live it day by day, or more precisely, moment by moment – now. Am I always striving for improvement?

Meditation For The Day

Life is all a preparation for something better to come. God has a plan for your life and it will work out, if you try to do His will. God has things planned for you, far beyond what you can imagine now. But you must prepare yourself so that you will be ready for the better things to come. Now is the time for discipline and prayer. The time of expression will come later. Life can be flooded through and through with joy and gladness. So prepare yourself for those better things to come.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may prepare myself for better things that God has in store for me. I pray that I may trust God for the future.

Hazelden Foundaton

June 29 — As Bill Sees It

Community Problem, p. 180

The answer to the problem of alcoholism seems to be in education–education in schoolrooms, in medical colleges, among clergymen and employers, in families, and in the public at large. From cradle to grave, the drunk and the potential alcoholic will have to be completely surrounded by a true and deep understanding and by a continuous barrage of information.

This means factual education, properly presented. Heretofore, much of this education has attacked the immortality of drinking rather than the illness of alcoholism.

Now who is going to do all this education? Obviously, it is both a community job and a job for specialists. Individually, we A.A.’s can help, but A.A. as such cannot, and should not, get directly into this field. Therefore, we must rely on other agencies, on outside friends and their willingness to supply great amounts of money and effort.

Grapevine, March 1958

AA World Services

June 29 — Eye Opener (1950)

To pity distress is a natural human characteristic, except in the case of the poor drunk. The hospitals want no part of him. He brought it on himself and, besides, they need their beds for really sick people. Many doctors won’t make a house call if they suspect the patient has been drinking and, when they do, their medication consists for the most part of something to knock him out and keep him quiet. People who spend hours raising funds for the tubercular and the cancerous call a cop when they see a drunk.
God knows the drunk and He also knows human nature, and so He invented AA.

Hazelden Foundation

June 29 — Big Book Quote

“It was now time, the struggling groups thought, to place their message and unique experience before the world. This determination bore fruit in the spring of 1939 by the publication of this volume. The membership had then reached about 100 men and women. The fledgling society, which had been nameless, now began to be called Alcoholics Anonymous, from the title of its own book. The flying-blind period ended and A.A. entered a new phase of its pioneering time.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, PG. XVII

June 29 — Walk In Dry Places
Willingness is the Key
Strong Desire. —

Although willpower alone does not work in overcoming alcoholism, there is a place for the will, or willingness, in the search for a happy sobriety. Things can happen if we are willing to let them happen. More important, progress often depends on our willingness to give up what stands in our way. It also requires our willingness to take the actions necessary for success.
This same willingness, so vital to finding sobriety, is also applicable in other areas of our lives. The pioneers of AA suggested that getting sober required being willing to go to any lengths. This is the key to other achievements and to the overcoming of problems besides alcohol.

“We often have to put up with unpleasant conditions simply because we do not want to change them badly enough. For example, we may dislike the unpleasant coughing and risks of smoking, but lack the willingness to quit. We may brood over lost opportunities, but be unwilling to take advantage of the opportunities we have now.”
— Mel B.

Hazelden Foundation

Stools & Bottles — Day 29
Twenty-Ninth Daily Reminder —

An older AA member killed himself today, bringing sorrow and grave concern to the members of his group. Despite their knowledge of infidelity with his family, self-sedation and his refusal to consider alcoholism a disease, some members wondered why he resumed drinking and then took his own life.

Daily Inventory —

The reasons for this man’s troubles are well defined in Chapter Five in the Big Book. Honesty pays big dividends in AA. Let’s work it 24 hours daily.

Suggested Meditation —

All drinking alcoholics are potential suicides. Contented sobriety and AA are not compatible with suicide, nor with dishonesty in business and home dealings, nor in sneaking that first drink. Alcoholism is more than sin–it is sickness also. If it were just a sinful act we could recover by asking forgiveness and keep right on drinking. That’s what we did before AA. That’s what killed our old friend.

Spiritual Contact —

Our Father, we know our great need for Your help and wisdom. Grant them to us. Enable us to arrest the dishonest and fatality of alcoholism.

Daily Physical Audit —

Medical doctors have not recognized alcohol as the cause of gastric ulcer. Alcohol, smoking and spicy foods, however, do aggravate conditions where ulcers exist. Members with known ulcers are advised to follow prescribed medication and diet. Persons with high-up abdominal pains, bloating, pains in the back, nausea after eating and black or bloody stools may be developing ulcers and should get a physical checkup.

Hazelden Foundation

BG Daily Post — June 28, 2020

June 28 — Daily Reflections

THE DETERMINATION OF OUR FOUNDERS

A year and six months later these three had succeeded with seven more.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 159

If it had not been for the fierce determination of our founders, A.A. would have quickly faded like so many other so-called good causes. I look at the hundreds of meetings weekly in the city where I live and I know A.A. is available twenty-four hours a day. If I had had to hang on with nothing but hope and a desire not to drink, experiencing rejection wherever I went, I would have sought the easier, softer way and returned to my previous way of life.

AA World Services

Twenty-Four Hours A Day
June 28
A.A. Thought For The Day

You can prove to yourself that life is basically and fundamentally an inner attitude. Just try to remember what troubled you most a week ago. You probably will find it difficult to remember. Why then should you unduly worry or fret over the problems that arise today? Your attitude toward them can be changed by putting yourself and your problems in God’s hands and trusting Him to see that everything will turn out all right, provided you are trying to do the right thing. Your changed mental attitude toward your problems relieves you of their burden and you can face them without fear. Has my mental attitude changed?

Meditation For The Day

You cannot see the future. It’s a blessing that you cannot. You could not bear to know all the future. That is why God only reveals it to you day by day. The first step is to lay your will before God as an offering, ready for God to do what is best for you. Be sure that, if you trust God, what He does for you will be for the best. The second step is to be confident that God is powerful enough to do anything He wills, and that no miracle in human lives is impossible with Him. Then leave the future to God.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may gladly leave my future in God’s hands. I pray that I may be confident that good things will happen, as long as I am on the right path.

Hazelden Foundation

June 28 — As Bill Sees It

Coping With Anger, p. 179

Few people have been more victimized by resentments than have we alcoholics. A burst of temper could spoil a day, and a well-nursed grudge could make us miserably ineffective. Nor were we ever skillful in separating justified from unjustified anger. As we saw it, our wrath was always justified. Anger, that occasional luxury of more balanced people, could keep us on an emotional jag indefinitely. These “dry benders’ often led straight to the bottle.

Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen. We must avoid quick-tempered criticism, furious power-driven argument, sulking, and silent scorn. These are emotional booby traps baited with pride and vengefulness. When we are tempted by the bait, we should train ourselves to step back and think. We can neither think nor act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic.

12 & 12
1. p. 90
2. p. 91

AA World Services

June 28 — Eye Opener (1950)

Exactly what is AA worth to you? Have you ever figured that out? Make a written list sometime of the benefits your have derived from your sobriety. Try hard to make an honest evaluation of what it would be worth to you in dollars and cents. How much have you benefited mentally, spiritually, physically, financially, socially?
Then make another list – how much has AA benefited by your membership? Are you trying to give as much as you have received? If not, you are getting something for nothing and that isn’t honest. You can never square the debt, but you can probably give it a little better try than you have been doing.

Hazelden Foundation

June 28 — Big Book Quote

“Our behavior is as absurd and incomprehensible with respect to the first drink as that of an individual with a passion, say, for jay-walking. He gets a thrill out of skipping in front of fast-moving vehicles.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, PG.37

June 28 — Walk In Dry Places
Why it works.
Confidence. —

Twelve Step meetings often begin with a reading from a famous Fifth chapter, “How it works.” We know that the program does work, but why? Is there a secret or magic to it?
The real reason the program works is neither secret nor magic. The program actually relies on ancient principles that always amaze people when they are employed: Help Others, and you help yourself. Clean up your own house. Put your trust in God, not frail human beings or shaky institutions. Remove false gods, such as alcohol and other drugs.
There may be additional reasons for the program’s success, but these are enough for a start. The Twelve Step program does work.

I’ll take comfort today in knowing that I’m walking in a way that has been tested and proven. The program works if I let it work.
— Mel B.

Hazelden Foundation

Stools & Bottles — Day 28
Twenty-Eighth Daily Reminder–

A few AA members and their wives were assembled at the home of another member for a weekly AA meeting. The host arrived too late to hold his meeting. When questioned about his absence he shouted, “What in h–l is all this bellyaching about — I’m here and sober, isn’t that enough?”

Daily Inventory —

Is sullen and surly sobriety enough? How far off the beam dare we get? Is it possible to benefit from or add to AA meetings in an angry, sullen mood?

Suggested Meditation —

It is remarkable that a few months of sobriety will allow us to forget the mental binge always precedes the physical drunk. Members who are physically dry and mentally wet do not stay that way. We must either improve our sobriety or vainly try to suppress our alcoholism. Suppression is not our answer. It only leads to drinking. It lets us drift back, like washed pigs, to wallow in the alcoholic mire.

Spiritual Contact —

Our Father, help us to stay put with our group. Fill us with enthusiasm for the AA program. We pray for willingness to improve upon our sobriety.

Daily Physical Audit —

Relaxation and sleep are not only good health practices, they are vital essentials of life itself. We cannot miss them for any great length of time and live healthy lives. Nature’s rules for the upkeep of the body are definite and exacting. Alcoholics require systematic daily rest periods to relieve mental fatigue. Our body tissues need sleep to overcome the chemical changes caused by work during the day.

Hazelden Foundation

BG Daily Post — June 27, 2020

June 27 — Daily Reflections

CONFORMING TO THE A.A. WAY

We obey A.A.’s Steps and Traditions because we really want them for ourselves. It is no longer a question of good or evil; we conform because we genuinely want to conform. Such is our process of growth in unity and function. Such is the evidence of God’s grace and love among us.
-A.A. COMES OF AGE, p. 106

It is fun to watch myself grow in A.A. I fought conformity to A.A. principles from the moment I entered, but I learned from the pain of my belligerence that, in choosing to live the A.A. way of life, I opened myself to God’s grace and love. Then I began to know the full meaning of being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

AA World Services

June 27 — Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

If you can take your troubles as they come, if you can maintain your calm and composure amid pressing duties and unending engagements, if you can rise above the distressing and disturbing circumstances in which you are set down, you have discovered a priceless secret of daily living. Even if you are forced to go through life weighed down by some unescapable misfortune or handicap and yet live each day as it comes with poise and peace of mind, you have succeeded where most people have failed. You have wrought a greater achievement than a person who rules a nation. Have I achieved poise and peace of mind?

Meditation For The Day

Take a blessing with you wherever you go. You have been blessed, so bless others. Such stores of blessings are awaiting you in the months and years that lie ahead. Pass on your blessings. Blessing can and does go around the world, passed on from one person to another. Shed a little blessing in the heart of one person. That person is cheered to pass it on, and so, God’s vitalizing, joy-giving message travels on. Be a transmitter of God’s blessings.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may pass on my blessings. I pray that they may flow into the lives of others.

Hazelden Foundation

June 27 — As Bill Sees It

Down To Earth, p. 178

Those of us who have spent much time in the world of spiritual make-believe have eventually seen the childishness of it. This dream world has been replaced by a great sense of purpose, accompanied by a growing consciousness of the power of God in our lives.

We have come to believe He would like us to keep our heads in the clouds with Him, but that our feet ought to be firmly planted on earth. That is where our work must be done. These are the realities for us. We have found nothing incompatible between a powerful spiritual experience and a life of sane and happy usefulness.

Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 130

AA World Services

June 27 — Eye Opener (1950)

AA is not fundamentally a philosophy, but it is rather a program of active living. To commit the Big Book to memory, to listen attentively to all the group speakers will not guarantee continued sobriety.
The knowledge gained thereby, put into your everyday living, will make drinking practically impossible and certainly unenjoyable. If we fail to make the Program an integral part of our everyday living, we are almost sure to have some rough times ahead.

Hazelden Foundation

June 27 — Big Book Quote

“Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, PG.48

June 27 — Walk In Dry Places
Have I ever been helped?
Unselfishness.

Sometimes we hear hard luck stories by people who claim they never “had a single helping hand.” Everybody was against them.
It’s true that certain people have had more than their share of abuse and abandonment. But it’s hard to believe that helping hands haven’t been extended… acts of kindness, often made by selfless but ordinary people.
Our problem has been in recognizing such helping hands. Lost in self-pity, we could hardly have recognized help when it was given. Nor were we capable of giving constructive assistance to others.
Furthermore, if people were against us, we may have provoked it. Our task is to change our thinking about the past and to be grateful for the people who were kind to us.

“I realize that there are kind and decent people who have helped me. There are many such people in the world, and I want to be one of them.”
— Mel B.

Hazelden Foundation

Stools & Bottles — Day 27
Twenty-Seventh Daily Reminder —

An AA veteran, the main speaker at an anniversary meeting, sat waiting for almost two hours while other speakers dramatized many subjects — some of them foreign to AA. Finally he was introduced. He spoke for thirty minutes, inspiring us with the humble virtues of AA. His subject? Love and service.

Daily Inventory —

Have we ever visualized the power of true humility? Do we seek contented sobriety or AA recognition? Are our efforts inspired by love and service?

Suggested Meditation —

The truly great members of AA are all humble members. They give freely of their talent but seek no praise. The publicity seeker is different. He lacks humility but never seems to feel small about it. We can be either great or small about in AA, but as we sacrifice our vanities upon the alter of AA service we will rise and grow in stature and gain recognition without seeking it.

Spiritual Contact —

Our Father, knowing the weakness of our vanity, we pray for the strength of humility. Reveal our need for love and service. Makes us worthy AA servants.

Daily Physical Audit —

Alcohol does not contribute to diabetes, but diabetes can contribute to relapses. We find verification of this fact in the lives of our diabetics who, suffering from complications of their primary illness, go on a mental spree and end up drunk. AA diabetics have two incurable diseases to arrest. They should adhere strictly to their diet. Undue physical and mental effort must be avoided. Infection and neglect may lead to gangrene, blindness and death.

Hazelden Foundation

BG Daily Post — June 26, 2020

June 26 — Daily Reflections

A GIFT THAT GROWS WITH TIME

For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 151

The longer I chased these elusive feelings with alcohol, the more out of reach they were. However, by applying this passage to my sobriety, I found that it described the magnificent new life made available to me by the A.A. program. It “truly does get better” one day at a time. The warmth, the love and the joy so simply expressed in these words grow in breadth and depth each time I read it. Sobriety is a gift that grows with time.

AA World Services

June 26 — Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

We must know the nature of our weakness before we can determine how to deal with it. When we are honest about its presence, we may discover that it is imaginary and can be overcome by a change of thinking. We admit that we are alcoholics and we would be foolish if we refused to accept our handicap and do something about it. So by honestly facing our weakness and keeping ever present the knowledge that for us alcoholism is a disease with which we are afflicted, we can take the necessary steps to arrest it. Have I fully accepted my handicap?

Meditation For The Day

There is a proper time for everything. I must learn not to do things at the wrong time, that is, before I am ready or before conditions are right. It is always a temptation to do something at once, instead of waiting until the proper time. Timing is important. I must learn, in the little daily situations of life, to delay action until I am sure that I am doing the right thing at the right time. So many lives lack balance and timing. In the momentous decisions and crises of life, they may ask God’s guidance, but into the small situations of life, they rush alone.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may delay action until I feel that I am doing the right thing. I pray that I may not rush in alone.

Hazelden Foundation

June 26 — As Bill Sees It

Money–Before and After, p. 177

In our drinking time, we acted as if the money supply were inexhaustible, though between binges we’d sometimes go to the other extreme and become miserly. Without realizing it, we were just accumulating funds for the next spree. Money was the symbol of pleasure and self-importance. As our drinking became worse, money was only an urgent requirement which could supply us with the next drink and the temporary comfort of oblivion it brought.

Although financial recovery is on the way for many of us, we find we cannot place money first. For us, material well-being always follows spiritual progress; it never precedes.

1. 12 & 12, p. 120
2. Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 127

AA World Services

June 26 — Eye Opener (1950)

Our sobriety is dead-serious. It has to be, to work at all. With it we can retain all we now have, and the limits to which we can add to it are circumscribed only by our initiative and our ability. Without sobriety we are in danger of losing that which we already have.
Sobriety is life itself to us and without it life would again become a living death. To unnecessarily subject ourselves to temptations is another variation of playing “Russian Roulette.”

Hazelden Foundation

June 26 — Big Book Quote

“Psychologists are inclined to agree with us. We have spent thousands of dollars for examinations. We know but few instances where we have given these doctors a fair break. We have seldom told them the whole truth nor have we followed their advice. Unwilling to be honest with these sympathetic men, we were honest with no one else. Small wonder many in the medical profession have a low opinion of alcoholics and their chance for recovery!”

Alcoholics Anonymous, PG.73

June 26 — Walk In Dry Places
Let it Happen
Easy Does it.

Student pilots learn a simple method for getting an airplane out of a stall; Release the stick forward, and the airplane rights itself. Continue to hold the stick back, and you cause a fatal spin.
Many times, we cling too tightly to conditions that could simply right themselves if we would only let go. Situations often work themselves out when we stop pushing and pulling too hard.
If we’re living on a spiritual basis and following our 12 Step program, lots of unpleasant conditions will clear up without any strain or struggle on our part. The secret, then, is to do our part and act prudently, but also to be willing to let things happen.

“I’ll remember today not to push or pull too hard to get my way. Things might work themselves out if I simply let natural forces work properly in every situation.”
— Mel B.

Hazelden Foundation

Stools & Bottles — Day 26
Twenty-Sixth Daily Reminder —

A dirty middle-aged alcoholic lay dying on an old couch in the slums of a Midwestern city. Sick, helpless and broke he called upon AA for help. Sympathetic members responded, placed him in a hospital. He recovered and later joined AA where he stayed and served with credit to his group.

Daily Inventory —

What are the requirements for AA membership? Are we interested in both low and high bottom drunks? How do we handle those who refuse to believe in God?

Suggested Meditation —

“The only requirement for membership is an honest desire to stop drinking.” It is not within our province to refuse AA to an alcoholic who asks for help. God has a way of handling those who do not believe in Him. AA does not demand belief in God, yet the newcomer soon learns that contented sobriety demands it. There can be no satisfactory personality change in a member who refuses spiritual help.

Spiritual Contact —

Our Father, prevent us from passing judgment upon anyone. Grant us wisdom to discern between tolerance and indulgence. Let us live and give AA.

Daily Physical Audit —

Common sense governs the rules of healthful living. Good health does not result from a single act but is the result of many daily practices which eventually becomes habits of self-preservation. They keep us from “digging our grave with our own teeth.” There are detours to be observed on the road of Wellville which circumvent fast eating, overeating, gulping food down with liquids and eating when over-fatigued.

Hazelden Foundation

BG Daily Post — June 25, 2020

June 25 — Daily Reflections

A TWO-WAY STREET

If we ask, God will certainly forgive our derelictions. But in no case does He render us white as snow and keep us that way without our cooperation.
-TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 65

When I prayed, I used to omit a lot of things for which I needed to be forgiven. I thought that if I didn’t mention those things to God, He would never know about them. I did not know that if I had just forgiven myself for some of my past deeds, God would forgive me also. I was always taught to prepare for the journey through life, never realizing until I came to A.A. when I honestly became willing to be taught forgiveness and forgiving that life itself is the journey. The journey of life is a very happy one, as long as I am willing to accept change and responsibility.

AA World Services

June 25 — Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

One of the most encouraging facts of life is that your weakness can become your greatest asset. Kites and airplanes rise against the wind. In climbing up a high mountain, we need the stony crags and rough places to aid us in our climb. So your weakness can become an asset if you will face it, examine it, and trace it to its origin. Set it in the very center of your mind. No weakness, such as drinking, ever turned into an asset until it was first fairly faced. Am I making my weakness my greatest asset?

Meditation For The Day

Whenever we seek to worship God, we think of the great universe that God rules over, of creation, of mighty law and order throughout the universe. Then we feel the awe that precedes worship. I too must feel awe, feel the desire to worship God in wondering amazement. My mind is in a box of space and time and it is so made that I cannot conceive of what is beyond space or time, the limitless and the eternal. But I know that there must be something beyond space and time, and that something must be the limitless and eternal Power behind the universe. I also know that I can experience that Power in my life.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may accept the limitless and eternal Spirit. I pray that It may express Itself in my life.

Hazelden Foundation

June 25 — As Bill Sees It

Domination and Demand, p. 176

The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being. Our egomania digs two disastrous pitfalls. Either we insist upon dominating people we know, or we depend upon them far too much.

If we lean too heavily on people, they will sooner or later fail us, for they are human, too, and cannot possibly meet our incessant demands. In this way our insecurity grows and festers.

When we habitually try to manipulate others to our own willful desires, they revolt, and resist us heavily. Then we develop hurt feelings, a sense of persecution, and a desire to retaliate.

My dependency meant demand — a demand for the possession and control of other people and the conditions surrounding me.

1. 12 & 12, p. 53
2. Grapevine, January 1958

AA World Services

June 25 — Eye Opener (1950)

The fortunes amassed by the Carnegies, the Mellons, the Fords and the Rockefellers have been largely diverted to the welfare of man generally, yet their pooled resources multiplied thousands of times would not accomplish the good that resulted from the heritage left us by the Poorest Man that ever lived.
The power of wealth as compared with the power of Love is puny to the point of being unworthy of comparison.
If your pockets are not lined with gold but your heart is, you can still be a power, not only for this generation but for those yet unborn.

Hazelden Foundation

June 25 — Big Book Quote

“Never forget that resentment is a deadly hazard to an alcoholic. We do not mean that you have to agree with your husband whenever there is an honest difference of opinion. Just be careful not to disagree in a resentful or critical spirit.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, PG.117

June 25 — Walk In Dry Places
Transforming garbage.
Handling the past —

Left to itself, nature takes ordinary garbage and transforms it into useful nutrients that help sustain life. It’s usually poor human action that makes garbage a problem.
Our mental and emotional garbage takes the forms of bad memories, festering resentments, and useless regrets. We waste time berating ourselves and others about bad decisions and experiences that are behind us.
The magic of the 12 Step program is that we can use it to transform this mental garbage into useful experience. A past mistake can become as asset when we share it with others. Pain and suffering can teach a lesson that helps all of us to grow. By forgiving others, a resentment can be turned into a friendship.

“I’ll resolve today not to worry about garbage any longer than it takes to identify it and release it to my Higher Power for transformation.”
— Mel B.

Hazelden Foundation

Stools & Bottles — Day 25
Twenty-Fifth Daily Reminder —

Unity of purpose, thought and acts is vitally important to an AA group’s success, Without unity we can only expect failure. You and I may stand or fall in accordance with the success of our group. We owe a unified stand on AA purpose to ourselves, to our group and to its future membership.

Daily Inventory —

Does the welfare of the group come first? Does individual recovery depend upon group unity? Who is responsible for the unity of the group?

Suggested Meditation —

Tradition One advises us that without unity an AA group cannot survive. Without a group many of us could not survive. Obviously, the preservation of group unity is the responsibility of every member. We must hang together or John Barleycorn will surely hang us separately. With this in mind, let us put our petty ambitions aside and band ourselves together with determination to support the principles of AA.

Spiritual Contact —

Our Father, we pray that our group may be unified in its purpose to maintain individual sobriety and pass it on to alcoholics seeking our aid.

Daily Physical Audit —

Although the heart is innocent of creating many pains and feelings of discomfort attributed to it, we act wisely to investigate the cause of unusual symptoms which may occur. A good way to prevent heart trouble is to see your doctor for a check-up every year and to consult him at the appearance of any symptom which may or may not have its source in the heart. Perhaps this may disclose organic illness in time for treatment and cure.

Hazelden Foundation

BG Daily Post — June 24, 2020

June 24 — Daily Reflections

A SPIRITUAL KINDERGARTEN

We are only operating a spiritual kindergarten in which people are enabled to get over drinking and find the grace to go on living to better effect.
-AS BILL SEES IT, p. 95

When I came to A. A., I was run down by the bottle and wanted to lose the obsession to drink, but I didn’t really know how to do that. I decided to stick around long enough to find out from the ones who went before me. All of a sudden I was thinking about God! I was told to get a Higher Power and I had no idea what one looked like. I found out there are many Higher Powers. I was told to find God, as I understand Him, that there was no doctrine of the Godhead in A.A. I found what worked for me and then asked that Power to restore me to sanity. The obsession to drink was removed and–one day at a time–my life went on, and I learned how to live sober.

AA World Services

June 24 — Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

Alcohol is our weakness. We suffer from mental conflicts from which we look for escape by drowning our problems in drink. We try through drink to push away from the realities of life. But alcohol does not feed, alcohol does not build, it only borrows from the future and it ultimately destroys. We try to drown our feelings in order to escape life’s realities, little realizing or caring that in continued drinking we are only multiplying our problems. Have I got control over my unstable emotions?

Meditation For The Day

When I let personal piques and resentments interfere with what I know to be my proper conduct, I am on the wrong track and I am undoing all I have built up by doing the right thing. I must never let personal piques interfere with living the way I know God wants me to live. When I have no clear guidance from God, I must go forward quietly along the path of duty. The attitude of quiet faith will receive its reward as surely as acting upon God’s direct guidance. I must not weaken my spiritual power by letting personal piques upset me.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may not let myself become too upset. I pray that I may go quietly along the path I have chosen.

Hazelden Foundation

June 24 — As Bill Sees It

Aspects of Tolerance, p. 175

All kinds of people have found their way into A.A. Not too long ago, I sat talking in my office with a member who bears the title of Countess. That same night, I went to an A.A. meeting. It was winter, and there was a mild-looking little gent taking the coats. I said, “Who’s that?”

And somebody answered, “Oh, he’s been around for a long time. Everybody likes him. He used to be one of Al Capone’s mob.” That’s how universal A.A. is today.

We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired. All of us, whatever our race, creed, or color, are the children of a living Creator, with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try.

1. A.A. Comes Of Age, p. 102
2. Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 28

AA World Services

BG Daily Post — June 23, 2020

June 23 — Daily Reflections

TRUSTING OTHERS

But does trust require that we be blind to other people’s motives or, indeed, to our own? Not at all; this would be folly. Most certainly, we should assess the capacity for harm as well as the capability for good in every person that we would trust. Such a private inventory can reveal the degree of confidence we should extend in any given situation.
-AS BILL SEES IT, p. 144

I am not a victim of others, but rather a victim of my expectations, choices and dishonesty. When I expect others to be what I want them to be and not who they are, when they fail to meet my expectations, I am hurt. When my choices are based on self-centeredness, I find I am lonely and distrustful. I gain confidence in myself, however, when I practice honesty in all my affairs. When I search my motives and am honest and trusting, I am aware of the capacity for harm in situations and can avoid those that are harmful.

AA World Services

June 23 — Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

No chain is stronger than its weakest link. Likewise, if you fail in the day-by-day program, in all probability it will be your weakest point. Great faith and constant contact with God’s power can help you discover, guard, and undergird your weakest point with a strength not your own. Intelligent faith in God’s power can be counted on to help you master your emotions, help you to think kindly of others, and help you with any task that you undertake, no matter how difficult. Am I master of my emotions?

Meditation For The Day

You need to be constantly recharged by the power of the spirit of God. Continue with God in quiet times until the life from God, the Divine life, by that very contact, flows into your being and revises your fainting spirit. When weary, take time out and rest. Rest and gain power and strength from God, and then you will be ready to meet whatever opportunities come your way. Rest until every care and worry and fear have gone and then the tide of peace and serenity, love and joy, will flow into your consciousness.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may rest and become recharged. I pray that I may pause and wait for the renewing of my strength.

Hazelden Foundation

June 23 — As Bill Sees It

Constructive Forces, p. 174

Mine was exactly the kind of deep-seated block we so often see today in new people who say they are atheistic or agnostic. Their will to disbelieve is so powerful that apparently they prefer a date with the undertaker to an open-minded and experimental quest for God.

Happily for me, and for most of my kind who have since come along in A.A., the constructive forces brought to bear in our Fellowship have nearly always overcome this colossal obstinacy. Beaten into complete defeat by alcohol, confronted by the living proof of release, and surrounded by those who can speak to us from the heart, we have finally surrendered.

And then, paradoxically, we have found ourselves in a new dimension, the real world of spirit and faith. Enough willingness, enough open-mindedness–and there it is!

A.A. Today, p. 9

AA World Services

June 23 — Eye Opener (1950)

It takes courage, intelligence, initiative and deep emotions to make a really successful fool. The timid, under-imaginative, cowardly seldom do.
We as alcoholics made fools of ourselves, it is true, but, in so doing, we experienced more, we lived more, we suffered more. These are the ingredients of a liberal education.
If wisdom could be dissected, there would be a large portion of Folly, Defeat, Suffering and just plain Damned Foolishness in its makeup.
By the same token, our foolishness taught us valuable lessons that could not have been acquired anywhere else.

Hazelden Foundation

June 23 — Big Book Quote

“I will never know all the people I hurt, all the friends I abused, the humiliation of my family, the worry of my business associates, or how far reaching it was. I continue to be surprised by the people I meet who say,’You haven’t had a drink for a long time, have you?’ The surprise to me is the fact that I didn’t know that they knew my drinking had gotten out of control. That is where we are really fooled. We think we can drink to excess without anyone’s knowing it. Everyone knows it. The only one we are fooling is ourselves. We rationalize and excuse our conduct beyond reason.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, PG. 351

June 23 — Walk In Dry Places
FEELING GRATITUDE
Self-Improvement

A mistaken view of gratitude is that we have a right to expect it from people we’ve helped. In reality, we benefit to the extent we are grateful.
The terms gratitude and grace are linked by a common root, the Latin word gratus, which means “pleasing” or “thankful.” To feel grateful is to experience a state of grace. This immediately raises us to a higher level of personal dignity and well-being.
Why do we need to feel gratitude? One possible reason is that most compulsive illness, such as alcoholism and drug addiction, are intensely self-oriented. This selfishness destroys the soul and keeps us in a state of spiritual infancy and isolation with concurrent arrogance and anger. We cannot afford to live in this condition.
Feeling gratitude–even when we are in difficulty–can release us from bondage.

“Today I’ll go out of my way to feel gratitude, and I will express it to individuals. I know this is for my own good as well as the other person’s.”

— Mel B.

Hazelden Foundation

Stools & Bottles — Day 23
Twenty-Third Daily Reminder —

The keys to AA success and service are found in the last eight words of Step 12, “to practice these principles in all our affairs.” It takes a lot of constructive thought, effort and courage to arrest our alcoholism — not the physical kind, but the moral courage to be honest with ourselves and live AA.

Daily Inventory —

Is there more to Step 12 than just “carrying the message”? What about “a spiritual awakening”? What is meant by “these principles”?

Suggested Meditation —

“These principles” cover all of the 12 Steps. “Carrying the message” to alcoholics is vital, indeed, but it is only a part of practicing “these principles in all our affairs.” Without their practice there could be no recovery. Without it we could have no examples of contented sobriety–no message to carry–no sponsorship–no AA. Let us never forget the significance of the last eight words of Step 12.

Spiritual Contact —

Our Father, awaken us spiritually. Allow us to “carry the message” to alcoholics. Help us to stay sober and to live the 12 Steps 24 hours a day.

Daily Physical Audit —

Medical science has long been interested in the relation of blood sugar to the physical condition of the alcoholic and his lack of craving after eating. Experience teaches is that compulsion to drink usually occurred when our stomachs were empty and our blood sugar low. We should remember this in AA and always try to maintain an adequate level of nutrition for defense against that first drink.

Hazelden Foundation

BG Daily Post — June 22, 2020

June 22 — Daily Reflections

TODAY, I’M FREE

This brought me to the good healthy realization that there were plenty of situations left in the world over which I had no personal power–that if I was so ready to admit that to be the case with alcohol, so I must make the same admission with respect to much else. I would have to be still and know that He, not I, was God.
-AS BILL SEES IT, p. 114

I am learning to practice acceptance in all circumstances of my life, so that I may enjoy peace of mind. At one time life was a constant battle because I felt I had to go through each day fighting myself, and everyone else. Eventually, this became a losing battle. I ended up getting drunk and crying over my misery. When I began to let go and let God take over my life I began to have peace of mind. Today, I am free. I do not have to fight anybody or anything anymore.

AA World Services

June 22 — Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

If you have any doubt, just ask any of the older members of the A.A. group, and they will readily tell you that since they turned their lives over to the care of God as they understand Him, many of their problems have been banished into the forgotten yesterdays. When you allow yourself to be upset over one thing, you succeed only in opening the door to the coming of hundreds of other upsetting things. Am I allowing myself to be upset over little things?

Meditation For The Day

I would do well not to think of the Red Sea of difficulties that lies ahead. I am sure that when I come to that Red Sea, the waters will part and I will be given all the power I need to face and overcome many difficulties and meet what is in store for me with courage. I believe that I will pass through that Red Sea to the promised land, the land of the spirit where many souls meet in perfect comradeship. I believe that when that time comes, I will be freed of all the dross of material things and find peace.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may face the future with courage. I pray that I may be given strength to face both life and death fearlessly.

Hazelden Foundation

June 22 — As Bill Sees It

Roots of Reality, p. 173

We started upon a personal inventory, Step Four. A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking a commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock in trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values.

We had to do exactly the same thing with our lives. We had to take stock honestly.

“Moments of perception can build into a lifetime of spiritual serenity, as I have excellent reason to know. Roots of reality, supplanting the neurotic underbrush, will hold fast despite the high winds of the forces which would destroy us, or which we would use to destroy ourselves.”

1. Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 64
2. Letter, 1949

AA World Services

June 22 — Eye Opener (1950)

Many members of AA refer to their entrance into our fellowship as a passing from adolescence to maturity. When we take this step, we should cease thinking as children and begin to think as adults.
Remember how you wanted what you wanted when you wanted it and cried like hell when you didn’t get it? The advice of wiser and saner folks fell on deaf ears and we persisted in having our way even though our way was killing us.
A child thinks with its appetites while a mature person thinks with his head. We all know what class we belonged in.
Drunkenness is unthinkable for a thinking person.

Hazelden Foundation

June 22 — Big Book Quote

“And acceptance is the answer to ALL my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact of life – unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, PG.417

June 22 — Walk In Dry Places
WHAT SHOULD BE A MEETING TOPIC
Helping Others —

Meeting discussions sometimes seem to drift far afield. This may lead to suggestions that we “stick to our purpose” or “get back to basics.”
But we are always on the right track if we’re bringing up thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are of concern to recovering people. The real aim of Twelve Step activity is to maintain our new life after we’ve established ourselves in it. All sorts of problems should be faced and discussed.
However, we should avoid asking for information we can obtain elsewhere. “Where can I find a real estate agent?” is outside the area of a proper meeting discussion. On the other hand, “How can I get over my resentment over being forced to sell my house?” is just what we should be talking about.

“Today I’ll keep in mind that I have friends who will help me deal with thoughts and feelings. This knowledge is a source of comfort and guidance.”

— Mel B.

Hazelden Foundation

Stools & Bottles — Day 22
Twenty-Second Daily Reminder —

Having gained sobriety from living the AA program, it is easy to become overconfident about our future security. We often mistake recovery for cure and get off the AA beam. Satisfied with our progress and impressed by our evident maturity we become complacent and are ready to graduate from AA.

Daily Inventory —

What is complacency? Is it a danger signal? Do we ever reach full maturity in AA? Are there specific graduation qualifications? Name them.

Suggestion Meditation —

The Big Book gives the answers for all our drinking problems. It also gives an AA graduation test on page 42 in the old book, or page 31 second edition. “If anyone, who is showing inability to control his drinking, can do the right-about-face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to him.” Complacency (self-satisfaction) is not for us. Our goal is serenity the reward for daily AA living.

Spiritual Contact —

Our Father, we pray that we may realize our need for daily AA living. Manifest the dangers of complacency to us. Teach is the meaning of serenity.

Daily Physical Audit —

Alcoholics are physically ill from toxic poisoning acquired by substituting alcohol for food and rest. We are impatient people who want to get well fast. It is not uncommon for newcomers to resort to the self-administration of drugs and antibiotics. This is a dangerous practice from which we suffer ill effects. Sedation is most harmful because it is habit forming. AA is ineffective for the willful users of self-administered drugs.

Hazelden Foundation