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Faith is an oasis
in the heart
which will never be reached
by the caravan of
thinking.
KAHLIL GIBRAN
Sand and Foam
I always did think way too much. As a personality type on my profile, I have described myself as a thinker. Throughout my life, my mother would tell me "Angela, you think too much" and she was right. I didn't take much action but would spend hours thinking and tying myself up in knots. It did occur to me sometimes that my think, think, thinking led to ZERO. There is a saying from our our fellowship, that one guy kept throwing out "Analysis - Paralysis". What springs to mind is an image of a deer caught in the headlights. That was me.
When I fisrt came to AA to stay, I had lost everything. In fact, I'd never really gained all that much to lose, but what little I did have, I lost. I am just grateful that I never ended up on the street though I did come very close. At the beginning, if I had thought too much about my life situation, I would have paralyzed myself with fear, so I decided not to think and just do the next right indicated thing, which meant, don't drink, go to meetings, pray, and trust the process. I adopted the same attitude towards my, twice in recovery, unemployed status. I'm glad I was able to do this, because it saved me from much suffering, and it also showed me that I can trust my Higher Power. My life has become progressively more comfortable. I am clean and sober, I have laughter in my life, I have friends, I have never wanted for anything, and I am now gainfully employed. I listened less to my "chattering monkey" thoughts, and paid heed to my inner feelings about things. Deep down inside of me, I knew that if I just kept doing a few simple (and as Dennis has written at times, not always easy) things, that all would be well. I am reminded of one of my walks, where I cleared dead leaves from the path I was on, to reveal a piece of paper which simply said "Just have faith"
Thank you for keeping me clean and sober today
Peace be with you all
Tags: Out With The Old In With The New
Once at a meeting held in a church, I
saw a stained glass window on which
was written, "God Is Love." For
some reason, my mind transposed the
words into "Love Is God." Either
way is correct and true, I realized,
looking about me and becoming even
more concious of the spirit of love
and Power in the small meeting room.
I'll continue to seek out that love and
Power, following The Program as if
my life depended upon it - as indeed
it does. Does life to me today mean
living - in the active sense -
joyously and comfortably?
Today I pray
May I feel the spirit of love that gives our
prayers their energy. May I feel the
oneness in this room, the concentration of
love that gives the group its power. May I
feel the exemplary love of a Higher Power,
which our love echoes.
Today I will remember
Love is God.
This reading make me think of two particular things, which I think I have already written about. One, is when I was a young girl, I had a moment of clarity, in one of my religious education classes at the convent school I attended. In a flash, I said, "I know what God is - God is love.". I was frowned upon and told to READ YOU BIBLE! Whatever that meant!
The second thing is that, before I came to recovery, I was often on my knees begging God to take away my heart of stone, and give me one of flesh and blood; to please teach my heart how to love.
After a long, long journey through the valley of death, God brought me to the doors of AA, and pushed me firmly in. At some of the first meetings I went to, I heard people talking about feeling the love in the rooms. I heard what they said, and would think to myself, "Huh, I can't feel it - hogwash!" But I kept an open mind. I was desperate for help with my life, my addictions, and myself, so I just kept coming back. I got a sponsor quickly and started working the steps, QUICKLY.
Recently, at meetings, I am very much aware of the love in the rooms. Everything I ever asked God to help me with, He has provided for me. My heart is opening up and is beginning to love. In my life, I have joy and most important for me, I live COMFORTABLY, as in, I am mostly very much at peace.
Thank you for keeping me clean and sober today
Peace be with you all
Tags: Growth Comfort Joy
Thank you all my friends, for your loving, kind, supportive and encouraging comments. You touch my heart and you make my life rich. It is thanks to you that I am staying clean one day at a time. It is thanks to you that my world is opening up. It is thanks to you that I have joy in my heart.
God bless you all
Tags: Gratitude
It has truly been said that "We
become what we do." It's emphasized
to us over and over in The Program
that our thoughts and actions toward
others colour and shape our spiritual
lives. Words and acts of kindness,
generosity, thoughtfulness and for-
giveness serve to strengthen those
qualities within us that heighten our
consciousness of God's love. In asking
God to direct and guide my life, am I
also asking love to take over and lead
me where it will?
Today I pray
May I make a resolute attempt at acting
out the way I want to be - loving,
forgiving, kind, thoughtful. May I be
aware that each small, attentive act carries
with it an echo of God's all-caring. For
God so loved the world; may we make His
love our example.
Today I will remember
We become what we do.
When I first came to recovery to stay, there were three main things which I put into practice (of course there were many other things that I did, but looking back, the "three" things were key). One, I stopped drinking and taking drugs, one day at a time (though, as many of you know, I did relapse with joints on several occasions). Two, I started eating three meals a day, taking vitamins and minerals, and drinking lots of water. Three, I started to "act as if". I learned to slow down in my movements, in my speech, to allow myself enough time to do things, so I didn't get impatient. I started to smile at people, stand back for people, offer my seat in the tram to old people, help young mothers with their baby carriages, pick up rubbish on the stairwell. Just all kinds of little things.
Before recovery, I was in essence always a kind person. It is one of my positive qualities but I'd often get angry because I felt like it was always me making the effort, and felt it unfair. I was so good at seeing the negative in others, and often my attitude was, well if I can't beat them, then I'll join them. If they're going to be a***holes, I'll show them who can be a bigger one. Now, I suppose, when people react in a less than loving way, it occurs to me not to take it too personally. I'm learning that it's not always all about me. I am becoming much more tolerant, and I am someone who finds it relatively easy to forgive. And I figured out a long time ago, that when I forgive, I set MYSELF free - so in a sense, forgiveness is kind of "selfish" or at most, "self-serving."
In closing, I would like to say that I do like the person I am becoming. Little Angela, who got so submerged by life and disease, is emerging. I think about my life today, and it is the truth when I say that I have no fight with anyone, and I am harbouring no resentment towards anyone (this too could pass!). This is pretty good going for someone, who at one point, hated this world and everyone in it. All thanks to the fellowship and program of AA, given to us by a loving God.
Thank you for keeping me clean and sober today
Peace be with you all
Tags: Progress Peace
For many of us the prospect of death
was not a big thing. In fact, there were
many times while drinking or using drugs
that we would have preferred to die. So
it may not have seemed much of a favor
to have our lives saved by God.
But what God also did was to show
us that our lives were worth saving. This
was the big step for us. We deserved to
live!
We were worth saving! We were not
such wretches as we had led ourselves to
believe! How glorious to have our Higher
Power show us were we could do His
work, carry the message, and be worth
something to ourselves, to Him, and to
countless others! Do I value my life high-
ly?
Thank you, Lord, for showing me that,
after all, I am worth saving.
Today I will enhance my self-worth by:
Today, I made a decision to do something loving for myself. I love going walking - it is the time and place where I find my strongest communion with my Higher Power. I haven't been out walking for a few weeks now, and something was definitely missing from my days.
It is a gorgeously sunny day. Blue skies, covered by a thin layer of misty white, stretching into the hazy beyond. I could see the Alps floating in the distance, reminding me of Japanese art. As I do when I go out for a walk, I asked God to let me be with him closely, and to enable me to walk in His light for a little while. I had read a blog (thanks Angie!) about moving through the day, blessing everything around me. About moving through the day with love and good-will in my heart. So, I practiced this as I walked. It is truly astounding what an effect a prayerful attitude has on everything. What a powerfully transforming force it has. The "Power of Prayer" never ceases to amaze me. Everyone I passed had smiles for me, as I had for them. And I had peace and joy in my heart.
I thought about how glad I am to be alive. About how my daily prayers are becoming ones of thankfulness - that I thank God, sincerely, that I am still alive. These last couple of days have been very special. I have had so many good feelings and thoughts, which truly are beyond words of expression. Could it be that my heart is turning into a grateful heart? Coming home from work the other evening, I was mulling over all the blessings in my life. Suddenly the thought crossed my mind, "I feel HUMBLED by the love and goodness in my life". What a miracle!
Thank you for keeping me clean and sober today
Peace and Love be with you all
Tags: Walking Talking Miracles
There are friends we play with as in
sports and dancing - this is purely a plea-
sure plane. Then we have friends in our
professions and jobs - this is a slightly
higher plane of common interests. Next
is the identity and intellectual plane
where we share each others favorite
topics. But the highest and most beauti-
ful plane of friendship is one on which
we share the same spiritual quest.
We have the glory, through this fel-
lowship, of experiencing immediate com-
munion and intimacy with our people
wherever we go. Such friendships last as
long as the solution which is our common
bond.
Lord, I thank You for the blessing of a
world full of friends who share my spiri-
tual purpose.
I will offer my friendship today to:
Whoever reaches out to me, and I will offer too this friendship to myself. I came to AA because I had nowhere else to go. I had tried everything I could think of, to stop myself from drinking and to somehow break out of the utter hell that I lived in, which was my life. Besides being free TODAY of the shackles of alcohol, of fear, of desperation, of hate and of darkness, the most valuable gift that I have received through AA, is true friends in my life.
Lonliness, and a feeling of being left out on my own in the cold, was the most devastating aspect of my life before recovery. It is something which hounds me still, but not to the acute extent as it did before. I suppose all humans feel an inner lonliness, a yearning for oneness, a yearning to feel whole, and we search all over the place for something to fill this void, mostly not realizing that this space, this hole, is the exact shape of Higher Power. Only Higher Power can can fill this gap. This inner void is "reserved" space, reserved for the one LOVE which can and will, still this hunger and quench this thirst.
A priest once was talking to me about confession. I had asked him why it is necessary to go to confession to ask for forgiveness, why couldn't I just ask God for forgiveness, if I am truly sorry, in my own room, or in the middle of a beautiful green field. He told me to think about the lines of the cross. The vertical line representing my relationship with God, and the horizontal line representing my relationship with my brothers and sisters. Both lines are needed for the complete picture of unconditional love.
I often think of this explanation, which was given to me many, many years ago. I mostly think about it when I am at meetings. Throughout my years of drinking, I never completely lost my faith in God (a miracle in itself) and feel I have always had a relationship with the God of my understanding. But with myself and other human beings, I had a huge problem. I had no trust. Not of myself and certainly not of anyone else. I had often been naively open with strangers, but I know I never really trusted. I'm still working on this. AA has given me a home, where I can learn how to have relationships with other people. My life had been blessed by the lines of the Sign of the Cross.
Thank you for keeping me clean and sober today
Peace be with you all
Isaiah 49: 18
Lift up your eyes round about and
see;
they all gather, they come to
you.
As I live, says the Lord,
you shall put them all on as an
ornament,
you shall bind them on as a bride
does.
Tags: Alpha Omega One Love
The idea of God is different in every per-
son. The joy of my recovery, was to find
God within me.
- Angela L. Wozniak
The program teaches peace. Day by day, step by
step, we move closer to it. Each time we clearly are
touched by someone else, and each time we touch
another, carries us closer to a realization of God's
presence, in others, in ourselves, in all experiences.
The search for God is over, just as soon as we realize
the spirit is as close as our thoughts, our breath.
Coming to believe in a greater power brings such
relief to us in our daily struggles. And on occasion we
still fight for control to be all-powerful ourselves,
only to realize that the barriers we confront are of our
own making. We are on easy street, just as soon as we
choose to let God be our guide in all decisions, large
and small.
The program's greatest gift to us is relief from anxi-
ety, the anxiety that so often turned us to booze, or
pills, or candy. Relief is felt every time we let go of
the problem that's entrapped us and wait for the com-
fort and guidance God guarantees.
God's help is mine just as quickly as I fully avail
myself of it. I will let go of today's problems.
In all honesty, I can say that today that I have no problems. What a miracle for someone who's whole life was one big problem, filled only with anxiety, worries, fear and depression. I just went to my doctor for a check up on my ankle, which is healing well. I spent about half an hour with him, because he asked me how I am doing, and how I deal with frustrations in my life. My doctor knows me quite well, knows all about my addictions, was used to me coming to him with health issues always subsequent to my active addictions. Mostly, he provided me with tranquillizers to get me through alcohol withdrawals. I was able to say to him that I don't really have much frustration in my life, to deal with, these days (of course, some days are better than others - LIFE!). I ended up telling him about AA again, and NA, the twelve steps, this recovery site, my writing of daily blogs. He ended up by getting his copy of the Big Book out of the cupboard, saying that he would be reading through it again. He is not an alcoholic, but I know he is probably confronted with the heartbreaking and frustrating disease of addiction, often, in his daily work. I told him that I have heard that AA has a success rate of about 9-11%. He smiled and said that was a fantastic result compared to recovery rates without AA. I thought that was a very positive way of looking at it.
After my appointment, I went to the local market and bought supplies of office materials for work, and some Christmas decorations for the store, which my boss requested me to do. My boss, Mr S, is another one of those "angels" who has been placed in my life. He is a special person. A highly successful "CEO person", owning several large and lucrative enterprises. He has described himself as a people's person, and he is an enabler, having had many years experience with many different people, and places himself in a position of mentor to many. He truly cares about helping people to be successful in life. He has told me too, that he has a personal working relationship with his Higher Power, and that he could not imagine going through life without tapping into this Source. He told me that he loves God. He also mentioned that I am considered part of his family now - that whether they wanted it or not, that for him and his sons, I have entered into their lives and family.
Yesterday he came to the store, saying he had been thinking about me and my life, and that he wants to help me realize my potential. He suggested that I enroll myself in a computer course, to improve and widen my knowledge, stressing that it would be a good idea to think of my future, develop some skills, increase my earning potential, allow myself to be more successful and in doing so, secure my future happiness and peace of mind. I have always been scared of trying things, maybe due to fear of failure, and maybe also due to fear of the responsibility of success. I'm constantly asking God to help me, and am aware that God helps those who help themselves. My part is the effort of my footwork, God's part is the results of my efforts. So, I took what Mr S suggested with an open mind, knowing and feeling that this is a message from God.
I came home just now, and soon after, my telephone rang. It was a lady phoning about offers for computer courses. She asked me if I was interested in enrolling in a course at very reasonable rates. Usually I say no to people doing telephone marketing, but it seemed to me that this was, again, one of those "coincidences". I told her that I am interested, and in about two weeks, I will receive another call from someone, to tell me all about when, where, what, and how much. I think I'm going to be courageous and just go for it. I feel so good today. My life is opening up and I feel like a responsible adult woman today, instead of a wayward teenager.
I have been blessed with so much goodness in my life. This year has been the best year of my life. I have good people all around me. I am sober, I am healthy, I have a job and a home, I have a little money in the bank, I have peace of mind, I have joy and laughter, I KNOW that I am loved DEEPLY. I love God, and I am happy to be ALIVE.
Thank you for keeping me clean and sober today
Peace be with you all
Tags: Being Open To Possibilities
It is well for us to know the Author
of our hopes and desires. If we do not
know who we follow, and why we follow
Him, anything can lead us anywhere. The
steps are helpful tools in learning to know
our true Author. They are a personal
path to God and give us guidance beyond
anything we have experienced before.
Our lives can only be written for us
now. The past cannot be erased nor the
future written before it happens. Only
today's activities are recorded today.
Who is the Author of my life?
May today be written by the Supreme
Author.
I will try to make today's page beauti-
ful by:
Making a decision to be happy today. By being hopeful and expectant about all the possibilities in front of me. By moving through this day with good-will in my heart, gentleness and graciousness towards all my brothers and sisters, who are after all, all God's beloved children.
I would like to wish all of you a peaceful and joyful Thanksgiving. We do not celebrate this holiday here, but I am celebrating in my heart. I have so much to be thankful for. My cup is no longer a half-empty glass, filling me with anxiety and agitation and foolish schemes, but a filled cup, overflowing. I am grateful for the grace given to me by my loving Creator, who has led me always, even when I wasn't aware of it, and who has brought me here to NOW.
So, my dear friends, take care of yourselves, love yourselves, be gentle and compassionate with yourselves, laugh alot today, take a quiet moment all by yourselves, and realize how precious and beloved you all are. Thank you for letting me share my love and goodwill, and for letting me show you my very sentimental heart.
Thank you for keeping me clean and sober today
Peace and joy fill all of your hearts NOW
Tags: Thanksgiving
Be realistic:
Plan for a miracle.
BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH
"Love is patient and kind; love is not
jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or
rude. Love does not insist on its own
way; it is not irritable or resentful; it
does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices
in the right. Love bears all things, be-
lieves all things, hopes all things, en-
dures all things."
These two readings of today remind me about attitude and perception. Before I came to recovery, I had a real attitude problem and a very limited perception of all things. My thinking was extremely negative and I didn't even know it. I thought my thinking was REALISTIC.
Coming to recovery and making a decision to stay is the most loving thing any of us can do for ourselves, and subsequently for all the people surrounding us. Coming to AA, getting a sponsor, working through the twelve steps was the beginning of a love affair with myself. This affair with myself is ongoing, and I am learning slowly but surely, through trail and error, to love myself.
My attitude, when I came to AA, was something very much along the lines of these readings. I had finally reached a point of utter emptiness - of acceptance and surrender. I knew what was going to be involved in coming back to AA, and I was so ready to do whatever I needed to do. I was indeed ready to go to any lengths to find myself a NEW life. I had a belief within me that it could work for me. After all, I could see with my own eyes, recovered and recovering people in the rooms. People with bright eyes, laughing and loving each other. People telling stories of their lives - what it was like, what happened and what it is like now. This was what I wanted for myself, and I do have that now. Apart from anything else, it is glorious to wake up in the mornings after a good night's sleep, remembering where I was and what I did the night before, to feel healthy and full of life, to look forward to the day, to see my bright, clear eyes in the mirror, to smile at myself.
I was blessed this morning with a phone call from an older lady who has been struggling for a long time now. I have been telling her for a couple of years that she can call me any time, and that I'd love to hear from her, and that I'm here for her anytime. So this morning she has called me from rehab and asked if she can call me whenever she needs on Sunday, when she will be at home for thanksgiving with her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchild. It fills me with joy that she should think of me and trust me enough to reach out to me. I pray to God that I may be able to carry the message to this woman. As I did when I came to AA, I hope and pray that she plans for a miracle.
Thank you for keeping me clean and sober today
Peace be with you all
Tags: Joy Gratitude Defiance Turned To Reliance
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