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TOPICS 8/16/25💌

1) We might next ask ourselves what we mean when we say that we have “harmed” other people. What kinds of “harm” do people do one another, anyway? To define the word “harm” in a practical way, we might call it the result of instincts in collision, which cause physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual damage to people.

-TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS , p. 80

I had been to Eighth Step meetings, always thinking, “I really haven’t harmed many people, mostly myself.” When I wrote my list out, it was not as short as I thought it would be. 

People hadn’t done what I wanted them to do and intimate relationships were out of hand because of my partners unreasonable demands. Were these “sins of omission”? Because of my drinking, I had “dropped out” – never sending cards, returning calls, being there for other people, or taking part in their lives. What a grace it has been to look at these relationships, to make my inventories in quiet, alone with the God of my understanding, and to go forth daily, with a willingness to be honest and forthright in my relationships.

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY 

2) The alcoholic is absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. We must admit we can do nothing about it ourselves. Willpower and self-knowledge will never help in the strange mental blank spots when we are tempted to drink. An alcoholic mentally is in a very sick condition.

The spiritual answer and the program of action are the only hope. Only spiritual principles will solve our problems. We are completely helpless apart from Divine help. Our defense against drinking must come from a Higher Power.” Have I accepted the spiritual answer and the program of action?

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS

3) Step Twelve – “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”

A.A. has many single alcoholics who wish to marry and are in a position to do so. Their common suffering as drinkers, their common interest in A.A. and spiritual things, often enhance such unions. It is only where “boy meets girl on A.A. campus,” and love follows at first sight, that difficulties may develop. The prospective partners need to be solid A.A.’s and long enough acquainted to know that their compatibility at spiritual, mental, and emotional levels is a fact and not wishful thinking. They need to be as sure as possible that no deep-lying emotional handicap in either will be likely to rise up under later pressures to cripple them. The considerations are equally true and important for the A.A.’s who marry “outside” A.A. With clear understanding and right, grown-up attitudes, very happy results do follow.

FATHER LEO’S DAILY MEDITATION

4) “To believe in sensible ideas is easy, but to implement them involves sacrifice.”

– Dorothy Fosdick

What am I prepared to sacrifice for what I want? I remember the time I said I would do “anything”. Today I know that anything must be translated into something. No person, job or thing can be allowed to come between myself and abstinence. This love of self will enable me to love others. But I must remember to sacrifice my desire to please others and place my needs as a priority in my life.

Today I know that if I do not love myself enough to make sacrifices, then I can be nothing.

In gratitude I give up those things I

know will hurt me.