ATTRACTION, NOT PROMOTION

Through many painful experiences, we think we have arrived at what that policy ought to be. It is the opposite in many ways of usual promotional practice. We found that we had to rely upon the principle of attraction rather than promotion.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, pp. 180-81

While I was drinking I reacted with anger, self-pity and defiance against anyone who wanted to change me. All I wanted then was to be accepted by another human simply as I was and, curiously, that is what I found in A.A. I became the custodian of this concept of attraction, which is the principle of our Fellowship’s public relations. It is by attraction that I can best reach the alcoholic who still suffers. I thank God for having given me the attraction of a well-planned and established program of Steps and Traditions. Through humility and the support of my fellow sober members, I have been able to practice the A.A. way of life through attraction, not promotion.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day
November 28

A.A. Thought For The Day

The A.A. way is the way of sobriety. A.A. is known everywhere as a method that has been successful with alcoholics. Doctors, psychiatrists and clergymen have had some success. Some men and women have got sober all by themselves. We believe that A.A. is the most successful and happiest way to sobriety. And yet A.A. is not wholly successful. Some are unable to achieve sobriety and some slip back into alcoholism after they have had some measure of sobriety. Am I deeply grateful to have found A.A.?

Meditation For The Day

Gratitude to God is the theme of Thanksgiving Day. The pilgrims gathered to give thanks to God for their harvest, which was pitifully small. When we look around us at all the things we have today, how can we help being grateful to God? Our families, our homes, our friends, our A.A. fellowship; all these things are free gifts of God to us. “But for the grace of God,” we would not have them.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may be very grateful today. I pray that I may not forget where I might be but for the grace of God.

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Walk In Dry Places
November 28

Spaces in Togetherness
Friendship

One of the beautiful aspects of AA is the bonding that develops among members. We truly do achieve a closeness with some people that is unlike anything we ever had before. The danger in such friendships is that we may become too close in some ways. Without realizing it, we may be making too many demands on others’ time. This can become suffocating to them and eventually detrimental to the friendship. In such situations, we need to remember the words of Kahlil Gibran; “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.” However, close we feel to others, we must allow them their space. We should also remember to respect others’ privacy as well as their anonymity. AA should give us close friendships, but not to the point of suffocation. I’ll remember today not to overstep my boundaries in any friendship. There must be spaces in our togetherness.

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Keep It Simple
November 28

The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.
-Bernard Malamud

Sobriety is freedom. With this freedom, we have a responsibility to help other addicts who still suffer. The program tells us this in Step Twelve. We do this by telling our stories and offering hope. We must be ready to care, to give ourselves. This is what spirituality is about. When we help others, we prepare the road for those who enter the program after us. Tradition Five of the Twelve Traditions says, “Each group has but one primary purpose–to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.” It means we get better by helping others.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me create more freedom. Bring me to where I’m needed. Help me carry the message well.

Action for the Day: Today, I’ll think of ways I can help the addict who still suffers. Then I’ll chose one way I can be of help. I’ll talk with my sponsor about it, and I’ll follow through with my plan.

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Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
-Cindy Clabough

“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”
-Jean Rostand

“The first step to knowledge is to know that we are ignorant.”
-Lord David Cecil

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.
-Goethe

He who knows the precepts by heart, but fails to practice them, Is like unto one who lights a lamp and then shuts his eyes.
-Nagarjuna

The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.
-Joseph Joubert

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Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
November 28

CERTAINTY

“The certainties of one age are the problems of next.”
-R. H. Tawney

I was a religious bigot. I did not know that I was a bigot, but now I see how closed and
narrow my thinking was. I craved for certainty because I felt it would give me security
and happiness but it never did. I argued dogmas that I did not believe; the plight of the
unhappy hypocrite!

Today I live only in the certainty of the day. Today I know that what worked for me
yesterday will work for me today if I am open to love, truth, honesty and change.
Change is not necessarily “difference” if I see it as part of a process rather than an
event. Yesterday is linked to today, and together they forge tomorrow. The one thing
of which I can be certain is change. The God of Truth is revealed in the change;
the acceptance of this fact is spirituality.

May I continue to grow in the spiritual life by my continued desire to change and be
tolerant.

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Today’s Gift
November 28

for most this amazing day . . .
. . . for everything
which is natural which is infinite
which is yes.
-e. e. cummings

Let us be thankful today for all simple obvious things: for the sun’s rising this morning without our having to awaken it; for another good turn the earth makes today without expecting anything in return; for our ability to know right and wrong by heart. Let us give thanks for all small things that mean the world to us; for bread and cheese and clean running water; for our ability to call our enemies our friends, to forgive even ourselves; for our own bodies, however sagging and worn, which insist on continuing for at least another day.

How much ordinary daily good do I take for granted?

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Touchstones
November 28

Our job gives most of us a clear role. Although we may feel relatively lost at home, we know who we are and what to do at work.
-Pierre Mornell

Most men have become well adapted to the workaday world. Even if our jobs seem like drudgery, they provide us with a place and a routine, which define us. Many of us have welcomed the end of a weekend or a vacation because we could go back to our jobs and definite roles. This situation has many drawbacks. For one thing, if we are out of work, we may feel adrift. Furthermore, if we have defined ourselves only as breadwinners, we have probably missed the benefits of closeness in our families. Some of us have even said, “I feel like I’m nothing but a meal ticket.”

A good job does have value, but we can also grow by giving more of ourselves in our less clear roles at home. It is healing to just “hang around” with our families and friends and to simply let relationships develop. The personal, familiar relationships that don’t depend on jobs and roles let us be comfortably human.

I am thankful for the humanizing effect of my relationships at home.