I got to take my sponsor to a meeting, today. It might be his age since he is close to 80; His hearing aid isn't working well and his eyes keep him to going to meetings at night. But still I don't think he should forget that he is the sponsor and I am just the sponsoree. He was talking tonight after the speaker meeting, tonight that will he have 27 years next week. He said he would have 39 except for that last drunk. It was wonderful seeing him happy. He has so much to offer. Guess who came away with book, "AA comes of age". Me.

You wont miss much. Akron is where AA Started and the founders day weekend in Akron is way too complicated now, tickets for this and that, overly marketed, ad nausia. Thankfully, AA worldwide is not the same as AA in the Akron/Canton area, and has adapted and grown in each culture. I believe you mentioned in another post disliking going to meetings. Early in recovery, I heard someone say, "There are 2 times you need to go to meetings, when you want to, and when you don't want to". By coincidence, I stated tonight that 28% of the time, I'm there because I want to be. In fact, I'm disgusted with the majority of meetings in this county and have been for years now. I go to meetings only because on occasion, someone has a similar problem that I've experienced, and occasionally, I get to touch someone in just the right way with my own experiences and thoughts, and just maybe, it keeps them sober another day, or if nothing else, gives them a reason to laugh.

One month today. They only had two month tokens so the guy gave it to me and said, "Earn it."

Win.

Wish everyone a Happy 24!

Stick With The Winners!

It Works If You Work It!


EASY DOES IT;BUT DO IT!

*** u

A Friend of mine in AZ forwards some E-Mails to me at times.
Here is the Gist of one!

______________

For Today --

Many of us exclaimed, "What an order! I can't go through with it." Do not
be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything
like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is,
that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have
set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than
spiritual perfection.

-- Alcoholics Anonymous, page 60

*************************************************************

Precisely because we are not either-or, not one-or-the-other, paradox
and ambiguity reside at the heart of the human condition and therefore
at the heart of all spirituality. For we are both “good” and “bad,” both
less and more than “merely” human. In some strange (and not-so-strange)
ways, our failures are our successes, our suffering is our joy, and our
imperfections prove to be the very source of our longing for perfection.

-- The Spirituality of Imperfection

*************************************************************

Have a Nice 24

For Today --

This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics!
You can help when no one else can. You can secure their confidence
when others fail. Remember they are very ill.
Life will take on new meaning.

-- Alcoholics Anonymous, page 89

*************************************************************

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.

-- Margaret Fuller

*************************************************************

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.

-- Mother Teresa

-------------------

Have a Nice 24 Hours,Unless You Have made other Plans!

I hope you are having a good day, Conrad. Good sayings you have posted. One thing that one member says in our group is: "We don't shoot our injured or sick." It makes sense to me like it is okay for sinners to be in church.

Got that right!
Hope you'll have a Happy 24!

For Today --

You are going to meet these new friends in your own community.
Near you, alcoholics are dying helplessly like people in a sinking
ship. If you live in a large place, there are hundreds. High and low,
rich and poor, these are future fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Among them you will make lifelong friends. You will be bound to
them with new and wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster
together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your
common journey. Then you will know what it means to give of
yourself that others may survive and rediscover life. You will
learn the full meaning of "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

-- Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 152, 153

*************************************************************

Jesus said love one another. He didn't say love the whole world.


-- Mother Teresa

*************************************************************

Thus we grow. And so can you, though you be but one man with
this book in your hand. We believe and hope it contains all you
will need to begin.

-- Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 162, 163




Happy 24 Everyone!

?????????????????????????????????????????

Thanks, Conrad. I am finding I am having to give tough love just like the old timers did with me. I was trying to help someone who wanted me to be his sponsor. Since I liked him I said I didn't want to be his sponsor. I wasn't ready give tough love like it was gave to me. He had fired two sponsors before he asked me. I talked to one of them and he said the guy was still drinking. Sure enough he admitted to me that he still was. He wants to stay out of the pen but still continues to drink and use drugs. He said he has quit the meth but still uses the marijuana. And he says he still drinks. What I have to offer is experience, strenghth and hope. He is coming back to the meetings. He has got closer to the meetings and has got a car. So he is improving as he even got a driver's license and insurance for the car. The people who were helping him first was going to just give him the car but changed their mind and are letting him work for them for payment of the car. I was telling him when he values sobriety and it becomes the most important thing even more important than just staying out of the pen he will be ready for the first step. I went through denial before so can relate with him. The restoration to sanity in the second step works better when you work the first step first.

lookin so forward to founders day weekend, working at registration friday nite with my sponser

For Today --

The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain
unless I search for the real life, the spiritual quality, in others. I
am myself spiritually dead unless I reach out to the fine quality
dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the
innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will
consent to appear.

-- Felix Adler

***********************************************************

Impressed by those who visited him at the hospital, he capitulated
entirely when, later, in an upper room of this house, he heard the
story of some man whose experience closely tallied with his own.

-- Alcoholics Anonymous, page 160

***********************************************************

Stories are the vehicle that moves metaphor and image into
experience. Like metaphor and images, stories communicate
what is generally invisible and ultimately inexpressible. In
seeking to understand these realities through time, stories
provide a perspective that touches on the divine, allowing us
to see reality in full context, as part of its larger whole. Stories
invite a kind of vision that gives shape and form even to the
invisible, making the images move, clothing the metaphors,
throwing color into the shadows. Of all the devices available
to us, stories are the surest way of touching the human spirit.

-- The Spirituality of Imperfection

*********************

Wish all of you a Happy 24,unless you've made other plans!

You bet!
Sometimes the only thing we can do,is try gently steer them.
If I get upset about it,it will be my emotional Balance that's going to be out of whack,while they are merrily following their own path.


There is a saying;:
When the Student is ready,the Teacher will appear!

6 hrs of sleep all weekend, 75th anniv of AA spent all weekend at Akron University, totally awesome....thanks HP for founders day weekend

In 1937 a guy from Cleveland Ohio by name of Clarence Snider was sent to Akron by his wife to 'take the cure' for his alcoholism with Dr. Bob and Bill W. He got sober and stayed sober. He returned to Cleveland and got A.A. going there. Some consider Clarence the third 'co-founder'. Anyway he helped and sponsored a huge number of people, one of which was a guy named Bob Anderson, who got sober and stayed sober until he died. Bob moved to the Denver Colorado area and sponsored a guy named Gene Johnson, Gene got sober and stayed sober in A.A. too. He still had many problems in his life but he stayed sober and sponsored and guy named John P. aka Cowboy John. In the fall of 1981 a young man who had just about reached the end of his rope in his drinking career came to A.A. in Denver. John P became his sponsor.
That once young man (22 yrs old at the time) is me and is 51 now and is still sober. This is how A.A. has reached out and touched many a life over the the 75 yrs.. My thanks to each and everyone who came before me, and were around to teach me the way.

Thanks for sharing that story, man! Congratulations on the continued sobriety.

For Today --

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these
defects of character.

-- Alcoholics Anonymous, page 59

*************************************************************

It is easy to ignore responsibility when one is only
an intermediate link in a chain of action.

-- Stanley Milgram

*************************************************************

Sometimes pain is a messenger that brings us to
the door. But nothing, not even the most profound
pain, can force us to go through the door if we are
not ready.

-- Everyday Wisdom


Happy 24!