Weekly Update
September 24, 2019 Announcements · Capital of Texas Conference is holding a meeting on Sunday, October 6th at 2pm at the Northland Group, 2809 Northland Dr., Austin, TX 78757. They have many open positions that are needed to be filled. Please come and be of service. · Western Trails is hosting an Accessibilities Committee workshop on Sunday, September 29th titled “Carrying the Message to the Underserved Alcoholic,” from 2pm to 4pm at Western Trails, 1800 Fortview Road, Austin, TX. A flyer with more details is below this email. · Innergroup is accepting nominations for board member positions. You can sign up at Austinaa.org under events. Chips In addition to the 1 month and desire chips, we had two people pick up yearly chips and share their strength and hope to the group. Chips was picked up for 11 and 2 years of sobriety! Tradition Reviewed Tradition 12 (short form): Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. Tradition 12 (long form): And finally, we of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance. It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities; that we are actually to practice a genuine humility. This to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us; that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of Him who presides over us all. We Agnostics (pg 44-45) If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn’t there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly. Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power? Well, that’s exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. That means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral. And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about God. Here difficulty arises with agnostics. Many times we talk to a new man and watch his hope rise as we discuss his alcoholic problems and explain our fellowship. But his face falls when we speak of spiritual matters, especially when we mention God, for we have re-opened a subject which our man thought he had neatly evaded or entirely ignored. Some Thoughts on what we read: This week we read a short but powerful section that many shared on. A lot was shared on powerlessness and Power. Many of us have tried to live by strong moral codes and philosophies but we find we don’t have the power to live up to them. By taking the steps we tap into a Power that has been inside us all along and start living by principle. But it is up to us to keep it going once we have it by continuing to practice the program as it’s outlined in the book. As we go through the book more and more, we can start to make connections with other parts of the book. A few examples that were shared: · Pg. 62 “Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God’s help.” · Pg. 568 “Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial. We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable.” · Pg. 68 “Self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it didn’t go far enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn’t fully solve the fear problem, or any other.” We also must remember that we are never done connecting to this Power and working these steps. Our morals and philosophies grow and change even in our sobriety because the change doesn’t happen overnight. But the object of this book is to find a Power greater than yourself and by staying within the book we can maintain that connection. We should continue to look at all aspects of our lives and see where we’re not relying on our Higher Power. We should surrender and rely on God in all areas of our lives. Definitions: moral – moral philosophy, ethics, conduct of life and behavior dilemma – argument that presents an antagonist with alternatives, each of which is fatal to his cause mere – simple, entire, absolute |
