Live in the Present - June 30th

Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.


- Marcus Aurelius

A.A. Thought for the Day

Alcoholics are unable or unwilling, during their addiction to alcohol, to live in the present. The result is that they live in a constant state of remorse and fear because of their unholy past and its morbid attraction, or the uncertain future and its vague forebodings. So the only real hope for the alcoholic is to face the present. Now is the time. Now is ours. The past is beyond recall. The future is as uncertain as life itself. Only the now belongs to us. Am I living in the now?

Anger for yesterday and fear of tomorrow occupied my every moment as an alcoholic. I try and set time aside every day to be present in the moment and to be grateul of the miracles at work in my life.
~ Mike

Improvement - June 29th

Change yourself and fortune will change with you.
~ Portugese Proverb

A.A. Thought for the Day


The program of Alcoholics Anonymous involves a continuous striving for improvement. There can be no long resting period. We must try to work at it all the time. We must continually keep in mind that it is a program not to be measured in years, because we never fully reach our goals nor are we ever cured. Our alcoholism is only kept in abeyance by daily living of the program. It is a timeless program in every sense. We live it day by day, or more precisely, moment by moment - now. Am I always striving for improvement?


Change didn't come suddenly - though I was impatient for improvement. Don't drink and go to meetings. How I hated that expression....but it is correct. Improvement occurs slowly and the more time I stuck with winners the faster the pace of improvement.
~ Mike

Attitude - June 28th

“I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
 ~ Jimmy Dean

A.A. Thought for the Day


You can prove to yourself that life is basically and fundamentally an inner attitude. Just try to remember what troubled you most a week ago. You probably will find it difficult to remember. Why then should you unduly worry or fret over the problems that arise today? Your attitude toward them can be changed by putting yourself and your problems in God's hands and trusting Him to see that everything will turn out all right, provided you are trying to do the right thing. Your changed mental attitude toward your problems relieves you of their burden and you can face them without fear. Has my mental attitude changed?


I remember being told to "fake it until you make it" early on the program. This was a suggestion to assume a positive outlook until your inner thoughts were consistent with your appearance. I had never in my life tried changing my attitude - but "fake it until you make it" worked just fine for me.
~ Mike

Poise - June 27th

“The key to winning is poise under stress.”

  ~ Paul Brown

A.A. Thought for the Day

If you can take your troubles as they come, if you can maintain your calm and composure amid pressing duties and unending engagements, if you can rise above the distressing and disturbing circumstances in which you are set down, you have discovered a priceless secret of daily living. Even if you are forced to go through life weighed down by some inescapable misfortune or handicap and yet live each day as it comes with poise and peace of mind, you have succeeded where most people have failed. You have wrought a greater achievement than a person who rules a nation. Have I achieved poise and peace of mind?


“Stick with the winners” is something we all hear in recovery – especially early in the program. To my thinking winners are those of us who meet with personal tragedy and yet continue to support and encourage their fellow AA members.
~ Mike

Acceptance - June 26th

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. 

~ Carl Gustav Jung

A.A. Thought for the Day


We must know the nature of our weakness before we can determine how to deal with it. When we are honest about its presence, we may discover that it is imaginary and can be overcome by a change of thinking. We admit that we are alcoholics and we would be foolish if we refused to accept our handicap and do something about it. So by honestly facing our weakness and keeping ever present the knowledge that, for us, alcoholism is a disease with which we are afflicted, we can take the necessary steps to arrest it. Have I fully accepted my handicap?

Acceptance of alcoholism for me meant more than accepting that I had a problem with controlling my drinking - it took me a long time to accept that I needed to change my behaviour if I was evere going to gain the ability to manage my own life .

~ Mike

Weakness - June 25th

“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

A.A. Thought for the Day

One of the most encouraging facts of life is that your weakness can become your greatest asset. Kites and airplanes rise against the wind. In climbing up a high mountain, we need the stony crags and rough places to aid us in our climb. So your weakness can become an asset if you will face it, examine it, and trace it to its origin. Set it in the very center of your mind. No weakness, such as drinking, ever turned into an asset until it was first fairly faced. Am I making my weakness my greatest asset?

Defiance had been one of my worst personality traits - but in recovery my defiance became a useful tool. When people who knew me expressed doubt about my ability to stay sober my defiance kicked in.
   ~ Mike

Problems - June 24th

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

~ Albert Einstein 

A.A. Thought for the Day

Alcohol is our weakness. We suffer from mental conflicts from which we look for escape by drowning our problems in drink. We try through drink to push away from the realities of life. But alcohol does not feed, alcohol does not build, it only borrows from the future and it ultimately destroys. We try to drown our feelings in order to escape life's realities, little realizing or caring that in continued drinking we are only multiplying our problems. Have I got control over my unstable emotions?

At first sobriety allowed for clarity of thought so that I could appreciate the extent of my problem. Over time I came to realize that my thinking prevented me from ever finding a way out and that I had to change if I were to ever overcome my problems.

~ Mike

Being Open - June 23rd

He who conceals his disease cannot expect to be cured.

  —Ethiopian proverb

Concealment and secrecy have been second nature to some of us. We may have felt that our masculinity kept us loners. Perhaps we said we were covering the truth for someone else's good. Maybe we could not bear to expose the truth because we feared the consequences. For some of us a lie came more automatically than the truth. Now we are learning to be open with our friends, and we are finding the healing effect of fresh air for our secrets.


Although it's frightening to stop tampering with the truth, it's also exciting to feel the power of honesty and to deal with the consequences of uncovering it. Perhaps we still have some secrets that erode our wellbeing. If so, we need to bring them into the open so we can live completely honest lives. When we let others know us as we really are, we are casting our lot with good health and recovery.

Today, I will make progress in my recovery by letting myself be fully known.

Worry - June 22nd

“Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway.”

~ Mary C. Crowley 

A.A. Thought for the Day

If you have any doubt, just ask any of the older members of the A.A. group, and they will readily tell you that since they turned their lives over to the care of God as they understand Him, many of their problems have banished into the forgotten yesterdays. When you allow yourself to be upset over one thing, you succeed only in opening the door from the coming of hundreds of other upsetting things. Am I allowing myself to be upset over little things?

I do not miss the worrying that I did every day of my life while I was still drinking - and for quite some time in the program as well. Over time I have let the worrying over little things slip away. The impatient drivers I encounter don't get under my skin like they used to. Many of the promises have come true.

~ Mike

Perspective - June 21st

“The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.”
   ~ Norman Vincent Peale

A.A. Thought for the Day

Intelligent faith in that Power greater than ourselves can be counted on to stabilize our emotions. It has an incomparable capacity to help us look at life in balanced perspective. We look up, around, and away from ourselves, and we see that nine out of ten things that at the moment upset us will shortly disappear. Problems solve themselves; criticism and unkindness vanish as though they had never been. Have I got the proper perspective toward life?

Oddly enough when I do perform service in the program I am always motivated to not let my fellow AA member down - but on my own I seem to let myself down all the time.

~ Mike

Purpose - June 20th

“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

~ Mitch Albom

A.A. Thought for the Day

You should be ready and willing to carry the A.A. message when called upon to do so. Live for some purpose greater than yourself. Each day you will have something to work for. You have received so much from this program that you should have a vision that gives your life a direction and a purpose that gives meaning to each new day. Let us not slide along through life. Let us have a purpose for each day and let us make that purpose for something greater than just ourselves. What is my purpose for today?

The greatest sense of satisfaction that I've encountered in AA is when I knew that something I did benefited someone else. I probably don't do as much service as I should but I do work on it. Today I'll drive a friend to an AA meeting because he can't drive. 
~ Mike

Gratitude - June 17th

“Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.”

~ Brian Tracy 

A.A. Thought for the Day

We in A.A. have the privilege of living two lives in one lifetime. One life of drunkenness, failure, and defeat. Then, through A.A., another life of sobriety, peace of mind, and usefulness. We who have recovered our sobriety are modern miracles. And we're living on borrowed time. Some of us might have been dead long ago. But we have been given another chance to live. Do I owe a debt of gratitude to A.A. that I can never repay as long as I live?

I say a gratitude prayer every day and on those few days where I've forgotten to I'll spend the day feeling out of sorts and out of touch. Until I establish my conscious contact with my higher power everyday I am not ready to face the world.

~ Mike

Service - June 16th

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
~ Mohandas Gandhi

A.A. Thought for the Day

But even faith is not the whole story. There must be service. We must give this thing away if we want to keep it. The Dead Sea has no outlet and it is stagnant and full of salt. The Sea of Galilee is clear and clean and blue, as the Jordan River carries it out to irrigate the desert. To be of service to other people makes our lives worth living. Does service to others give me a real purpose in life?


Being of service to others allows me to give back rather than always be taking. 
~ Mike

Faith - June 15th

“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.”

~ Kahlil Gibran 

A.A. Thought for the Day

In A.A. we have three things: fellowship, faith, and service. Fellowship is wonderful, but its wonder lasts just so long. Then some gossip, disillusionment, and boredom may come in. Worry and fear come back at times and we find that fellowship is not the whole story. Then we need faith. When we're alone, with nobody to pat us on the back, we must turn to God for help. Can I say "Thy will be done" - and mean it?

Alcohol the Enemy - June 14th

“That's all drugs and alcohol do, they cut off your emotions in the end”

~ Ringo Starr 

A.A. Thought for the Day

In A.A. we have to learn that drink is our greatest enemy. Although we used to think that liquor was our friend, the time came when it turned against us and became our enemy. We don't know just when this happened, but we know that it did because we began to get into trouble - jails and hospitals. We realize now that liquor is our enemy. Is it still my main business to keep sober?


I loved to drink in the early days. I loved what alcohol took away - my fears and self-conciousness. Alcohol gave confidence and made me feel 10 feet tall. It was because of this faith in alcohol that I didn't notice as friends started leaving me and my marriage broke down. Alcohol allowed me to ignore the truth while I was busy ruining my life. Alcohol is my enemy.
~Mike

Hangovers, June 13th

For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, The Big Book

A.A. Thought for the Day

In A.A. we have to reeducate our minds. We have to learn to think differently. We have to take a long view of drinking instead of a short view. We have to look through the glass to what lies beyond it. We have to look through the night before to the morning after. No matter how good liquor looks from the short view, we must realize that in the long run it is poison to us. Have I learned to look through the bottle to the better life that lies ahead?


Hangovers played as much a role in getting me into recovery as shame, guilt, or any other consequence of alcoholic drinking. The only cure for hangovers, at least for me, was sobriety.
~ Mike

Hope - June 12th

“Hope never abandons you; you abandon it”

   ~ George Weinberg 

A.A. Thought for the Day

When we came into A.A., we made a tremendous discovery. We found that we were sick persons rather than moral lepers. We were not such queer birds as we thought we were. We found other people who had the same illness that we had, who had been through the same experiences that we had been through. They had recovered. If they could do it, we could do it. Was hope born in me the day I walked into A.A.?


For me hope was a return to sanity and balance. Pessimism was replaced by optimism and isolation was replaced by time spent with new friends in AA.
~ Mike

Faith - June 10th

“Faith is the force of life.”

~ Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

A.A. Thought for the Day

If we have had some moral, religious, or spiritual training, we're better prospects for A.A. When we reach the bottom, at this crucial moment when we're thoroughly licked, we turn instinctively to whatever decency is left in us. We call upon whatever reserves of morality and faith are left down deep in our heart. Have I had this spiritual experience?

Faith and spirituality require a daily commitment from me. Any day that I do not establish some conscious  contact with my higher power is always a bad day. Faith and spirituality has seen me through addiction and all of the darkness that an addicted life brings.

~ Mike

Taking Action - June 9th

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A.A. Thought for the Day

We finally came to the bottom. We did not have to be financially broke, although many of us were. But we were spiritually bankrupt. We had a soul sickness, a revulsion against ourselves and against our way of living. Life had become impossible for us. We had to end it all or do something about it. Am I glad I did something about it?


Putting the cork in the bottle is the first step to recovery for most of us. Years of living with the knowledge that my drinking controlled me finally wore to the point that I had  no choice - I had to take action. 
~ Mike 

Acceptance - June 8th

“Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.”

~ William James

A.A. Thought for the Day

Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. We always get worse, never better. We are never cured. Our alcoholism can only be arrested. No matter how long we have been sober, if we try liquor again, we're as bad or worse than we ever were. There is no exception to this rule in the whole history of A.A. We can never recapture the good times of the past. They are gone forever. Will I try to recapture them?


The shipwreck that was my life before sobriety is obvious to me now. I spent years of my life drinking and ignoring how my actions were making my life a misery....I now believe that hindsight can only be 20:20 to a sober person. As an active alcoholic I was blind to the truth.
~ Mike

A Progressive Disease - June 7th

“I have other obligations now-the show, my family, my life...though I know that without my sobriety I wouldn't have any of those things.”

~ Rob Lowe

A.A. Thought for the Day

Alcoholism is a progressive illness. We go through the three stages of social drinking, trouble drinking, and merry-go-round drinking. We land in hospitals and jails. We eventually lose our homes, our families, and our self-respect. Yes, alcoholism is a progressive illness and there are only three ends to it - the insane asylum, the morgue, or total abstinence. Will I choose not to take the first drink?


Don't drink and go to meetings is the best advice ever given to me in this program. There are meetings morning, noon and night every day of the week in Ottawa and over the course of my journey in sobriety I have found a need to take advantage of meetings every day at times. May you too have access to AA when you need it.
~ Mike

Why We Drink - June 6th

“Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness”

~ Bertrand Russell

A.A. Thought for the Day

Drinking is the way we alcoholics express our maladjustments to life. I believe that I was a potential alcoholic from the start. I had an inferiority complex. I didn't make friends easily. There was a wall between me and other people. And I was lonely. I was not well adjusted to life. Did I drink to escape from myself?


Drinking made me believe things I could never believe sober - that I was good enough, that I belonged and that people could like me. 
~ Mike

The Right Path - June 5th

“I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work”

~ Thomas Alva Edison

A.A. Thought for the Day

We alcoholics are fortunate to be living in a day and age when there is such a thing as Alcoholics Anonymous. Before A.A. came into being, there was very little hope for the alcoholic. A.A. is a great rebuilder of human wreckage. It takes men and women whose personality problem expresses itself in alcoholism and offers them a program that, if they are willing to accept it, allows them not only to get sober, but also to find a much better way of living. Have I found a better way of living?


I tried staying sober on my own, I tried to control my drinking - but it has only been in the fellowship of AA that I've found the Holistic approach I needed for sobriety. 
~ Mike

Certainty - June 2nd

The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is unchangeable or certain.

~ John F. Kennedy

A.A. Thought for the Day

Some more things I do not miss since becoming dry: wondering if the car is in the garage and how I got home; struggling to remember where I was and what I did since my last conscious moment; trying to delay getting off to work, and wondering how I will look when I get there; dreading the day ahead of me. I'm quite sure that I don't miss these things, am I not?


I have met some of those poor unfortunate few who could not get the program. They almost all have returned to old ways and continue to have trouble and sorrow in their lives. They are certain that sobriety is not for them. That's a shame.
~ Mike

Progress - June 1st

“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.”

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes 

A.A. Thought for the Day

Some things I do not miss since becoming dry: that overall awful feeling physically, including the shakes, a splitting headache, pains in my arms and legs, bleary eyes, fluttering stomach, droopy shoulders, weak knees, a three day beard, and a flushed complexion. Also, facing my wife or my husband at breakfast. Also, composing the alibi and sticking to it. Also, trying to shave or put on make up with a shaky hand. Also, opening up my wallet to find it empty. I don't miss these things, do I?


If it were not for this program I would never have been able to shed the shame that kept me from joining society and becoming a father, friend, and neighbour. I do not regret the past but there are many things from it that I do not miss. I love this new life and thank my higher power for it.
~ Mike