AA Thought for the Day - June 7, 2015

AA Thought for the Day
(courtesy AA-Alive.net)

June 7, 2015

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Self-pity
Self-pity is one of the most unhappy and consuming defects that we know.  It is a bar to all spiritual progress
and can cut off all communication with our fellows because of its inordinate demands for attention and sympathy.
It is a maudlin form of martyrdom, which we can ill afford.
- As Bill Sees It, p. 238

Thought to Ponder . . .
If I self-forget I find.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
A A = Attitude Adjustment.

A Member Shares:
I'm Erik, an alcoholic.  The false comfort of self-pity screens me from reality only momentarily and then demands, like a drug, that I take an ever bigger dose.  If I succumb to this it could lead to a relapse into drinking.  What can I do?  One certain antidote is to turn my attention, however slightly at first, toward others who are genuinely less fortunate than I, preferably other alcoholics.  In the same degree that I actively demonstrate my empathy with them, I will lessen my own exaggerated suffering.  I can remember many times when I was drinking, especially the last 5 years or so, sitting by myself with a bottle drowning my sorrows thinking, "Poor me, life is so hard on me.  If only the world would understand me and treat me more fairly."  When I first got to AA and saw your smiling faces and listened to your stories some of that self-pity was relieved and replaced with HOPE.  Little by little, I have been learning to accept that most of my problems were and are a result of my own poor choices and actions, and that makes it hard to blame others or wallow in self-pity.  But if I let me, I can still get the “Poor me's.”  I like what the reading says about helping someone less fortunate than I.  And that works for me.  It gets me out of self.  Some time ago someone told me that no matter where I think I am on the ladder of life there will always be someone who has it better and someone who has it worse than me, so wherever I am on the scale “It's OK.”  I find it also helps when I take the time to count my blessings, and they are many.  Thank you AA, and thanks for letting me share.
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(All shares are reproduced with the kind permission of the person sharing)

Thanks to all of you for sharing so generously of your experience, strength and hope in carrying the AA message.
Blessings in sobriety to all,
In love and service,
joanna b
dailythought@aa-alive.org

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