Many of the discussion topics chosen are taken from AA literature that may not be generally available to all participants in this meeting. This blog will share this AA literature that a chairperson has chosen that may not be generally available.
Many of the posts come from the over 60 years of archives from the monthly AA magazine, Grapevine. Other sources may include AA literature such as ‘As Bill Sees It’ as well as AA pamphlets.
There is also a growing set of quotes from the AA Big Book , Twelve and Twelve, Daily Reflections, and Living Sober.
All of these posts are categorized to allow quicker access. You can also search on key words that you are interested in learning more about.
Early in my sobriety, my sponsor Linda told me that I was allowed to call and whine about a situation exactly once. After that, we were going to talk about solutions, not problems. She also gave me a time limit on feeling sorry for myself. I can’t remember if it was 10 minutes or 15…
“The past has flown away. The coming month and year do not exist. Ours only is the present’s tiny point.” – Mahmoud Shabistari I suspect that if I reclaimed all the minutes, hours, and days I’ve sacrificed to worry and fear, I’d add years to my life. When I succumb to worry, I open a…
Everyone must agree that we A.A.’s are unbelievably fortunate people; fortunate that we have suffered so much; fortunate that we can know, understand, and love each other so supremely well.These attributes and virtues are scarcely of the earned variety. Indeed, most of us are well aware that these are rare gifts which have their true…
Feeling that we are different, that we don’t belong or fit in, is a staple of the alcoholic story. However, few openly connect the feeling with shame. Bill W does. In Pass It On and Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, we read about two circumstances that fostered the emotion in him growing up. The first…
Who can render an account of all the miseries that once were ours, and who can estimate the release and joy that later years have brought to us? Who can possibly tell the vast consequences of what God’s work through A.A. has already set in motion?And who can penetrate the deeper mystery of our wholesale…
When I became president of my condo association, I started to notice that some neighbors were not particularly neighborly. People would do things like put their garbage outside their door and leave it there for hours before taking it down and depositing it in the dumpster. They would hang their doormat to dry on the…
However intelligent we may have been in other respects, where alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane. It’s strong language – but isn’t it true? Some of you are thinking: “Yes, what you tell us is true, but it doesn’t fully apply. We admit we have some of these symptoms, but we have…
Jim A. found this interesting article that perhaps can be thought of as identifying how we may not only expect perfection from ourselves but project it and impose it on others. One of the topics we’ve been discussing about emotional sobriety is our tendency to create unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others. When we find…
Joe McQ is the Joe of the well known Joe & Charlie BB studies, tapes, and retreats. He has some compelling wisdom for us about Step 1 in his book entitled ‘The Steps We Took’. Here is a short extract of the first portion of his chapter on Step 1 What is the Problem? We…
Self-centered Fear: Self-sufficiency and Self-reliance This generally unconscious tendency to build our lives independently of God is what the Big Book means by self-reliance, and it drives the manifold aspirations and ambitions we pursue through work. For work is not always about money and the financial independence it can buy. It is just as much…
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