Coming Events | Announcements | Reminders | Inspiration | Contact
TRADITIONS CHECKLIST
These questions were originally published in the AA Grapevine in conjunction with a series of the 12 traditions that began in November 1969 and ran through September 1971. While they were originally intended primarily for individual use, many AA groups have since used them as a basis for wider discussion.
Tradition One: Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.
- Am I in my group a healing, mending, integrating person, or am I divisive? What about gossip and taking other members inventories?
- Am I a peacemaker? Or do I, with pious preludes such as "just for the sake of discussion" plunge into arguments
- Am I gentle with those who rub me the wrong way, or am I abrasive?
- Do I make competative remarks, such as comparing one group with another or contrasting AA in one place with AA in another?
- Do I put down some AA activities as if I were superior for not participating in this or that aspect of AA?
- Am I informed about AA as a whole? Do I support, in every way I can, AA as a whole or just the parts I understand and approve of?
- Am I as considerate of AA members as I want them to be of me?
- Do I spout platitudes about love while indulging in and secretly justifying behavior that bristles with hostility?
- Do I got to enough AA meetings or read enough AA literature to really keep in touch?
- Do I share with AA all of me, the bad and the good, accepting as well as giving the help of fellowship?
Submitted by Sheryl F.
Top of Page
You can complain about the same problem three times. Then you'd better be in the solution. If you have to talk to more than three people about the same problem, you don't want help, you want attention.
-Submitted by Sheryl F.
God doesn't close one door without opening a better one - but - we've got to get our fingers out of the closing door. The reason you're in pain is because you have your fingers in a door God is trying to close.
-Submitted by Sheryl F.
Top of Page
THE SERENITY PRAYER
GOD, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Living ONE DAY AT A TIME; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen
-Reinhold Neibuhr-1926
-Submitted by Sarah A.
Top of Page
DON'T EVER DOUBT YOURSELF
You have so much to offer, so much to give and so much you deserve to receive in return. Don't ever doubt that. Know yourself and all of your fine qualities. Rejoice in all your marvelous strengths of mind and body. Be glad for the virtues that are yours, and pat yourself on the back for all your many admirable achievements.
Keep positive. Concentrate on that which makes you happy, and build yourself up. Stay nimble of heart, happy of thought, healhty of mind, and well in being.
- Author Unknown
Top of Page
ACTUALIZING OUR VISION
No matter what our life has been like up to this point, it is never too late to be who we are meant to be. Each of us arrives in this life with special talents, aptitudes, and dreams, which we add to, augment, and refine as we mature. These aspirations and yearnings are the visions of our souls, the blueprints of our very being. It is our sacred assignment to actualize our personal visions as best we can, both for our own fulfillment, and as gifts to the planet and humankind. If we sacrifice our dreams or denigrate our gifts out of fear or as a concession to others' desires, we set ourselves up for a life of disappointment and resentment.
Noted scholar Joseph Campbell succintly summed up the consequences of giving up our vision when he said, "Hell is living someone elses' life." When I first heard that, I was in hell, having given up all my dreams and turning myself inside out in hopes of saving my first marriage. It didn't work.
Although living someone else's life and burning our own dreams and talents on the pyres of fear or obligation may sometimes appear to be succeeding, it never does on the soul level. At the level of Essence, we are being called to be a unique prism through which the Divine can be reflected. In response, every fiber of our being is magnetically drawn toward becoming who we were meant to be. Anything less is hell for our spirit.
Living our own life does not makes us selfish and self-centered. Quite the contrary. When we actualize our vision, we becomes centered in our hearts and connected to our spirits, which naturally makes us more loving and less selfish.
What are your special gifts and talents? Do you feel comfortable about how you are expressing them? If so, great! If not, what one small step can you take today or tomorrow to actualize your unique vision?
Each day I become more aware of my vision for myself and my life. I deserve to live my own life.
The Woman's Book of Soul: Meditations for Courage, Confidence, and Spirit by Sue Patton Thoele, pages 138-139
Top of Page
I HATE PEOPLE WHO GOSSIP
By Unknown
I hate people who gossip!
Nothing's as despicable as an act like that.
I don't know why they always do it -
Passing that garbage in their idle, idle chat.
I'm disgusted to know that it still happens,
Circling around me like vultures in pack.
I wish for once these tongues so sharpened
Would vanish forever and get off my back
The worst of the lot must be Mary-Amber
All day she goes, "Yap, yap, yap..."
Once she starts there's no stopping her
It's like watching water gushing down a tap
And then there's that chatter-box Noel
I swear he babbles when he's having a nap
No conscience has he when he gets on a roll
Doesn't take much to get him to snap
And then there's those witches around the corner
Who does nothing all day but squeak like rats
They sound like they're authorities on everyone
And rumors they spread as if they base it on fact
Anyway, as I was saying: I hate people who gossip!
Nothing's as despicable as an act like that
So if by chance you get the latest hearsay
Simply ignore it 'cuz it's a whole load of crap.
-Submitted by Anonymous
Top of Page
You wouldn't worry so much about what people think of you if you knew how seldom they did.
--Dr. Phil
Submitted by Sheree P.
Copyright © 2004, Codependent's Anonymous of the Greater Omaha Service Area
Questions or comments? Contact the
