Alcoholics Anonymous | Step 8 Reading 12 & 12 |

Step Eight | Alcoholics Anonymous |

DonInLondon Step Eight Video Reading

A wonderful experience tonight, after eight meeting. How to love, be loved and useful. Seeing friends, being with people who understand what its like on our first day, thirty and forty years later, life is in the moment and just for today… I feel happy and humble…

Expression of feelings… open, honest and willing to let out the pain of the past? That was then and this is now. If we are to express our feelings genuinely and authentically in the day, we need find acceptance of back then, or we drag the past into the present and risk the “same old same old” in the future, progress daily

August 11 2008 ~ 2010

Expression of feelings… open, honest and willing to let out the pain of the past? That was then and this is now. If we are to express our feelings genuinely and authentically in the day, we need find acceptance of back then, or we drag the past into the present and risk the “same old same old” in the future, progress daily

Let go anger one day at a time… Less fixing and more living in the moment, occasions happen where old feelings rise up in daily experiences. Letting go is recognising the impact of today’s events, accepting we need change our responses rather than reacting in the same old ways. If I don’t see it, you do, tell me today…

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AA Daily Reflections ~ “Step eight “removing the ground glass…”: The moral inventory is a cool examination of the damages that occurred to us during life and a sincere effort to look at them in a true perspective. This has the effect of taking the ground glass out of us, the emotional substance that still cuts and inhibits. [as Bill sees it…]

My Eighth Step list used to drag me into a whirlpool of resentment. After four years of sobriety, I was blocked by denial connected with an on-going abusive relationship. The argument between fear and pride eased as the words of the Step moved from my head to my heart. For the first time in years I opened my box of paints and poured out an honest rage, an explosion of reds and blacks and yellows. As I looked at the drawing, tears of joy and relief flowed down my cheeks. In my disease, I had given up my art, a self-inflicted punishment far greater than any imposed from outside. In my recovery, I learned that the pain of my defects is the very substance God uses to cleanse my character and to set me free.”

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Spiritual principles to live life “real” ~ “Forgiveness” “Acceptance” “Surrender” “Faith” “Open-mindedness” “Honesty” “Willingness” “Moral-inventory” “Amends” “Humility” “Persistence” “Spiritual-growth” “Service”

“Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.”

From 12Step.org

Step 8 is the beginning of making amends, of healing the past with others. From the inventory of Step 4, I have a good starting place for making a list of people that I have harmed. I look over my personal inventory and possibly reflect on my life again. I make a list of the people that I have harmed. I can write down thoughts beside each name about what the appropriate amends might be. I then go through the list and make sure I am willing in my heart to make the amends.
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From A.A. COMES OF AGE

“The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.The A.A. Steps & Traditions are neither rules, regulations, nor laws. Perhaps the secret of their power lies in the fact that these life-giving communications spring out of living experience and are rooted in love.” ~ “We find it amazing that the newcomer can start the A.A. program without any specific beliefs or, for that matter, without any beliefs whatsoever. All a person needs is the open-mindedness and the willingness to believe that WE BELIEVE this program works…”
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DonInLondon, Life Works, Alcoholics Anonymous, AA 12 Steps, 12 Steps AA, Addiction And Recovery, Addict, Alcoholic, Alcoholism