I always found it quite interesting -God didn’t send a lawyer, He didn’t send a doctor, He didn’t send a banker, He didn’t send a warrior -but instead, He sent a teacher. Words! Concepts! Principalities! Lowly examples! TRUTHS!!!

•Title credited to Jim Vallance/Bryan Adam’s – sung by 38 Special.

If you say something (particularly in a group setting) in general, and (certain) people take offense to it -they probably feel guilty of it, OR ARE!

You hear a lot of things roll off the tongues of we human beings that sound very poetic -even truthful. I picked up on this sad fact in many an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Things that can send a person back out -things that can get an alcoholic killed.And this tragic fact is not confined to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. We have to be careful what we take to be fact or truth! The human tongue can be very sly, cunning, even ignorant. And I don’t think satan cares which -as long as it gets the job done!

•Excerpt taken from the movie “The Enforcer” and credited to Stirling Silliphant/Dean Riesner (screenplay), Gail Morgan Hickman/S.W.Schurr (story by), based on characters created by Harry Julian Fink/R. M. Fink.

At some point, can’t remember exactly when 🤔 God pointed out to me that “Many people, far worse off than you and I, have entered through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, stayed, and stayed sober.”

You can’t work the steps until you get sober. You can’t stay sober without following a few suggestions.

“If you’re on prescription medications because you’re working a piss poor program – then it’s no different than using” – God (1990s). That’s when I got off meds!

I used to think any kind of medications you were on, whether prescribed by a doctor or self prescribed, had an adverse effect on our spiritual condition-our relationship with God. But God, having the final say so in all our affairs… Makes the final determination (and the distinction between things we need -and things we ourselves choose, which ultimately harm our spiritual condition -interfere with the relationship between the two of us) as to where when and how much grace is granted -after all 🤷‍♂️ it’s all about grace! HIS GRACE!

I used to hear an Alcoholics Anonymous meetings all the time “If you’re gonna be miserable, you might as well go out and get drunk! Tell that to the family of the victim(s) who got mamed or killed by the person who decided to take that advice, went back out, and… well I think we know the rest of the story.*

*God pointed this out to me some decades ago -after hearing over and over “if you’re gonna be miserable…”

Some of my favorite sayings all-time as they pertain to this old-saying.

-Sometimes you gotta get up while we’re still being kicked*

-“Why do we fall sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”**

-“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!”***

Tougher, stronger, smarter, quicker people than you and I have been brought to tears, brought to their knees by this thing called “life”**** – you’re not (necessarily) weak, it’s just that at some point in life, life invariably finds our soft-spot(s), our weaknesses and reveals them to us. Rocky says to Apollo Creed “That’s what we do!” Well… it appears one of the things life does is point out our weaknesses to us.

*God gave this to me some decades back

**Credited to Christopher Nolan/David S. Goyer from the movie “Batman Begins” Courtesy of Alfred Pennyworth (played by Michael Caine).

***Credited to Sylvester Stallone from the movie “Rocky Balboa”.

****GOD… 🤷‍♂️

I remember telling a friend of mine I am no longer interested in a God of my own understanding I don’t understanding but rather to understand God as He is. Her response, “You go to AA but you’re not of AA”. All I know is Bill W. said “We realize we know little, more will be revealed….” I figured it was just the natural progression of faith, openmindedness…

The God I ended up with in Alcoholic Anonymous is the same God I started out with as a child!

Alcoholics Anonymous states “…a God of our own understanding”, not of our own preference, not of our own liking, not of our own determination…

One of an infinitesimally small number of issues I have with the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous… maybe I should say instead, the manner in which quite possibly, ensuing generations have broken away from organized religion and wrapped God around their little finger – “My God is…” basically whatever they want Him to be. I’m so grateful that the God I have chosen is the one that has thousands and thousands and thousands of pages written about Him. It plainly states in Alcoholics Anonymous that our thinking is not right -And I don’t think I would trust my own thinking when it comes to a God of my own understanding strictly.

We expect God to accept us unconditionally -just as we are, while we ourselves place conditions on our own understanding of God. 😏

I wonder what the old man (Bill W.) would think of what each of us shares and quibbles about in meetings?

•Excerpts from the books Alcoholics Anonymous and The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

Buy something for a quarter, sell it for 50 cents. Buy something for 50 cents, sell it for a dollar. Buy something for a dollar, sell it for $2… keep going -see how far you git!

Recently I had put on hold a couple of Box sets of James bond movies with 6 in each. When I returned to the bookstore today one of the original movies in one of the Box sets had been replaced with “Tomorrow Never Dies” a Pierce Brosnan Bond movie. I couldn’t remember which movie was originally in the set so that’s so rather blindly I went back to the DVD section which has several 1000 movies on the shelves looking for the missing movie. The only thing I had to go by was that 3/4 of the way down the spine of the DVD case was a one and a half inch picture of either Sean Connery or Roger Moore. So I scoured the 1st couple of bookcases with no luck. While doing so I was humming the song living let die from the James bond movie of the same name. Suddenly, this young lady behind me started humming it as well trying to figure out which song it was. Naturally, I couldn’t resist keeping her in suspense, in a typical bond fashion lol In any case, she started talking about her various adventures in New York and elsewhere as some sort of play actress. So I listened to her for almost a 1/2 an hour and then proceeded proceeded to glance back-and-forth between her and the 3rd bookshelf. Getting hungrier by the minute and realizing the chances for succes were looking increasingly dismal… doing this back-and-forth… Feeling that I wasn’t giving the young lady her do respect I turned back to her. For some strange reason I turned back towards the 4th bookshelf (I was still standing in front of the third bookshelf attempting to scan the remaining bottom two shelves) where my eyes were drawn directly to two specific DVD movies -for whatever reason I have no clue. As my eyes began to focus in, I found them vacillating between these 2 movies side-by-side. And guess what, one of them just happened to be, not only a James Bond Movie, but “the” James Bond Movie missing from the box set. I turned my attention once again to the young lady and with a “Tada” stated “I had found the missing movie”😁 When I returned to the front desk where the 2 box sets were being held, it was at that time I recalled that particular movie was part of the set – having spent several minutes yesterday basking in my great find. Moral of the story -God thing! Who else???🤷‍♂️

If this one attribute alone, mankind as a whole would master, difficulties between human beings on this planet… there would be no more need for policemen, armies… imagine what these people must be thinking!

•Title credited to Otis Redding – sung by Otis Redding (Aretha Franklin’s version garnered greater acclaim and accolades) .

“Do you not know there are things in the universe that exist of which you cannot understand?” This line spoken by Sir Anthony Hopkins, from the movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula – Open my mind like the jaws of life!

I’ll tell you something about close mindedness and narrow mindedness – There are things that exist right now on this very planet that may be across the street or across the globe which you would never believe exist -and yet there are people at this very moment, people just like yourself who know it to exist!

•Title taken from an excerpt of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”.