I need to print out these and super glue them to my nose for my eyes to see and my brain to remember. Most of my "issues" have had to do with not being able to accept the things I cannot change and not working hard enough to change me instead of hoping/trying others will change. So I have a huge ego-driven problem with "acceptance". Wish they would have taught the following in schools when I was a kid because my life may have turned out differently since my expectations of others my whole life has been all over the place.
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From "Acceptance Was The Answer" (AA Big Book, 4th Edition, Personal Stories (16) or Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict (AA Big Book 3rd Edition, Personal Stories).
"Acceptance is the answer to "all" my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment."
"I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world, as on what needs to be changed in me, and in my attitudes."
"When I complain about me or about you, I am complaining about God's handiwork, I am saying I know better than God. For years I was sure that the worst thing that could happen to a nice guy like me would be that I would turn out to be an alcoholic. Today I find it's the best thing that has ever happened to me. This proves I don't know what's good for me. And if I don't know what's good for me, then I don't know what's good or bad for you or for anyone."
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...and if I got the quote sources wrong, I am sure there will be someone on here who will set me straight.
-- Edited by leavetherest on Wednesday 6th of January 2016 08:04:40 AM
ya know? ... ... ... I had some quotes that I taped to my bathroom mirror, early in sobriety ... it helped me a lot to see them 1st thing when I got up in the morn'n ... It got me to think'n 1st off about what I needed to think on ... then as I made progress, I changed some of the notes to make sure my think'n started off on the area of my life I needed to concentrate on ... after 'bout a year, I had it down well enough to take the notes down, cause it became my 'new way of life' ... it became automatic ...
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
One day I got butchers wrapping paper (3 feet square) and with a broad black marker wrote one AA cliche per sheet. Then tacked them up on my lounge room wall.
Then, my new girlfriend at the time, came to visit. She saw the large posters and looked at me in shock and said, "You haven't shown these to anybody else have you? Because they'll think your nuts!"
I said, "I don't care if they did. I just need to get these cliches in my head, because I keep forgetting them!" With great reluctance she understood.
I quickly realized that I got used to them being on the wall and stopped looking at them. So, on a daily basis I moved them around until, basically the paper fell to pieces. Guess what, it worked for me.
27 years later, I still have smaller cliche cards hanging around my home. Non are AA related. I have a few sport cliches where I keep my bike, and a few in my art studio.
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"... unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of recovery." Dr. Silkworth. (Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Ed. p.xxix)
