Tools

Tools I was given:

Daily Gratitude list
1. I am grateful to God for getting/keeping me sober
2. I am grateful to God for giving me legs to go for a walk
3. I am grateful to God for keeping me from jail when I drove drunk.
4. I am grateful to God children are healthy....etc
5. I am grateful to God that I have use of all me senses
6. I am grateful for AA
7. I am grateful for coffee
8. I am grateful for running water
9. I am grateful the toilet works
10. I am grateful my dog came home...whatever....just as long as you are grateful for it or them.

Plan of Action

• Reading all online meeting emails. Listening at face to face meetings to others, not thinking about how profound I want to sound when it's my turn.
• Get a box or jar and label it- God Box-all fears and bad thoughts about people or whatever can be written on a little piece of paper and put in the jar/box, symbolically giving it to God 
• Finding a face to face meeting/home group. Humbling myself to actually being in the presence of other alcoholic women helped me get grounded in AA
• Asking the group how I can be of service-stacking chairs, setting up, breaking down meetings, making coffee, anything that I can do for the meeting.

• Surrender on knees each morning asking only how you may serve God's will that day 
• At night on knees, thanking God for keeping me Sober and for all my blessings
• Read, watch and listen to AA material speakers, workshops. I put a lot of time and energy into my dis-ease and social media that got and kept me sick, now I must put that same effort into getting well.

Tools and Suggestions in the Big Book:

WHEN I AM DISTURBED BY THE CONDUCT (SYMPTOMS) OF OTHERS
"This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."
(p. 67 BB)
God help me to show this person the same tolerance, pity and patience that I would Cheerfully grant a sick
friend. This is a sick person, how can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.
(see above and p. 141 of 12&12)

WHEN I AM AFRAID
"We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be."
(p. 68 BB)
God, relieve me of this fear and direct my attention to what you would have me be. AMEN

WHEN I AM AWARE OF MY OWN DEFECTS AND SEEKING GOD'S HELP TO CHANGE
"We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. . . we ask God what we should do about each
specific matter."
(p. 69 BB)
God, I'm agitated and doubtful right now. Help me to stop and remember that I've made a decision to let You be
my God. Give me the right thoughts and actions. God save me from fear, anger, worry, self-pity or foolish
decisions that Your will not mine be done. AMEN

SUGGESTIONS ABOUT PRAYER AND MEDITATION FROM BB
(1) Make no requests in prayer for yourself only.
(2) Never pray for your own selfish ends.
(3) Select and memorize a few set prayers that emphasize the principles of the Steps.
(4) Ask a priest, minister or rabbi about helpful books and prayers that emphasize the principles of the Steps.
(5) Be quick to see where religious people are right.
(6) Make use of what religious people have to offer.

NIGHT PRAYER
God forgive me where I have been resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid today. Help me to not keep anything to
myself but to discuss it all openly with another person - show me where I owe an apology and help me make it.
Help me to be kind and loving to all people. Use me in the mainstream of life God. Remove worry, remorse or
morbid (sick) reflections that I may be of usefulness to others. AMEN
(p. 86 BB)

MORNING PRAYER
God direct my thinking today so that it be divorced of self pity, dishonesty, self-will, self-seeking and fear. God
inspire my thinking, decisions and intuitions. Help me to relax and take it easy. Free me from doubt and
indecision. Guide me through this day and show me my next step. God give me what I need to take care of any
problems. I ask all these things that I may be of maximum service to you and my fellow man in the name of the
Steps I pray. AMEN
(p. 86 BB)

AA MORNINGS
● On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day.
Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from
self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental
faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a
much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

● In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to
take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We are often surprised how
the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.

● What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the
mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable
that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd
actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on
the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.

● As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or
action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to
ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement,
fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so
easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to
suit ourselves.

Being kind to others. Smiling. Opening doors. Being patient in lines. Drive without freaking out and just be grateful that I am 
not in jail or dead….

We alcoholics are undisciplined and create drama. So we let God guide us in the simple way we have just
outlined. But this is not all. There is action and more action.

“Faith without works is dead.”

AA NIGHTS
When we retire at night, we constructively review our day.
● Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid?
● Do we owe an apology?
● Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once?
● Were we kind and loving toward all?
● What could we have done better?
● Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others,
of what we could pack into the stream of life?

But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would
diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God's forgiveness and
inquire what corrective measures should be taken.
(from "Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 86)

The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference

The Set Aside Prayer
God,
Please help me set aside
everything I think I know
about myself, my disease,
the 12 steps, and especially You;
So I may have an open mind
and a new experience
of all these things.
Please let me see the truth.