Quotes from Bill Pittman

In all ways I can

have supplied the foundation for recovery. The next two Steps begin the active, day-to-day solution, removing what blocks us from our usefulness to other people and to our Higher Power, and especially (and ultimately) what blocks us from ourselves.

change fear into faith, hate into love, egoism into humility, anxiety and worry into serenity, complacency into action, denial into acceptance, jealousy into trust, fantasy into reality, selfishness into service, resentment into forgiveness, judgmentalism into tolerance, despair into hope, self-hate into self-respect, and loneliness into fellowship.

We are taught desire rather than deserve. Just because we want it must mean we are able to get it, right?

I can now admit that most of my troubles stem from one large and glaring defect: self-centeredness. For how can I wallow in self-pity, weep over resentments, be sick with righteous anger, ache with envy, and tense up with fears and anxieties unless all my thoughts are exclusively on poor me?

I gathered that, instead of fighting mightily against a defect, I also had to let go of it. Just simply open my hands, my heart, and my mind and say to my Higher Power, "Here it is, this defect. I give it to You. Please remove it from me.

Use prayer to ask for awareness and willingness to receive. Use prayer to ask for depth and clarity. Use prayer to ask to become a better channel for our Higher Power. Use prayer to ask for ease and grace in surrender. Use prayer to ask how to pray. Use prayer to ask how to think and act. Use prayer to say thank you. Use prayer. Prayer can be considered cheating because of how much easier it makes the process go.

I was wrong, not bad. I did "look bad." And I didn't get my needs met, so I ignorantly, apparently insanely, and desperately repeated what I knew. More, more, and more. Or less, less, and less. Deprivation and overconsumption are flip sides of the same coin. The point of recovery is finding the balance.

Those people who prosper and grow with their fear are those who move through it.

The principles of Twelve Step recovery are the opposite of our character defects.

I now know that if I don't want to live in a mess, I need to pray to God for the willingness, courage, and motivation to clean up my own mess.

Free of Resentment Prayer God, free me from my resentment Toward ______. Please bless _____ in whatever it is that You know They may be needing this day. Please give _____ everything I want for myself. And may _____'s life be full of health, peace, Prosperity, and happiness as they seek to have A closer relationship with You.

Peace in Our Hearts Our Creator, show us the way of patience, tolerance, And kindness. Grant us power in our love, Strength in our humility, Clarity in our thinking, Purity in our zeal, Sincerity in our purpose, Kindness in our laughter, Value in our gratitude, Compassion in our friendships, And Your peace in our hearts at all times.

The remedy for fear is faith, for faith means courage.

When anger takes over, it acts with uncontrollable rage. We say things, feel things, and do things way out of proportion. Anger is emotional drunkenness.

Today, I understand envy as the incredible sadness that overwhelmed me when others were successful. I was hypercritical and insanely jealous of the "greats," never once looking at the time, energy, and work they put into their success. I simply resented their "good luck," "connections," or "secret

In this ongoing process, the Program is asking us to go where none of us has ever been before—into lives of lessened fear, diminished anger, fewer resentments, and genuine self-esteem instead of self-pity. There is a price, however: the willingness to challenge and change patterns of thought, speech, and behavior that may have gone unchallenged for ten, twenty, thirty years or more.

believe we get active with Step Six when we get sick and tired of being sick—sick and tired of the character defects of which alcoholism is a symptom, sick and tired of their effect, not on our past, but on our present lives.

The hole in me, the neediness, the hunger, the ache in my life that I tried to fill or stay distracted from by using addictive behavior is actually the perfectly logical result of not knowing and therefore not accepting myself as I am.

God give me the courage and strength to know who I really am, to act accordingly in my life, and to refrain from diverting my time, energy, and interest into my character defects.

Many of us still think our value as a human being is in what we do or what we don't do, rather than who we are.

To become the person we can become, we must drop the rock—all the grasping and holding on to old patterns of behaving, thinking, and feeling that are harmful to ourselves and to others.

Courage is what makes us do the right thing even when nobody else is doing it.

I cannot open a flower with a sledgehammer—