A. A. does not simply stand for Alcoholics Anonymous but also for altered attitudes. The word attitude as defined by brother Webster (click here), refers to a posture, or a leaning towards a certain thing, person, principle or place. When we first come into the rooms we are filled with weird attitudes, with selfish attitudes, with bad attitudes and little or no gratitude, what did we have to be thankful for???  We’d messed up our lives, we’d hurt the lives of others, we’d fallen on hard times, lost cash or jobs or homes or simply lost any form of respect, whether for others, for ourselves or for God. By the time we find the rooms we are pretty beaten up all round. If we come to A. A. because we are truly desperate to grow (up), to get better, to begin to recover and to really learn how to live without a drink or a drug, if we come to find a new posture, then we have a chance to be reformed, physically, mentally and spiritually. We have a chance to reshape our attitudes.

Turning to an attitude of gratitude takes hard work and discipline, patience and perseverance. It takes humility and courage, wisdom and strength. We often need good friends and support, good mentors, good books, good tapes, meetings, sponsors  etc… We might need ‘outside’ help, medication, therapy, counseling. Learning to live in a state of thanksgiving (developing the attitude of gratitude) is indeed a tall order for many of  us, for once we have gleaned all the vital information we need, we then need to do stuff on our own. It’s like going to school, performing well in school and then not doing our homework when we get out of school, we may well flunk classes or drop out. My mother would tell you the words “spasmodic effort”  were referred to in my earliest school reports, “Gerard does JUST enough”…never more than, and later, often less than. Remember our spiritual growth takes persistent effort, that means hard work.

We need God, we need our neighbor (friends, sponsors, church folks, support groups, positive influences) but we also need to learn how to be by ourselves and therefore to learn how to be alone. In the silence of our minds and hearts we can cultivate this new direction, this new posture, this new attitude that we have gleaned from the influences mentioned above. We can follow the guidelines we have learned from the company of others, from the books we have read, the tapes we have listened to, the meetings we have gone to etc etc…Once back in our homes, in our rooms, we manage our time carefully and direct our energies in the same way. We enter into a state of prayerful reflection, we invite God into the silence, we let Him guide us, reveal to us, strengthen us, direct us, we let Him become the measuring stick for how we should alter our attitudes, shape our ideals, ethics and morals. We then prepare to put them into practice in the things we say and do and think, in the places we visit and with the people we meet.

      Do you remember the movie My Fair lady ?…the rain in Spain…falls mainly on the plain, well, as I write it’s coming down pretty hard here right now!!! Mid-Summertime in Trenton has been pretty wet these last few years, it reminds me of Manchester (UK). Alcoholics are amazing people the harder the rain falls the more I here comments like, its all good, or I hear people talking about the sun shining on the inside, the farmers must be happy, good for the plants. I asked Vinnie what he thinks of the rain he tells me “it works for me…as long as I have no place far to walk”…don’t you just love ‘em? These are altered attitudes. Putting a positive spin on things, looking for the good despite the seemingly bad, re-focusing on things we can be happy about, hopeful about. If we can do this with the weather then we can try the same principles when it comes to relationships. People might be more unpredictable than the weather, we might oftentimes find ourselves blaming them for this rainy day feeling, but if we could only stop for a minute and look a little bit harder at the possibilities, take a second opinion or find a way to simply accept the rain then we can go forward in peace and in love. We can go on in the direction we were meant to travel and not get waylaid or diverted by the distractions of the day as they enter our lives, (people, places, things). This is a new way for many of us.  Attitude adjustment means change and change means work, discipline, effort and all the other things that self-centered and selfish people love to do. If we take as much effort in bringing about the necessary posture we need to receive the grace of God as we took to maintain the devastating behaviors of the past, we will certainly change much...and change we must !!! My own experience has led me to believe that once we enter into the realm of the Spirit, the promises (pg 83), as they have been laid out for us in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous certainly do come true.