DAILY PRAYER GUIDELINES

(One Members View)

(Paraphrased directly from pages 83, 86 87 and 88 in the AA Big Book.)

(Please feel free to adapt these any way you like.  These are suggestions, guidelines from the Big Book that have worked for countless members of men and women like us.  The wording is not critical, only the heartfelt effort to keep God first by starting and ending our day in prayer.)

 On Awakening: 

Higher Power, I thank you for guiding and directing my thinking today.  I especially ask that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. And I also ask that you show me the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love.  I thank you for  clearing my thinking of wrong motives, thereby placing my thought life on a higher plane.  If I should face doubt or indecision today, thank you Higher Power, for inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision.  Thank you for allowing me to relax and to take it easy.  Thank you that I do not have to struggle today.  Thank you, Higher Power, that what used to be the “hunch” or the occasional inspiration is gradually becoming a working part of my mind that I can come to rely upon.  Higher Power, I thank you that I be shown all through out this day what my next step is to be.  Thank you for supplying whatever I need to take care of any problems that may arise.  Higher Power, thank you especially for freedom from self-will.  Thank you for the right thought or action.  Please help me to remind myself  that I am no longer running the show, and help to remember the short form of this prayer, “Thy will, not mine, be done.”  Amen.

After completing Step 3, add the Third Step Prayer

After completing Step 7, add the Seventh Step Prayer

After completing Step 11, add the Eleventh Step Prayer (12x 12 p.99)

When Retiring: 

Ask you Higher Power to help you constructively review your day.  Observe if you were resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid, and how these manifested themselves.  Ask your Higher Power to help you see where you may owe an apology, or if you are keeping something to yourself which should be discussed with someone else as soon as possible.  Ask yourself:  Was I kind and loving toward all?  What could I have done better?  Was I thinking of myself most of the time?  Or, was I thinking of what I could do for others, of what I could pack into the stream of my daily life?  Ask your Higher Power to help you to avoid drifting into worry, remorse, or morbid reflection.  Sometimes our minds will want to play an uncomfortable or regrettable incident over and over—Ask for help here, as this type of thinking diminishes our usefulness.

After making your review with your Higher Power’s help, ask your Higher Power to forgive any mistakes you made, and any intentional or unintentional harms or wrongs you may have done to yourself or anyone else.

After your have done this, simply INQUIRE what corrective measures should be taken.  Ask your Higher Power to reveal these corrective measures to you while you sleep, or in your morning meditation.  It is not your job to figure out the corrective measures!  The Big Book tells us to simply inquire, and then expect your Higher Power to show you the solution.  Do not continue to dwell on the events of the day, or possible solutions—again, it is not up to you!  Thank your Higher Power for keeping you smober (smober-minded) these past 24 hours, and go to sleep.