December 7 — Practicing These Principles
Practicing these principles is easy… when I’m in an AA meeting.
I’m centered, I’m patient, I’m kind, I’m practically glowing with spiritual goodwill.
A newcomer walks in and suddenly I’m Mother Teresa with a coffee cup.
But when I’m at home?
Whole different ballgame.
Let one family member leave a sink full of dishes and my brain immediately decides they left them for me — personally — just to disrespect my entire existence. Suddenly, I’m having a full internal meltdown over a fork. No one said anything, no one did anything, but my mind spins it into a cosmic attack on my dignity.
The good news is the program taught me a crucial survival skill:
I don’t have to vocalize every insane thought that flies through my head.
Nobody is out to get me.
Nobody is plotting against me with cereal bowls.
I’m glad I know that nowadays.
But occasionally, on a low-spiritual day — when my spiritual Wi-Fi is glitching — I can unintentionally open my mouth and start some shit. Just… boom. Chaos. Whoops.
Thankfully, I’ve got the rest of the Steps to clean that up.
I can admit where I was wrong, make it right, and move on instead of marinating in guilt or doubling down on pride.
That’s what “practicing these principles” actually looks like for me— not perfection, but correction.
Someone in a meeting once told me,
“If you can treat everyone in the world like a newcomer that just stumbled into their first AA meeting, you’ll be fine.”
So far?
So good. Even when my spiritual Wi-Fi is glitching.
Who’s the hardest person for you to practice these principles with — and what does ‘progress, not perfection’ look like with them today?
