Reflections On The Daily Reflections

I was in a meeting yesterday where we read from the Daily Reflections. I found myself disheartened by the reading. There are cute and clever sayings in Alcoholics Anonymous—but some of them are not useful. The reflection for December 1st about the Steps being suggestions is one of these. The writer recalls the old line around AA, something like this: if you jump out of an airplane, it is “suggested” you take a parachute. This was probably an attempt at humor, but has the downside of making AA seem dogmatic. More like a religion, in fact.