I remember early on in recovery when I had an issue about the pray deal. Was I doing it right ECT..
A wise man told me the same exact thing when I questioned it. If your attempting to pray your praying.
Grateful I took the suggestion.

Another way I can look at it is "act as if"

To recovery everyone!

Thanks gim, act as if. I have fought so many things all my life, that when I got here I was willing to try just about anything. My sponsor had me put me shoes under the bed (not a new idea) but one I never heard, and said while your down there putting them there, say a little prayer. And when you go to get them say another!!

Thank Goodness for chairs... JK:)

I know some AA members who are Jesus freaks yet can't stay sober.

They may know how to pray but they don't get the "Faith without works is dead" part of recovery.

My formula is:

Prayers + Principles = Promises

Well maybe they need to find their own Higher Power not someone else's.
'I belonged to a huge congreagation and at one time bibles in hand they were chasing me from bar to bar. True story. When I would not mind and stay sober they kicked me out.

Been there done that, the program worked for me simply the way it is laid out. Without my best thinking which got me here..

Effective prayer is action.

Willingness without action is fantasy.

Effective prayer is action.

Willingness without action is fantasy.

Oops, sorry for that double post.

We will intuitively know how to handle situations that use to baffle us.
I understand that today through prayer as without my depending on the place it puts me I go nowhere fast. How or why it works I have no idea just that it does. Its when I started wondering what came first the chicken or the egg I start to get into my best thinking, which more than not backfires. For me that is why my 10th and 11th step is so important, espeically at night.

I can not partitions the lord with prayer
I can pray to my high power till I'm blue
in the face. And God will still not see it my way.
For me the secret is in believing and having faith
that God is in control.
The courage to be honest with myself I find the humility
that I'm human not all good or all bad.,
But God will not do any thing for me unless I Surrender
In trust I find acceptance to be willing to humbly ask for help
to do his will. To find compassion for those I have harmed
Faith and trust to have the courage to right the wrongs.
With honest integrity to stay in tune I pray for the knowledge
of his will for me and the power to carry it out
The living pray

I can petition the Lord with prayer
I can compel the Lord with humility
I can command the Lord with detachment

If I detach from self - The Lord must obey his own law
Nature abhors a vacuum

If I detach from self I will be without a purpose ( a vacuum)
And the Lord will fill the vacuum

"If I keep on turning my life and my will over to the care of Something or Somebody else, what will become of me? I'll look like the hole in the doughnut." This, of course, is the process by which instinct and logic always seek to bolster egotism, and so frustrate spiritual development. The trouble is that this kind of thinking takes no real account of the facts. And the facts seem to be these: The more we become willing to depend upon a Higher Power, the more independent we actually are. "
(12&12 page 36)

relying on self I'm limited
relying on a high power I have no limit
a freedom I could never imagined