LGBTQ Nation: April 1, 2014 - Sara Gilbert of ‘The Talk,’ ‘Roseanne,’ marries rock musician Linda Perry – LGBTQ Nation
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
April 1, 2014 - Today's Gift from Hazelden
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Today's thought from Hazelden is:
When people don't forgive, they probably shorten their lives.
-- Doris Donnelly
Sometimes forgiveness seems impossible and we feel stuck in the quicksand of our own resentment. When everything else fails, we can try the "First Five People Forgiveness Plan." Each morning we make a decision to forgive the first five people we come in contact with who make us mad. We forgive all five people without analyzing or deciding if they deserve to be forgiven. We promptly forgive each one of them without exception.
This simple plan can work wonders for those of us who usually hold on to resentments and anger. Letting go of anger and resentment lets us feel our loving side. In learning to forgive others we can begin learning about how to forgive ourselves, too.
Today let me also remember that I, too, deserve forgiveness.
When people don't forgive, they probably shorten their lives.
-- Doris Donnelly
Sometimes forgiveness seems impossible and we feel stuck in the quicksand of our own resentment. When everything else fails, we can try the "First Five People Forgiveness Plan." Each morning we make a decision to forgive the first five people we come in contact with who make us mad. We forgive all five people without analyzing or deciding if they deserve to be forgiven. We promptly forgive each one of them without exception.
This simple plan can work wonders for those of us who usually hold on to resentments and anger. Letting go of anger and resentment lets us feel our loving side. In learning to forgive others we can begin learning about how to forgive ourselves, too.
Today let me also remember that I, too, deserve forgiveness.
From the book:
Our Best Days by Nancy Hull-Mast. © 1990 by Hazelden Foundation
April 1, 2014 - Step by Step
Step by Step
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Today, I will put my faith in the Program and my Higher Power to work by offering to someone else what I think I need or want for myself. Today, I will hand over to my Higher Power all that is selfish and which impedes or blocks my progress, my growth, and extend a hand of service to someone in need. Borrowing from Mother Teresa, if I grieve, I will find someone who needs consoling; if I am hungry, I will find someone to feed; if I am thirsty, I will quench another's thirst; and, if I am cold, I will give warmth to someone else. If someone seeking release from active alcoholism calls on me, I will not turn him away because I am too busy or for any other reason and instead offer what I have - hope, promise and rebirth in a Program that has been passed on to me through grace. Today, I will accept that I can keep what I have been gifted with in this Program only by giving it away. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2014
April 1, 2014 - Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
AA Thought for the Day
Since I've been in AA, have I made a start towards becoming more honest? Do I no longer have to lie to my husband or wife? Do I try to have meals on time, and do I try to earn what I make at work? Am I trying to be honest? Have I faced myself as I really am and have I admitted to myself that I'm no good by myself, but have to rely on God to help me do the right thing?
Am I beginning to find out what it means to be alive and to face the world honestly and without fear?
Meditation for the Day
God is all around us. His spirit pervades the universe. And yet we often do not let His spirit in. We try to get along without His help and we make a mess of our lives. We can do nothing of any value without God's help. All our human relationships depend on this. When we let God's spirit rule our lives, we learn how to get along with others and how to help them.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may let God run my life. I pray that I will never again make a mess of my life through trying to run it myself.
Hazelden Foundation
April 1, 2014 - A Day at a Time
A Day at a Time
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Reflection for the Day
If we don't want to slip, we'll avoid slippery places. For the alcoholic, that means avoiding old drinking haunts; for the over-eater, that means by-passing a once-favorite pastry shop; for the gambler, that means shunning poker parties and race tracks. For me, certain emotional situations can also be slippery places; so can indulgence of old ideas such as a well-nourished resentment that is allowed to build to explosive proportions.
Do I carry the principles of The Program with me wherever I go?
Today I Pray
May I learn not to test myself too harshly by "asking for it," by stopping in at the bar or the bakery or the track. Such "testing" can be dangerous, especially if I am egged on, not only by a thirst or an appetite or a craving for the old addiction, but by others still caught in it whose moral responsibility has been reduced to zero.
Today I Will Remember
Avoid slippery places.
Hazelden Foundation
April 1, 2014 - The Eye Opener
The Eye Opener
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
What exists in the life to come, we can leave to the theologians. But the actual existence of Heaven and Hell here on earth is indisputable to us who have lived in both.
If most of the Bible thumpers that continually rave about the threats of Hell could know the Hell the poor practicing alcoholic is going through, it would scare them to death.
Hazelden Foundation
Monday, March 31, 2014
March 31, 2014 - Today's Gift from Hazelden
Monday, March 31, 2014
Today's thought from Hazelden is:
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -- Marcel Proust
How have we felt when we return to our hometowns, childhood homes, old playgrounds, or high schools after years of absence? Suddenly each place isn't as it once seemed because we're looking through the eyes of someone older and changed. Where we once saw our high school through the eyes of students, we now look at it through the eyes of adults - in a much different way.
So it is with all areas of our lives: our jobs, homes, families, friends, or partners. Many of these people and places haven't changed for a long time. Yet, we change every day. Instead of seeing our job as the same old job or our home as the same old home, we can start to look at them differently.
Tonight we don't need to change things on the outside to feel better on the inside. We can change how we look at things from the inside out. We can start to see who and what are outside of us as if we were looking at them for the first time. Tonight the ho-hums in our lives can turn into ah-has just by changing the way we see them.
There may be many things in my life that haven't changed, but I'm not one of them. Tonight I can see them all with new eyes.
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -- Marcel Proust
How have we felt when we return to our hometowns, childhood homes, old playgrounds, or high schools after years of absence? Suddenly each place isn't as it once seemed because we're looking through the eyes of someone older and changed. Where we once saw our high school through the eyes of students, we now look at it through the eyes of adults - in a much different way.
So it is with all areas of our lives: our jobs, homes, families, friends, or partners. Many of these people and places haven't changed for a long time. Yet, we change every day. Instead of seeing our job as the same old job or our home as the same old home, we can start to look at them differently.
Tonight we don't need to change things on the outside to feel better on the inside. We can change how we look at things from the inside out. We can start to see who and what are outside of us as if we were looking at them for the first time. Tonight the ho-hums in our lives can turn into ah-has just by changing the way we see them.
There may be many things in my life that haven't changed, but I'm not one of them. Tonight I can see them all with new eyes.
From the book:
Night Light by Amy E. Dean. © 1986, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation
March 31, 2014 - Step by Step
Step by Step
Monday, March 31, 2014
Today, I will not allow self-pity to shake the foundation of my recovery Program regardless if my recovery began 24 months or 24 hours ago. Self-pity may be the sharpest in the anti-Higher Power's battery of poisons that can undo, in the blink of an eye, any progress I have made. But my Higher Power, and the support I have tapped in those also in recovery, have a stronger cache of tools. Self-pity is giving up my belief and total surrender to my Higher Power, and self-pity is the epitome of selfishness. If there is adversity in this day, I will face it with the courage, strength, hope and dignity with which my Program has endowed me, and I've already been empowered with courage, strength, hope and dignity merely by committing myself to recovery. Nor will I whine, "Why me?" And if I say no to self-pity today, I have no reason or excuse to drink, to use - and this day, then, will be good. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2014
March 31, 2014 - Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Monday, March 31, 2014
AA Thought for the Day
Since I've been in AA, have I made a start towards being more unselfish? Do I no longer want my own way in everything? When things go wrong and I can't have what I want, do I no longer sulk? Am I trying not to waste money on myself? And does it make me happy to see my family and my home have enough attention from me?
Am I trying not to be all get and no give?
Meditation for the Day
Each day is a day of progress, steady progress forward, if you make it so. You may not see it, but God does. God does not judge by outward appearance. He judges by the heart. Let Him see in your heart a simple desire always to do His will. Though you may feel that your work has been spoiled or tarnished, God sees it as an offering for Him. When climbing a steep hill, a person is often more conscious of the weakness of his stumbling feet than of the view, the grandeur or even of the upward progress.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may persevere in all good things. I pray that I may advance each day in spite of my stumbling feet.
Hazelden Foundation
March 31, 2014 - A Day at a Time
A Day at a Time
Monday, March 31, 2014
Reflection for the Day
My illness is unlike most other illnesses in that denial that I am sick is a primary symptom that I am sick. Like such other incurable illnesses as diabetes and arthritis, however, my illness is characterized by relapses. In The Program, we call such relapses "slips." The one thing I know for certain is that I alone can cause myself to slip.
Will I remember at all times that the thought precedes the action? Will I try to avoid "stinking thinking?"
Today I Pray
May God give me the power to resist temptations. May the responsibility for giving in, for having a "slip," be on my shoulders and mine only. May I see beforehand if I am setting myself up for a slip by blame-shifting, shirking my responsibility to myself, becoming the world's poor puppet once again. My return to those old attitudes can be as much of a slip as the act of losing my sobriety.
Today I Will Remember
Nobody's slip-proof.
Hazelden Foundation
March 31, 2014 - The Eye Opener
The Eye Opener
Monday, March 31, 2014
We as alcoholics are so used to getting by with a minimum of effort on our part that we sometimes fail to appreciate that only those things earned have any real lasting value.
We allowed our families to cover up for us and support us, we panhandled, we were experts in the game of something for nothing.
Nothing free is worth having. AA has no initiation fees or dues, but it also costs a lot if you want to get a lot. You can procure a two-bit brand of AA, but we don't guarantee it will work.
Hazelden Foundation
Sunday, March 30, 2014
UK bishop says gay priests should marry despite church ban
Gay Star News: March 30, 2014 - Gay priests should marry despite Church ban, says UK bishop
First photos of gay couples marrying in England after country's same-sex marriage ban struck down
The New Civil Rights Movement: March 30, 2014 - Photos: First Same-Sex Couples To Marry In England And Wales!
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