Saturday, August 1, 2015
Aug. 1, 2015 - Southern Poverty Law Center adds to ethics filings against Alabama's chief justice
Aug. 1, 2015 - An ode to viewing vintage gay porn
Aug. 1, 2015 - Domestic violence: Not just a female issue
Aug. 1, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden
Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015
Today's thought from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem. . . .
-- Ayn Rand
How easily we love others when we feel self-assured, when we're comfortable in our chosen work, with our families and friends, with our directions in life. But the way isn't always smooth, nor should it be, and for this we can thank God, our protector and mentor.
The challenges of a rough passage confront us when it's time to grow. Seldom do we cherish the growing, and yet the gifts promised by these challenges - the increased self-awareness, the heightened sensitivity to others, the greater humility - make every moment that lies ahead profoundly more personal.
Hindsight is convincing. The paradox is that the more we trip, but pick ourselves up and move ahead with determination, the more self-assured and thus loving we'll become.
Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem. . . .
-- Ayn Rand
How easily we love others when we feel self-assured, when we're comfortable in our chosen work, with our families and friends, with our directions in life. But the way isn't always smooth, nor should it be, and for this we can thank God, our protector and mentor.
The challenges of a rough passage confront us when it's time to grow. Seldom do we cherish the growing, and yet the gifts promised by these challenges - the increased self-awareness, the heightened sensitivity to others, the greater humility - make every moment that lies ahead profoundly more personal.
Hindsight is convincing. The paradox is that the more we trip, but pick ourselves up and move ahead with determination, the more self-assured and thus loving we'll become.
You are reading from the book:
Worthy of Love by Karen Casey. © 1985 by Hazelden Foundation
Aug. 1, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step
Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015
Today, caution against perverting "Take It Easy" into procrastination or neglect of the new responsibilities that sobriety requires. "Take It Easy" affords not only the luxury but the necessity to tend to my our spiritual and emotional care lest we be unqualified to help someone else with their own. Adversely, "Take It Easy" does not bestow "permission" to put off or ignore responsibilities to ourselves, others and the 12th Step edict to carry the Program's message to the alcoholic who still suffers. The Program shows us how to balance the scale between taking it easy and procrastination, and if it's weighted down by taking it easy at the expense of responsibility to ourselves and others, we become as irresponsible dry drunks. Today, seek the balance between taking it easy all the time and giving all our time to everything and everyone else. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2015
Aug. 1, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015
AA Thought for the Day
The Alcoholics Anonymous program has borrowed from medicine, psychiatry and religion. It has taken from these what it wanted and combined them into the program which it considers best suited to the alcoholic mind and which will best help the alcoholic to recover. The results have been very satisfactory. We do not try to improve on the AA program. Its value has been proved by the success it has had in helping thousands of alcoholics to recover. It has everything we alcoholics need to arrest our illness.
Do I try to follow the AA program just as it is?
Meditation for the Day
You should strive for a union between your purposes in life and the purposes of the Divine Principle directing the universe. There is no bond of union on earth to compare with the union between a human soul and God. Priceless beyond all earth's rewards is that union. In merging your heart and mind with the heart and mind of the Higher Power, a oneness of purpose results, which only those who experience it can even dimly realize. That oneness of purpose puts you in harmony with God and with all others who are trying to do His will.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may become attuned to the will of God. I pray that I may be in harmony with the music of the spheres.
Hazelden Foundation
Aug. 1, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015
Reflection for the Day
Self-pity is one of the most miserable and consuming defects I know. Because of its interminable demands for attention and sympathy, my self-pity cuts off my communication with others, especially communication with my Higher Power. When I look at it that way, I realize that self-pity limits my spiritual progress. It's also a very real form of martyrdom, which is a luxury I simply can't afford. The remedy, I've been taught, is to have a hard look at myself and a still harder one at The Program's Twelve Steps to recovery.
Do I ask my Higher Power to relieve me of the bondage of self?
Today I Pray
May I know from observation that self-pitiers get almost no pity from anyone else. Nobody - not even God - can fill their out-sized demands for sympathy. May I recognize my own unsavory feeling of self-pity when it creeps in to rob me of my serenity. May God keep me wary of its sneakiness.
Today I Will Remember
My captor is my self.
Hazelden Foundation
Aug. 1, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener
Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015
It has been observed by many in AA that the surest bet to get our Program is the man who needs it most desperately. His very desperation lends strength to his efforts. He has been backed up to a wall and he must fight his way out of his dilemma or else he must die. There is no alternative.
Only the coward quits in despair, and the alcoholic can't be a coward for, if he was, he would have quit the unequal game long before his alcoholism was fully developed.
Yes, it takes a brave man to fight his way to the gutter, and it takes a brave and desperate man to fight his way out.
Hazelden Foundation
Friday, July 31, 2015
July 31, 2015 - Dear straight men: Come out already!
July 31, 2015 - In a word, what it means to be gay
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