April 2, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

AA Thought for the Day

I don’t believe that AA works because I read it in a book or because I hear people say so. I believe it because I see people getting sober and staying sober. An actual demonstration is what convinces me. When I see the change in people, I can’t help believing that A.A. works. We could listen to talk about A.A. all day and still not believe it, but when we see it work, we have to believe it. Seeing is believing.

Do I see AA work every day?

Meditation for the Day

Try saying: “God bless her (or him)” of anyone who is in disharmony with you. Also say it of those who are in trouble through their own fault. Say it, willing that showers of blessings may fall upon them. Let God do the blessing. Leave to God the necessary correcting or disciplining. You should only desire blessing for them. Leave God’s work to God. Occupy yourself with the task that He gives you to do. God’s blessing will also break down all your own difficulties and build up all your successes.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may use God’s goodness so that it will be a blessing to others. I pray that I may accept God’s blessing so that I will have harmony, beauty, joy, and happiness.

Hazelden Foundation

April 2, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

Step by Step
Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Today, I will not carry the pattern of compulsive and habitual behavior I perfected in my drinking days to other areas of my life. As a drinking alcoholic, I established the pattern of feeling and taking everything to an unhealthy and inappropriate extreme - all or nothing. That pattern is not necessarily in remission simply because my active alcoholism is. To shift the habitual and compulsive nature of my drinking to work, play, service or any other activity can be almost as self-defeating. And it is through the Steps of character rehabilitation that I need to tame unhealthy behavioral patterns. Today, I will seek a balance between giving everything, taking all and retaining what I need for myself by seeking the guidance of my Higher Power and reciting the Program's mottoes: "A Day at a Time," "First Things First," "Keep It Simple" and "Easy Does It." And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2019

April 2, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Tuesday, April 2, 2019

AA Thought for the Day
Since I've been in AA, have I made a start towards becoming more loving to my family and friends? Do I visit my parents? Am I more appreciative of my spouse than I was before? Am I grateful to my family for having put up with me? Have I found real understanding with my children? Do I feel that the friends I've found in AA are real friends? Do I believe that they are always ready to help me and do I want to help them if I can?

Do I really care now about other people?

Meditation for the Day
Not what you do so much as what you are, that is the miracle-working power. You can be a force for good, with the help of God. God is here to help you and to bless you, here to company with you. You can be a worker with God. Changed by God's grace, you shed one garment of the spirit for a better one. In time, you throw that one aside for yet a finer one. And so from character to character, you are gradually transformed.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may accept every challenge. I pray that each acceptance of a challenge may make me grow into a better person.

Hazelden Foundation

April 2, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

A Day at a Time
Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Reflection for the Day
What causes slips? What happens to a person who apparently seems to understand and live the way of The Program, yet decides to go out again? What can I do to keep this from happening to me? Is there any consistency among those who slip, any common denominators that seem to apply? We can each draw our own conclusions, but we learn in The Program that certain inactions will all but guarantee an eventual slip.

When a person who has slipped is fortunate enough to return to The Program, do I listen carefully to what he or she says about the slip?

Today I Pray
May my Higher Power - if I listen to Him - show me if I am setting myself up to get high again. May I glean from the experiences of others that the reasons for such a lapse of resolve or such an accident will most often stem from what I have not done rather than from what I have done. May I "keep coming back" to meetings.

Today I Will Remember
Keep coming back.

Hazelden Foundation

April 2, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

The Eye Opener
Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Reduced to its simplest form, the only true worship is to love God, and the only way to demonstrate this love is to serve your fellow man.

We in AA show the extent of our moral growth in the extent of our service to others. It is the only true spiritual experience. The flash of light that some of us experience could be only the first ray of intelligence that finally penetrated the alcoholic fog and dazzled our minds.

The true spiritual experience is evidenced by a passion to do those things which delight the spirit. By their works shall ye know them.

Hazelden Foundation

April 2, 2019 - Good Tuesday morning, and Godspeed to those who have found strength and hope here the last few years

April 1, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Monday, April 1, 2019

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

She knows omnipotence has heard her prayer and cries “it shall be done—sometime, somewhere.” — Ophelia Guyon Browning

Patience is a quality that frequently eludes us. We want what we want when we want it. Fortunately, we don’t get it until the time is right, but the waiting convinces us our prayers aren’t heard. We must believe that the answer always comes in its own special time and place. The frustration is that our timetable is seldom like God’s.

When we look back over the past few weeks, months, or even years, we can recall past prayers. Had they all been answered at the time of request, how different our lives would be. We are each on a path unique to us, offering special lessons to be learned. Just as a child must crawl before walking, so must we move slowly, taking the steps in our growth in sequence.

Our prayers will be answered, sometime, somewhere. Of that we can be sure. They will be answered for our greater good. And they will be answered at the right time, the right place, in the right way.

I am participating in a much bigger picture than the one in my individual prayers. And the big picture is being carefully orchestrated. I will trust the part I have been chosen to play. And I can be patient.

Hazelden Foundation

April 1, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

Step by Step
Monday, April 1, 2019

Today: Faith in the Program and my Higher Power and offering to someone else what I think I need or want for myself. Today, I will relinquish all that is selfish and 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 recovery from active alcoholism calls on me, I will not turn him away 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 only by sharing it with someone else. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2019

April 1, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Monday, April 1, 2019

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, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

A Day at a Time
Monday, April 1, 2019

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, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

The Eye Opener
Monday, April 1, 2019

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

April 1, 2019 - Good morning to another Monday and new week with confidence both will be great

March 31, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Sunday, March 31, 2019

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Opening ourselves to love

Allowing ourselves to receive love is one of the greatest challenges we face in recovery.

Many of us have blocked ourselves from receiving love. We may have lived with people who used love to control us. They would be there for us, but at the high price of our freedom. Love was given, or withheld, to control us and have power over us. It was not safe for us to receive love from these people. We may have gotten accustomed to not receiving love, not acknowledging our need for love, because we lived with people who had no real love to give.

At some point in recovery, we acknowledge that we, too, want and need to be loved. We may feel awkward with this need. Where do we go with it? What do we do? Who can give us love? How can we determine who is safe and who isn’t? How can we let others care for us without feeling trapped, abused, frightened, and unable to care for ourselves?

We will learn. The starting point is surrendering – to our desire to be loved, our need to be nurtured and loved. We will grow confident in our ability to take care of ourselves with people. We will feel safe enough to let people care for us; we will grow to trust our ability to choose people who are safe and who can give us love.

We may need to get angry first—angry that our needs have not been met. Later, we can become grateful to those people who have shown us what we don’t want, the ones who have assisted us in the process of believing we deserve love, and the ones who come into our life to love us.

We are opening up like flowers. Sometimes it hurts as the petals push open. Be glad. Our heart is opening up to the love that is and will continue to be there for us.

Surrender to the love that is there for us, to the love that people, the Universe, and our Higher Power send our way.

Surrender to love, without allowing people to control us or keep us from caring for ourselves. Start by surrendering to love for yourself.

Today, I will open myself to the love that is here for me. I will let myself receive love that is safe, knowing I can take care of myself with people. I will be grateful to all the people from my past who have assisted me in my process of opening up to love. I claim, accept, and am grateful for the love that is coming to me.

Hazelden Foundation

March 31, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

Step by Step
Sunday, March 31, 2019

Today, no self-pity to shake my recovery regardless if my recovery began 24 months or 24 hours ago. Self-pity may be the deadliest of poisons that can undo, in the blink of an eye, any progress I've made. Self-pity is giving up my belief and total surrender to my Higher Power and is the epitome of selfishness. If there is adversity this day, I will face it with the courage, strength, hope and dignity with which AA endows me, and I've already been endowed 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., 2019

March 31. 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Sunday, March 31, 2019

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