Dec. 27, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Friday, Dec. 29, 2019

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

We grow in time to trust the future for our answers. — Ruth Benedict

When we first started in recovery, we approached it as we did our codependent and addictive behaviors, wanting to possess it all—quickly and totally—and to do it right. Some of us thought we could learn all we needed to know about recovery in a few weeks. In living with this program, we begin to see we are engaged in a lifelong process. We are in a maturing process and this program is our guide. We can’t rush it or move on to the next stage too soon. An apple tree does not blossom in the fall, and we do not expect the newly forming apples to ripen before they’ve grown.

Our existence in this world is like walking through the woods on a rambling path. We can only see as far ahead as the next bend. We no longer seek some big moment when we finally get the outcome or a “cure” for life’s experiences. The experience along the way is all we need.

Today, I will think about the tasks and rewards of this day and trust the future for what is unanswered.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 27, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

Step by Step
Friday, Dec. 27, 2019

Today, the first word in hopeless is hope; the first word in helpless is help; the first word in senseless is sense; the first word in powerless is power. Within insanity is sanity; within fear, fearlessness; within pain, strength; within anger, reconciliation. This is our Program: from hopeless, hope; from helpless, help; from senseless, sense; from powerless, power; from insanity, sanity; from fear, courage; from pain, strength; from anger, forgiveness. And from them – recovery. It’s that simple. And our common journey continues. Step by step. – Chris M., 2019

Dec. 27, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Friday, Dec. 27, 2019

AA Thought for the Day
I need the AA principles for the development of the buried life within me, that good life which I had misplaced but which I found again in this fellowship. This life within me is developing slowly but surely, with many setbacks, many mistakes, many failures, but still developing. As long as I stick close to AA, my life will go on developing, and I cannot yet know what it will be, but I know that it will be good. That’s all I want to know. It will be good.

Am I thanking God for AA?

Meditation for the Day
Build your life on the firm foundation of true gratitude to God for all His blessings and true humility because of your unworthiness of these blessings. Build the frame of your life out of self-discipline; never let yourself get selfish or lazy or contented with yourself. Build the walls of your life out of service to others, helping them to find the way to live. Build the roof of your life out of prayer and quiet times, waiting for God’s guidance from above. Build a garden around your life out of peace of mind and serenity and a sure faith.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may build my life on AA principles. I pray that it may be a good building when my work is finished.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 27, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

A Day at a Time
Friday, Dec. 27, 2019

Reflection for the Day
“The central characteristic of the spiritual experience,” wrote AA co-founder Bill W., “is that it gives the recipient a new and better motivation out of all proportion to any process or discipline, belief or faith. These experiences cannot make us whole at once; they are a rebirth to a fresh and certain opportunity.”

Do I see my assets as God’s gifts, which have been in part matched by an increasing willingness on my part to find and do His will for me?

Today I Pray
I pray for the wholeness of purpose that can only come through spiritual experience. No amount of intellectual theory, pep-talking to myself, disciplined deprivation, “doing it for” somebody else can accomplish the same results. May I pray for spiritual enlightenment, not only in order to recover, but for itself.

Today I Will Remember
Total motivation through spiritual wholeness.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 27, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

The Eye Opener
Friday, Dec. 27, 2019

The average person has so much trouble in finding a satisfactory faith simply because the mind has difficulty visualizing a force so powerful as anything but a very complex thing. He thinks he must understand it in order to acquire it and use it.

When we eat a meal, we believe that we shall digest it and that we will be strengthened and sustained by it. Yet few of us know the mysteries of the digestive functions, but we get just as much sustenance from our meals as those who do.

We, therefore, eat our meals on faith, and we would probably ruin our digestion if we tried to figure it out.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 27, 2019 - Good morning and let's get tappin' on the Christmas week Happy Dance Friday

Dec. 26, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Thursday, Dec. 26, 2019

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

AA Thought for the Day

Alcoholics carry an awful load around with them. What a load lying puts on your shoulders! Drinking makes liars out of all of us alcoholics. In order to get the liquor we want, we have to lie all the time. We have to lie about where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing. When you are lying you are only half alive, because of the fear of being found out. When you come into AA, and get honest with yourself and with other people, that terrible load of lying falls off your shoulders.

Have I got rid of that load of lying?

Meditation for the Day

I believe that in the spiritual world, as in the material world, there is no empty space. As fears and worries and resentments depart out of my life, the things of the spirit come in to take their places. Calm comes after a storm. As soon as I am rid of fears and hates and selfishness, God’s love and peace and calm can come in.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may rid myself of all fears and resentments, so that peace and serenity may take their place. I pray that I may sweep my life clean of evil, so that good may come in.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 26, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

Step by Step
Thursday, Dec. 26, 2019

“When I try to reconstruct what my life was ‘before,’ I see a coin with two faces.

“One, the side I turned to myself and the world, was respectable …

“The other side …was sinister, baffling. I was inwardly unhappy most of the time. There would be times when the life of respectability and achievement seemed insufferably dull – I had to break out. This I would do by going completely ‘bohemian’ for a night, getting drunk and rolling home with the dawn. Next day remorse would be on me like a tiger. I’d claw my way back to ‘respectability’ and stay there – until the inevitable next time.” – Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, “They Stopped in Time,” Ch 16 (“Me an Alcoholic?”), p 432. 

Today, faith and security in recovery to know that there does not have to be “the inevitable next time.” AA encourages us to live in the solution of sobriety and not in the problem of alcoholism, and I am in the latter if my focus is on fighting off "the inevitable next time.” The threat of a “next time” is weakened if I practice with diligence and integrity the Program’s Steps and principles and accept intuitively that drinking now, for me, is a choice and that I will be held responsible to the consequences of that choice. Today, “the inevitable next time” may be less so if I stick to the Program and the understanding that I have a choice and the choice I make will have consequences. And our common journey continues. Step by step. – Chris M., 2019

Dec. 26, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Thursday, Dec. 26, 2019

AA Thought for the Day
I am glad to be a part of AA, of that great fellowship that is spreading over the United States and all over the world. I am only one of the many AA’s, but I am one. I am grateful to be living at this time, when I can help AA to grow, when it needs me to put my shoulder to the wheel and help keep the movement going. I am glad to be able to be useful, to have a reason for living, a purpose in life. I want to lose my life in this great cause and so find it again.

Am I grateful to be an AA?

Meditation for the Day
These meditations can teach us how to relax. We can be of service to other people in a small way, at least. And we can be happy while doing it. We should not worry too much about people we cannot help. We can make it a habit to leave the outcome of the things we do to the Higher Power. We can go along through life doing the best we can, but without a feeling of urgency or strain. We can enjoy all the good things and the beauty of life, but at the same time depend deeply on God.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may give my life to this worthwhile cause. I pray that I may enjoy the satisfaction that comes from good work well done.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 26, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

A Day at a Time
Thursday, Dec. 26, 2019

Reflection for the Day
None of us can claim to know God in all His fullness. None of us can really claim to understand our Higher Power to any extent. But this I do know: there is a Power beyond my human will which can do wonderful, loving things for me that I can’t do for myself. I see this glorious power at work in my own being, and I see the miraculous results of this same power in the lives of thousands upon thousands of other recovering people who are my friends in The Program.

Do I need the grace of God and the loving understanding of my friends in The Program any less now than when I began my recovery?

Today I Pray
May I never forget that my spiritual needs are as great today as they were when I came into The Program. It is so easy to look at others, newer to the recovery process, and regard them as the needy ones. As I think of myself as increasingly independent, may I never overlook my dependence on my Higher Power.

Today I Will Remember
I will never outgrow my need for God.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 26, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

The Eye Opener
Thursday, Dec. 26, 2019

As we alcoholics are selfish by nature, it is but right and proper that we should be more severe in our judgments of ourselves than of others. As we are our own best friend or our worst enemy, depending upon our treatment of ourselves, and as we are the one person in the world from whom we cannot escape, it is therefore essential that we do not allow ourselves to get away with anything in our treatment of ourselves. When we forgive ourselves, we are rationalizing. But to forgive others is divine.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 26, 2019 - Good morning to the first day after Christmas and beautiful Thursday

Dec. 25, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2019

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

I take it that what all men are really after is some form of, perhaps on some formula of, peace. — James Conrad

When snow drifts quietly down on a winter evening, the hush of nature brings a great sense of peace. Each of us has known times like this. Many of these times did not depend on conditions like snow, or soft music. When we are able to keep a quiet center within ourselves, we are truly in tune with the spirit. Peace of the heart comes from a Power greater than ourselves, and from the faith that all of us, and all that happens to us, are part of a great plan.

Just as the snow falls softly, without fear, without regard for whether it will land on a tree bough or in the street, we, too, can live our lives with peaceful acceptance of whatever comes along, knowing it comes to us naturally and from God.

Am I prepared to accept wherever I will land today?

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 25, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

Step by Step
Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2019

“If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn’t there. Our human resources, as marshaled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly.

“Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power  greater than ourselves.” – Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Ch 4 (“We Agnostics”), pp 44-5. 

Today, let me not blame my alcoholism on some moral failure or a philosophy that did not apply to me and, instead, take it for what it is – a physical, emotional, and spiritual disease of my character. While I should not and cannot be blamed for becoming alcoholic, I can and should be responsible for my recovery. To this end, I must completely accept the First Step of absolute powerlessness over alcohol and, then, at least come to believe in something – a Power greater and stronger than myself. But if I still grapple with this concept, perhaps my power can be my own experience of predictable behavior and outcomes, most of which carried increasingly severe consequences. Today, I am an alcoholic not because of a moral or philosophical failure on my part but because of a disease. It cannot be cured, but it can be arrested. The Program’s first two Steps are my beginning. And our common journey continues. Step by step. – Chris M., 2019

Dec. 25, 2019 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2019

AA Thought for the Day
Many alcoholics will be saying today: “This is a good Christmas for me.” They will be looking back over past Christmases which were not like this one. They will be thanking God for their sobriety and their new found life. They will be thinking about how their lives were changed when they came into AA. They will be thinking that perhaps God let them live through all the hazards of their drinking careers, when they were perhaps often close to death, in order that they might be used by Him in the great work of AA.

Is this a happy Christmas for me?

Meditation for the Day
The kingdom of heaven is also for the lowly, the sinners, the repentant. “And they presented unto him gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” Bring your gifts of gold – your money and material possessions. Bring your frankincense – the consecration of your life to a worthy cause. Bring your myrrh – your sympathy and understanding and help. Lay them all at the feet of God and let Him have full use of them.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may be truly thankful on this Christmas Day. I pray that I may bring my gifts and lay them on the altar.

Hazelden Foundation