April 2, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Friday, April 2, 2021

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Intellectualizing

Don’t intellectualize, utilize. — Anonymous

Many times we waste our minds by using them too much. A mind out of control can waste a life. Our mind can tell us we are better or less than another. It can tell us we need things we don’t, and that we should fear situations we needn’t. The power of the mind to intellectualize a life into a mess is amazing.

Our program should be utilized not intellectualized. We do not need to waste time debating points about the program. We will not resolve with other intellectuals whether or not alcoholism and drug addiction are physical diseases or bad habits. The point, for us addicts, is that we will waste our life, die, or go insane if we do not stay in recovery. All we have to do is look around a meeting room to see whether or not it works.

The Steps tell me HOW the program works. The Traditions tell me WHY it works. My sponsor and fellow members show me THAT it works.

Hazelden Foundation

April 2, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step
Friday, April 2, 2021

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 retain 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., 2021

April 2, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Friday, April 2, 2021

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, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Friday, April 2, 2021

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, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Friday, April 2, 2021

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, 2021 - A good morning to all with hopes for a blowout Happy Dance Friday to everyone

 

Good morning and let's all jiggle with joy for the here-at-last Happy Dance Friday ...work toward a truly refreshing but productive and SAFE day -- and give nothing and no one the control to trip it up

April 1, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Thursday, April 1, 2021

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Unextinguished laughter shakes the skies. — Homer

From the beginning of recorded literature, poets have sung of the glory of laughter. Being human means having the power to laugh, and as long as we are here, we will surely need and cherish that power.

Laughter can reconcile us with others and with the world. When we watch a funny movie, for example, we feel a bond with others as we laugh together. Through our laughter we are brought closer to other people.

Addiction isolates and drives us into ourselves. We retreat from our common humanity into a single unhappy consciousness. Our world narrows and joy retreats. Laughter is shut out.

In our groups we rediscover the joy of belonging to a community. Laughter is one sign of that community, and as we join in, we feel our isolation fading and a new sense of love and belonging emerging.

I am rediscovering the joy of laughter that keeps me in touch with others.

Hazelden Foundation

April 1, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step

Thursday, April 1, 2021

Today: Faith in the Program and my Higher Power and offering to someone else what I have found in recovery. 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 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., 2021

April 1, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Thursday, April 1, 2021

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, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Thursday, April 1, 2021

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, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Thursday, April 1, 2021

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, 2021 - Good morning and let's get out there and make it a worthwhile and productive but safe Thursday

 

Good morning and it's time to get out there and be awesome on this beautiful Thursday ...have a truly great but productive and safe day -- and don't waste time on anything and anyone thinking they can screw it up

March 31, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of hope. — Stendhal

For many of us, when we walked into recovery, we were without hope. But even at our very first meeting we were greeted by the smiles, joy, laughter, and hope of those addicts who began the recovery journey before we did. We wanted what they had. We had nothing, so their hope had to be ours until we could create some of our own. Their joy had to be ours until we could find some of our own. Their values had to be ours until we could establish a value system of our own. Their smiles will always be a part of us.

Now it is our job to greet the newcomers and the old comers at meetings. We can smile at them, giving them hope and watching it grow. This is the essence of our fellowship.

Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, help me to be hope for others. Help me to make others feel that life, even when tough, is worth living. Help me to live a life that attracts others to you.

Today’s Action

At the next meeting I go to, I will make it a point to greet, smile at, and say hello to anyone I don’t know, as well as many I do know.

Hazelden Foundation

March 31, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

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., 2021

March 31, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

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