June 3, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Thursday, June 3, 2021

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Conceit spoils the greatest genius…and the great charm of power is modesty. — Louisa May Alcott

Addiction does bad things to our egos. We see ourselves as very different from others. Either we think we are better, with puffed-up egos, or we think we are worse than others, feeling sorry for ourselves. Either way, the rules don’t apply to us, of course, because we are special. The Big Book says that the early members of AA realized that they were pretty self‑centered, and that was a big part of the problem for them. It’s a big part of the problem for most of us in recovery today, too. It seems to go with addiction.

We must get real about who we are and what we have to offer others. We need to accept that life doesn’t revolve around us. Rather we are here to work with others, with our talents, and with love to make life better and more meaningful for all of us. That is how we make a real difference in this world.

Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, please help me learn more about my talents, my strengths, and my purpose for being here. What part of your work would you like me to do today?

Today’s Action

Today I will learn about my gifts. I will ask four people who know me in different parts of my life this question: “What positive thing do I bring when I join a group of people?”

Hazelden Foundation

June 3, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step
Thursday, June 3, 2021

Today, gratitude and humility if my sobriety totals days, weeks, months and even years and understanding that I am no more sober than the alcoholic whose last drink was yesterday. Grant me the wisdom to be open to the lessons that I still have to learn in my own recovery and that some of those lessons can come from the alcoholic whose sobriety does not match mine in length of time. I must learn from the experience of the past that I am no more "cured" and just as much at risk of relapse as the newcomer or slipper who continues to struggle. I must also acknowledge the responsibility that the length of my sobriety exacts, namely to share with someone what has or has not worked for me in hope that my own experience, strength and hope might speak to someone else. Today, I am sober only in the current 24 Hours, and I accept the responsibility that I have to my recovery. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2021

June 3, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Thursday, June 3, 2021

AA Thought for the Day
Some more things I do not miss since becoming dry: running all over town to find a bar open to get that "pick-me-up;" meeting my friends and trying to cover up that I feel awful; looking at myself in a mirror and calling myself a damn fool; struggling with myself to snap out of it for two or three days; wondering what it is all about.

I'm positive I don't miss these things, am I not?

Meditation for the Day
Love is the power that transforms your life. Try to love your family and your friends and then try to love everybody that you possibly can, even the "sinners and publicans" - everybody. Love for God is an even greater thing. It is the result of gratitude to God, and it is the acknowledgement of the blessing that God has sent you. Love for God acknowledges His gifts and leaves the way open for God to shower yet more blessings on your thankful heart. Say, "Thank you, God," until it becomes a habit.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may try to love God and all people. I pray that I may continually thank God for all His blessings.

Hazelden Foundation

June 3, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time
Thursday, June 3, 2021

Reflection for the Day
"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise," wrote Thomas Merton, "we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them."  As I replace my self-destructive addictions with a healthy dependence on The Program and its Twelve Steps, I'm finding that the barriers of silence and hatred are melting away. By accepting each other as we are, we have learned again to love.

Do I care enough about others in The Program to continue working with them as long as necessary?

Today I Pray
May I be selfless enough to love people as they are, not as I want them to be, as they mirror my image or feed my ego. May I slow down in my eagerness to love - now that I am capable of feeling love again - and ask myself if I really love someone or only that someone's idea of me. May I remove the "self" from my loving.

Today I Will Remember
Love is unconditional.

Hazelden Foundation

June 3, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener
Thursday, June 3, 2021

The harvest is great and the laborers are too few. Too often we get a new man, we work diligently on him, get him to a meeting or two and then another new man appears and we drop the first one and frequently never see him again.

This is not to imply that we are to carry him on our backs indefinitely, but we can utilize an occasional spare 10 minutes to call him on the phone. We can keep our eyes open for him at the meetings and, if he misses several in succession, we can look him up.

Remember you were the midwife at his rebirth in this new life, and you should not neglect him in his AA infancy.

Hazelden Foundation

June 3, 2021 - Good morning and let's work for a stress-, worry- and fear-free but productive and worthwhile Thursday

 

Good morning and let's get cruising to what we are confident will be a terrific Thursday ...work for a truly great and productive but paced and safe day, and allow nothing and no one the control to decide what kind of day you have

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

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men, but from doing something worthwhile. — W. T. Grenfell

Joy, like happiness and freedom, is a major prize of recovery. And like these other two conditions, joy eludes those who seek it directly. It is a result of, and dependent on, something else.

Joy is a secondary effect of a primary action. When we create an environment that supports and encourages someone else, we find joy in the doing. There may be no more valuable human enterprise than lightening someone else’s load, leading someone who’s lost to the safe road, or extending a hand to someone who has fallen.

Such opportunities present themselves daily to recovering people. At every meeting, we’re in touch with people who greatly need the counsel, wisdom, and example of those who have made a decision about the past, have left behind what was, and are creating sweet new days as they walk the path of recovery.

If we hope to know joy, we must share what we have.

Today, I will pass along the kindness that has been shown me.

Hazelden Foundation

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

 

Step by Step
Wednesday, June 2, 2021

"There may be some wrongs we can never fully right. We don't worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that we would right them if we could. Some people cannot be seen - we send them an honest letter. And there may be a valid reason for postponement in some cases. But we don't delay if it can be avoided. ...As God's people, we stand on our feet; we don't crawl before anyone." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Ch 6, p 83.

Today, do not take for granted the weight of Step Nine when considering to whom we must - and can - approach with amends. Some wrongs may never be made right, and there may be no recourse if making an amend risks further injury or implicates an unknowing other person. In cases in which we can honestly conclude that direct amends are not possible, our actions rather than our words may be our only atonement, and our strongest action is to get and stay sober and continue to grow in recovery. When we can and must make amends, however, we are cautioned not to "crawl before anyone," not to submit to being the proverbial doormat. In drunkenness, we lost our footing which, in turn, triggered the damage we inflicted; in sobriety, we must stand on our own feet to give integrity to our amends. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2021

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

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Wednesday, June 2, 2021

AA Thought for the Day
Some more things I do not miss since becoming dry: wondering if the car is in the garage and how I got home; struggling to remember where I was and what I did since my last conscious moment; trying to delay getting off to work, and wondering how I will look when I get there; dreading the day ahead of me.

I'm quite sure that I don't miss these things, am I not?

Meditation for the Day
You cannot believe in God and keep your selfish ways. The old self shrivels up and dies, and upon the reborn soul God's image becomes stamped. The gradual elimination of selfishness in the growth of love for God and your fellow human beings is the goal of life. At first, you have only a faint likeness to the Divine, but the picture grows and takes on more and more of the likeness of God until those who see you can see in you some of the power of God's grace at work in a human life.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may develop that faint likeness I have to the Divine. I pray that others may see in me some of the power of God's grace at work.

Hazelden Foundation

June 2, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Reflection for the Day

In the process of learning to love myself and, in turn, to love others freely with no strings attached, I've begun to understand these words of St. Augustine: "Love slays what we have been, that we may be what we were not." More and more, I feel this enormous power of such love in The Program; for me, the words, "we care," also mean, "we love."

Just for today, will I try to be loving in every thought and action?

Today I Pray

I pray that I may feel the enormity and the power of the love I find in The Program. May my own caring be added to that great energy of love which belongs to all of us. May I care with my whole heart that my fellow members maintain their sobriety and are learning to live with it comfortably and creatively. May I never doubt that they care the same way about me.

Today I Will Remember

Caring makes it happen.

Hazelden Foundation

June 2, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener
Wednesday, June 2, 2021

We come into AA and are told that we should endeavor to establish a conscious contact with our God as we understand Him; that we should, through prayer and meditation, get on speaking terms with Him. We brushed up on our rusty salutations of "Almighty" and practiced on our Thee's and Thou's only to learn that there was a simpler and more direct approach.

We found that we could "tune God in" to our hearts and consciences and that no other method was needed to send and receive messages. We learned that what we said was of no great consequence anyway, as our prayers were for His will, not ours, and we also learned that we had to make no direct request for those things that were for our good, as He knew our needs before we ever realized them ourselves.

Hazelden Foundation

June 2, 2021 - Good morning and let's kick it in gear for what we're determined to make an awesome Wednesday

 

Good morning and let's get hoppin' for what we intend to be a far out and groovy Wednesday ...have a fantastic and productive but paced and relaxed day, and avoid everything and everyone thinking they can control what kind of day of have

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

 

Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Control

Many of us have been trying to keep the whole world in orbit with sheer and forceful application of mental energy.

What happens if we let go, if we stop trying to keep the world orbiting and just let it whirl? It’ll keep right on whirling. It’ll stay right on track with no help from us. And we’ll be free and relaxed enough to enjoy our place on it.

Control is an illusion, especially the kind of control we’ve been trying to exert. In fact, controlling gives other people, events, and diseases, such as alcoholism, control over us. Whatever we try to control does have control over us and our life.

I have given this control to many things and people in my life. I have never gotten the results I wanted from controlling or trying to control people. What I received for my efforts is an unmanageable life, whether that unmanageability was inside me or in external events.

In recovery, we make a trade-off. We trade a life that we have tried to control, and we receive in return something better — a life that is manageable.

Today, I will exchange a controlled life for one that is manageable.

Hazelden Foundation

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

 

Step by Step
Tuesday, June 1, 2021

"The spiritual life is not theory. We have to live it. Unless one's family expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles, we think we ought not to urge them. We should not talk incessantly to them about spiritual matters. They will change in time. Our behavior will convince them more than our words." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Ch 6, p 83.

Today, if called on to 12th-Step a prospect, I will not hammer the spiritual aspect of recovery if the topic seems to push away rather than draw in the prospect. Should the prospect who is weary of spirituality subsequently embrace the Program and find sobriety, the words "(Spiritual awareness) will change in time"  will ring true. Paraphrasing the saying that I was born of the Spirit but was taught religion, let me understand that others, like me, also may tie the two together - religion and spirituality - but that the Program will lead them to their own understanding of a Higher Power. Today, if spirituality cannot be discussed with a potential member, let my behavior speak louder than my words. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2021

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

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Tuesday, June 1, 2021

AA Thought for the Day
Some things I do not miss since becoming dry: that overall awful feeling physically, including the shakes, a splitting headache, pains in my arms and legs, bleary eyes, fluttering stomach, droopy shoulders, weak knees, a three-day beard, and a flushed complexion. Also, facing my wife or my husband at breakfast. Also, comprising the alibi and sticking to it. Also, trying to shave or put on makeup with a shaky hand. Also, opening up my wallet to find it empty.

I don't miss these things, do I?

Meditation for the Day
You were born with a spark of the Divine within you. It had been all but smothered by the life you were living. That celestial fire has to be tended and fed so that it will grow eventually into a real desire to live the right way. By trying to do the will of God, you grow more and more in the new way of life. By thinking of God, praying to Him and having communion with Him, you gradually grow more like Him. The way of your transformation from the material to the spiritual is the way of Divine Companionship.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may tend the spark of the Divine within me so that it will grow. I pray that I may be gradually transformed from the old life to the new life.

Hazelden Foundation