Sunday, April 2, 2023

April 2, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Sunday, April 2, 2023

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Reflection for the Day

In almost every instance, the returned slipper says, “I stopped going to meetings,” or “I got fed up with the same old stories and the same old faces,” or “My outside commitments were such that I had to cut down on meetings,” or “I felt I’d received the optimum benefits from the meetings, so I sought further help from more meaningful activities.” In short, they simply stopped going to meetings. A saying I’ve heard in the program hits the nail on the head: “Them which stops going to meetings are not present at meetings to hear about what happens to them that stops going to meetings.”

Am I going to enough meetings for me?

Today I Pray

Higher Power, keep me on the track of the program. May I never be too tired, too busy, too complacent, too bored to go to meetings. Almost always those complaints are reversed at a meeting if I will just get myself there. My weariness dissipates in serenity. My busyness is reduced to its rightful proportion. My complacency gives way to vigilance again. And how can I be bored in a place where there is so much fellowship and joy?

Today I Will Remember

Attend the meetings.

Hazelden Foundation

April 2, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step
Sunday, April 2, 2023

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 behavior. 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., 2023

April 2, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Sunday, April 2, 2023

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, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Sunday, April 2, 2023

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, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Sunday, April 2, 2023

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, 2023 – Good morning to a serene Sunday and start of Holy Week

 

Good morning with hopes of a quiet Sunday for all and, to all the faithful, a blessed Palm Sunday as we set out on Holy Week

Saturday, April 1, 2023

April 1, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Saturday, April 1, 2023

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

You Are Not Alone

The great thing is that we don’t have to do it alone. And that’s probably the most important thing in recovery.

I have to admit that my way didn’t work. It worked for a lot of years, over twenty-five years, but the last year of my using wasn’t very effective. I wasn’t getting the relief and the peace of mind — you know; I wasn’t getting numb enough to satisfy my demons. So, if it wasn’t working, we have to get honest and try something different.

And what I found was a way out.

I found people who were willing to show me how they did it. So we don’t have to do it alone.

 Joc D., U.S. Army, 1968-1970

Hazelden Foundation

April 1, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step

Saturday, April 1, 2023

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., 2023

April 1, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Saturday, April 1, 2023

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, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Saturday, April 1, 2023

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, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Saturday, April 1, 2023

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, 2023 – Rise ‘n shine for a splendid Saturday and new month

 

Good morning and make it a great Saturday and first day of a new month, and don’t waste time on people and things who have nothing good to offer

Friday, March 31, 2023

March 31, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Friday, March 31, 2023

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Grateful for Recovery

I can connect the dots from when I had my first drunken blackout at nineteen until now. From that night on, alcohol was always a problem. I could never just have a drink and then go about the rest of my day. So as long as alcohol was in my life, I was never going to be as good a naval flight officer or as devoted a husband as I could have been sober.

Getting on the other side of active alcoholism and moving on to my life as a sober person has had many wonderful perks. My patient wife is much happier with me now. I’m now better able to reach my full potential in the Navy, because I didn’t fully have my head together when I was drinking.

The other thing I didn’t realize before I got sober is how many resources are available to individuals who are in recovery. Also, if you surround yourself with like-minded people who understand you, recovery will get a lot easier very quickly. I’m grateful for that too.

Today I will be grateful for the gifts of recovery.

— Guy C., U.S. Navy, 2005–Currently Serving

Hazelden Foundation

March 31, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step

Friday, March 31, 2023

Todayno 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 my recovery program 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., 2023

March 31, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Friday, March 31, 2023

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