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

 

Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Reflection for the Day

If we felt guilty, degraded, or ashamed of either our addiction itself or the things we did while “under the influence,” that served to magnify our feelings of being outcasts. On occasion, we secretly feared or actually believed that we deserved every painful feeling; we thought, at times, that we truly were outsiders. The dark tunnel of our lives seemed formidable and unending. We couldn’t even voice our feelings and could hardly bear to think about them. So we soon drank or used again.

Do I remember well what it used to be like?

Today I Pray

May I remember how often, during my days of active addiction, I felt alone with my shame and guilt. The phony jollity of a drinking party or the shallow relationships struck up at a bar could not keep me from feeling like an outsider. May I appreciate the chance to make new friends through the fellowship of the group. May I know that my relationships now will be saner, less dependent, more mature.

Today I Will Remember

Higher Power, thank you for new friends.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 2, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step

Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023

” …Step Ten …suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear …We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.” — Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Ch 6 (“Into Action”), p 84.

Today, if a slip or relapse are preceded by thoughts that are mostly subconscious, a more diligent practice of Step 10 might be a refuge from a return to drinking. The 10th Step, the logical extension of the Fourth Step, could alert us to problems in our physical, emotional and spiritual conditions, and those conditions may well have led us to drinking in the first place. The importance of the 10th cannot be underestimated. It encourages us to continue the Fourth Step on a daily basis, and do it honestly and diligently. With that honesty and diligence, we may find in the 10th that some of the defects we acknowledged in our Fourth Step have resurfaced. By recognizing them before they reach the surface, we might be able to fight off the potential slip or relapse. At the same time, if we make conscious those thoughts that are otherwise subconscious and cave in to temptation or craving, we most likely have not fully embraced the First Step — “Admitted we were powerless …” Today, I choose not to neglect my 10th Step. And our common journey continues. Step by step. — Chris M., 2023

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

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023

AA Thought for the Day
The thoughts that come before having a slip seem to be partly subconscious. And yet it is likely that at least part of these thoughts get into our consciousness. An idle thought connected with drinking casually pops into our mind. That is the crucial moment. Will I harbor that thought even for one minute or will I banish it from my mind at once? If I let it stay, it may develop into a daydream. I may begin to see a cool glass of beer or a Manhattan cocktail in my mind’s eye. If I allow the daydream to stay in my mind, it may lead to a decision, however unconscious, to take a drink. Then I am headed for a slip.

Do I let myself daydream?

Meditation for the Day
Many of us have a sort of vision of the kind of person God wants us to be. We must be true to that vision, whatever it is, and we must try to live up to it, by living the way we believe we should live. We can all believe that God has a vision of what he wants us to be like. In all people there is the good person which God sees in us, the person we could be and that God would like us to be. But many a person fails to fulfill that promise and God’s disappointments must be many.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may strive to be the kind of a person that God would have me be. I pray that I may try to fulfill God’s vision of what I could be.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 2, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023

Reflection for the Day
Once at a meeting held in a church, I saw a stained glass window on which was written, “God Is Love.” For some reason, my mind transposed the words into, “Love Is God.” Either way is correct and true, I realized, looking about me and becoming even more conscious of the spirit of love and Power in the small meeting room. I’ll continue to seek out that love and Power, following The Program as if my life depended upon it — as indeed it does.

Does life to me today mean living — in the active sense — joyously and comfortably?

Today I Pray
May I feel the spirit of love that gives our prayers their energy. May I feel the oneness in this room, the concentration of love that gives the group its power. May I feel the exemplary love of a Higher Power, which our love echoes.

Today I Will Remember
Love is God.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 2, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023

Fires, floods and epidemics are nobody’s business — they are everybody’s business. Alcoholism is equally devastating and just as much a community catastrophe.

We in AA are unique in that we are trained veterans in the art of combating this disease. Its prevalence demands the complete cooperation of every qualified man or woman, and we are guilty of dereliction of duty and lacking in gratitude to the Grace of God that saved us, if we do anything less than our utmost.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 2, 2023 – Good morning to a super Saturday and serene weekend

 

Good morning with hopes of a relaxing and refreshing but productive Saturday and weekend for everyone …enjoy the day, and don’t bother with people and things that don’t deserve us

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

 

Friday, Dec. 1, 2023

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Take the matter of being born. What does being born mean to most people?

— e.e. cummings

Somewhere in this meditation book each of us will find our birthday. It may cause us panic and trauma. It may be a day that reminds us we are getting older. For many adult children, it causes sadness because it reminds them of their childhood birthdays.

Whatever that special day has meant to us in the past, we are in control of what it can mean now and in the future.

A birthday, like any yearly holiday, is a symbol, a time to reflect and remember a special meaning. The special meaning of birthdays can become a reminder that we are called on to be reborn regularly. Seeing new beauty is a kind of rebirth. Making a decision, no matter how small, that enhances our life is a form of rebirth. Moving on to a new place, a new state of freedom, is being born again. Every day can be a birthday.

Today, I am celebrating the birth of a wholly worthy human being. Any day I choose can be another birthday.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 1, 2023 - Readings in Recovery; Step by Step

 

Step by Step

Friday, Dec. 1, 2023

“Pity me the heart that is slow to learn
What the quick mind sees at every turn.” — Edna St. Vincent Millay

“For a while …we can endure the intellect’s being ahead of the emotions, which is the import of Millay’s couplet. But as the years go by, the stretch becomes unbearable; and the man with the grown-up brain and the childish emotions — vanity, self-interest, false pride, jealousy, longing for social approval — becomes a prime candidate for alcohol. …(T)hat is a definition of alcoholism: a state of being in which the emotions have failed to grow to the stature of the intellect.” — Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, “They Lost Nearly All,” Ch 11 (“He Who Loses His Life”), pp 534-35.

Today, alcoholism cannot be arrested by intellectual strategies and I must measure — honestly — my emotional state. Without healthy emotions, the quality of my sobriety will likely be little more than being on a dry drunk. Accepting that alcohol is “but a symptom” of our underlying condition, we are compelled to seek recovery by doing more than abstaining. If today the number of 24 Hours since my last drink is days, months or years, a measure of the quality of my sobriety may be if I still harbor the emotions that I felt when I was drinking. If so, I probably need to review and refine my Program. Sobriety is more than not drinking and comes with physical, spiritual and emotional renewal. The 12 Steps give us a road map to recovery. Today, I need to look honestly at my emotional affairs. I’ve already tried the intellectual route. It got me in the gutter. And our common journey continues. Step by step. — Chris M., 2023

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

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Friday, Dec. 1, 2023

AA Thought for the Day

The thoughts that come before having a slip are often largely subconscious. It is a question whether or not our subconscious minds ever become entirely free from alcoholic thoughts as long as we live. For instance, some of us dream about being drunk when we are asleep, even after several years of sobriety in AA. During the period of our drinking days, our subconscious minds have been thoroughly conditioned by our alcoholic way of thinking and it is doubtful if they ever become entirely free of such thoughts during our lifetime. But when our conscious minds are fully conditioned against drinking, we can stay sober and our subconscious minds do not often bother us.

Am I still conditioning my conscious mind?

Meditation for the Day

Having sympathy and compassion for all who are in temptation, a condition which we are sometimes in, we have a responsibility towards them. Sympathy always includes responsibility. Pity is useless because it does not have a remedy for the need. But wherever our sympathy goes, our responsibility goes, too. When we are moved with compassion, we should go to the one in need and bind up his wounds as best we can.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may have sympathy for those in temptation. I pray that I may have compassion for others’ trials.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 1, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Friday, Dec. 1, 2023

Reflection for the Day
It has truly been said that, “We become what we do.” It’s emphasized to us over and over in The Program that our thoughts and actions toward others color and shape our spiritual lives. Words and acts of kindness, generosity, thoughtfulness and forgiveness serve to strengthen those qualities within us that heighten our consciousness of God’s love.

In asking God to direct and guide my life, am I also asking love to take over and lead me where it will?

Today I Pray
May I make a resolute attempt at acting out the way I want to be — loving, forgiving, kind, thoughtful. May I be aware that each small, attentive act carries with it an echo of God’s all-caring. For God so loved the world; may we make His love our example.

Today I Will Remember
We become what we do.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 1, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Friday, Dec. 1, 2023

There will always be a difference of opinion as long as people have different interests, different prejudices and different mental capacities.

To expect people to disagree with you is only sensible and reasonable. If everybody agreed with you, everybody would be as smart as you and you wouldn’t like that for a minute. The chances are you are both wrong anyhow, or you would not be required to defend your opinions. The right can defend itself without your help.

Hazelden Foundation

Dec. 1, 2023 – Good morning to a fantastical Friday and new month

 

Good morning with a commitment to make this fantastic Friday and new month as productive and worthwhile as they can be, and let’s finally be done with people and things that have nothing good to offer

Nov. 30, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazellden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Waiting Season

Today my husband and I are both veterans, and we’re recovering together. It wasn’t always this way. It took me doing some work on me and taking a hiatus from dating. My picker was broken. I was picking the wrong ones, and that was the problem — I would do the picking. I had to take a break. I let go and was like, You know what, God? I’m taking a break. You pick the next one. I’m leaving this in your hands. Your will be done. You know what’s best for me.

I stepped away from dating, from talking to anyone, from doing anything for a year and a half. A year and a half — nothing. My family was like, “You’re not dating?” I would say, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I’m waiting. I’m in a waiting season. I’ll know when it’s time when God’s ready for me to have someone. It’ll come.”

And then one day I was sitting in a meeting and my future husband tapped me on the shoulder and asked me for a reading. And we started laughing with each other. We’ve been together since then. And that’s all she wrote.

In his perfect timing, God supplies my needs rather than my wants.

— Karen A., U.S. Air National Guard, 1980‑1991

Hazelden Foundation

Nov. 30, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023

Today, understand that a substitute chemical to replace alcohol that alters my perception of reality is not working toward recovery. May I also understand that “mind- and mood-altering chemicals” may not necessarily include prescribed medications. If depression continues to be a condition even in recovery, for example, let me listen to reasons why anti-depressants may not compromise my sobriety but may even improve its quality. The debate in 12-Step programs that any substance which alters mood costs us our sobriety is as old as the Program itself. But the Program admits it is not a medical one, and that tells me it is my responsibility to seek knowledge from qualified sources to determine if my sobriety is at risk. Today, understanding that the substances I ingested are not the same as prescribed medications, let me also consider the possibility that acting as my own physician may be writing my own relapse. And our common journey continues. Step by step. — Chris M., 2023

Nov. 30, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023

AA Thought for the Day
We have slips in AA. It has been said these are not slips but premeditated drunks, because we have to think about taking a drink before we actually take one. The thought always comes before the act. It is suggested that people should always get in touch with an AA before taking that first drink. The failure to do so makes it probable that they had decided to take the drink anyway. And yet the thoughts that come before taking a drink are often largely subconscious. People usually don’t know consciously what made them do it. Therefore, the common practice is to call these things slips.

Am I on guard against wrong thinking?

Meditation for the Day
“The eternal God is thy refuge.” He is a sanctuary, a refuge from the cares of life. You can get away from the misunderstanding of others by retiring into your own place of meditation. But from yourself, from your sense of failure, your weakness, your shortcomings, whither can you flee? Only to the eternal God, your refuge, until the immensity of His spirit envelopes your spirit and it loses its smallness and weakness and comes into harmony again with His.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may lose my limitations in the immensity of God’s love. I pray that my spirit may be in harmony with His spirit.

Hazelden Foundation