Monday, August 15, 2022

Aug. 15, 2022 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Monday, Aug. 15, 2022

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it. — P. B. Medawar

All of us are guilty of rejecting what seems foreign to us. As active addicts we heard, “You should get sober,” and we rejected the idea. We rejected any idea that got in the way of our using. As our illness progressed, we became closed-minded and rigid. The primitive parts of our brain controlled our lives.

Recovery pushes us to be open-minded — to put ideas before instincts, to place principles before personalities. We are to stop and think about what will happen if we start using again. We call it thinking through the high. One of the most beautiful gifts of recovery is that we get our mind back. Whether we choose to use it or not is up to us.

Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, you gave me a wonderful gift: my mind. Help me to use it to better my life and the lives of others. Help me to not be rigid and close-minded.

Today’s Action

Today I will list the ways I became rigid and closed-minded. Because fear most often creates rigidity, I will ask myself what I may be afraid of.

Hazelden Foundation

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