Sept. 4, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Monday, Sept. 4, 2017

Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Because I have been athirst I will dig a well that others may drink.
 -- Arabian proverb

Most of us do as we please. When we want to go we go; when we want to stay, we stay. We're accustomed to moving around freely and never even think about it. We trust that a door will open if we turn the knob and push. Unfortunately, we never appreciate what we take for granted, and we are less for that.

A young man at an meeting shared that he had just been released from prison. Upon release, the first thing he had done, he said, was to walk back and forth across the pressure plate of the bus station door. He wanted to be the one to make a door open and close. Onlookers had laughed at him, he said, but he didn't care. He appreciated the chance to move, to go where he wanted. Having known the hell of doors that won't open, he had an awareness that the rest of us didn't have. As his recovery continues, he will have much to share with people who've been trapped in prisons of their own.

May I have the insight to recognize my own special qualifications, and the willingness to share them with others.

You are reading from the book:

Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty

Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty. © 1987, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation

Sept. 4, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

Step by Step

Monday, Sept. 4, 2017

Today, remember gratitude and its importance in recovery. I can be grateful that the AA lifeline was tossed to me when I needed it, grateful for the peers in the program who stood with me and picked me up when I stumbled and fell, grateful that the 12 Steps have kept me clean and sober the last 24 Hours and, maybe most importantly, grateful that whatever problems I have even in sobriety are nowhere near as bad as they were in my drinking days. In feeling with sincerity a gratitude that my life in sobriety is far better than it was in my drinking, I can hope to develop the humility that is required to make progress in my sobriety - humility being my total surrender to my higher power and seeking His will for my life, not mine. Today, I measure my gratitude with the goal to bolster it for the sake of progress. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2017

Sept. 4, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Monday, Sept. 4, 2017

AA Thought for the Day
"We must be careful never to show intolerance or hatred of drinking as an institution. Experience shows that such an attitude is not helpful to anyone. We are not fanatics or intolerant of people who can drink normally. Prospects are relieved when they find we are not witch burners. Temperate drinking is okay, but we alcoholics can't get away with it. And no alcoholic likes to be told about alcohol by anyone who hates it. We shall be of little use if our attitude is one of bitterness or hostility."

Do I have tolerance for those who can drink normally?

Meditation for the Day
Do not become encumbered by petty annoyances. Never respond to emotional upsets by emotional upset. Try to keep calm in all circumstances. Try not to fight back. Call on the grace of God to calm you when you feel like retaliating. Look to God for inner strength to drop those resentments that drag you down. If you are burdened by annoyances, you will lose your inward peace and the spirit of God will be shut out. Try to keep peaceful within.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may do the things that make for peace. I pray that I may have a mission of conciliation.

Hazelden Foundation

Sept. 4, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

A Day at a Time
Monday, Sept. 4, 2017

Reflection for the Day
Though I have prayed at various times in my life, I realized after several months in The Program that I'd never really prayed properly. I'd always tried to make deals with God, much like a foxhole atheist; I'd always pleaded, "Grant me my wishes," instead of, "Thy will - not mine - be done." The result was that I remained self-deceived and was thus incapable of receiving enough grace to restore me to sanity.

Do I see that in the past, when I prayed to God, I usually asked that two and two not make four?

Today I Pray
May I look back and review how I have prayed before, for specific solutions that I from my earthly vantage felt were best. May I question, in the longer view of time, whether those solutions would have been right, had God chosen to do things my way. In retrospect, may I see that my pleas were not always so wise. May I be content to trust God.

Today I Will Remember
God may not do it my way.

Hazelden Foundation

Sept. 4, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

The Eye Opener
Monday, Sept. 4, 2017

Too many of us ex-drunks expect too much when we get dried out. We, with characteristic impatience, see no reason why we can't, overnight, regain all our lost ground and get the fifteen thousand dollar job that other sober men get.

Drying out only gives us the opportunity to realize our ambitions. Ability always has been, and always will be, a factor to be reckoned with. Getting sober won't make a musician out of a boilermaker.

Hazelden Foundation

Sept. 4, 2017 - Good morning to a beautiful Monday and Labor Day of renewed faith and hope

Sept. 3, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017

Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Happiness is a by product of an effort to make someone else happy.
 -- Gretta Brooker Palmer

Self-centeredness aggravates the natural flow of circumstances surrounding us; too much attention on ourselves distorts whatever might be troubling us. However, focusing on others' needs diminishes what we'd perceived as our own pressing need. This is a simple principle we might all consider adopting.

None of us is free of problems. That's one of life's givens. Through their resolution we grow and ready ourselves for the next group of challenges. Each group we survive enables us to offer better assistance to someone else who will confront a similar problem. Perhaps we'd do well to see all our problems as preparation for guiding someone who will come into our life. Helping someone else is certain to lift spirits and foster happiness, but the unexpected reward is that the helper reaps even greater benefits than the one helped.

My happiness is guaranteed if I help someone else find it today.

You are reading from the book:

The Promise of a New Day by Karen Casey and Martha Vanceburg

The Promise of a New Day by Karen Casey & Martha Vanceburg. © 1983, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation

Sept. 3, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

Step by Step
Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017

"Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it." - Step Ten

" ...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. ...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." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Ch 6 ("Into Action"), p 84.

Today, let me not neglect Step 10 as the extension of the Fourth Step, that the reason for the 10th is to maintain for the rest of my life the clean-up from the Fourth. It does little good if the character defects and conduct I acknowledged and reconciled in my Fourth crop up again but are not quickly acknowledged and corrected. To do so could diminish the quality of my sobriety at best and, at worst, build up to explode in a slip or relapse. Going through the brute honesty of a Fourth does not guarantee that the wrongs I found will not creep up again and, today, if they do, give me the wisdom of honesty and humility to admit them and come to terms. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2017

Sept. 3, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017

AA Thought for the Day
"Offer new prospects friendship and fellowship. Tell them that if they want to get well you will do anything to help. Burn the idea into the consciousness of new prospects that they can get well, regardless of anyone else. Job or no job, spouse or no spouse, they cannot stop drinking as long as they place dependence on other people ahead of dependence on God. Let no alcoholic say they cannot recover unless they have their family back. This just isn't so. Their recovery is not dependent upon other people. It is dependent on their own relationship to God."

Can I recognize all excuses made by a prospect?

Meditation for the Day
The spiritual life depends upon the Unseen. To live the spiritual life, you must believe in the Unseen. Try not to lose the consciousness of God's spirit in you and in others. As a child in its mother's arms, stay sheltered in the understanding and love of God. God will relieve you of the weight of worry and care, misery and depression, want and woe, faintness and heartache, if you will let Him. Lift up your eyes from earth's troubles and view the glory of the unseen God. Each day try to see more good in people, more of the Unseen in the seen.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may rest and abide in the presence of the unseen God. I pray that I may leave my burdens in His care.

Hazelden Foundation

Sept. 3, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

A Day at a Time
Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017

Reflection for the Day
Sometimes, even when friends in and outside of The Program tell us how well we're doing, we know deep down that we're really not doing well enough. We still have trouble handling life and facing reality on reality's terms. We suspect, at those times, that there must be a serious flaw in our spiritual practice and development. Chances are strong that our trouble lies in either misunderstanding or neglect of Step Eleven - prayer, meditation and the guidance of God. The other Steps can keep most of us clean and sober, free from other addictions and functioning. But Step Eleven can keep us growing - so long as we try hard and work at it continuously.

Do I trust infinite God rather than my finite self?

Today I Pray
I pray for a deepening of my spiritual awareness, for a stronger faith in the Unseen, for a closer communion with God. May I realize that my growth in The Program depends on my spiritual development. May I give over more of my trust to God's eternal wisdom.

Today I Will Remember
I will not give in or give up, but give over to the power of God.

Hazelden Foundation

Sept. 3, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

The Eye Opener
Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017

Faith is probably the first natural virtue that the human being acquires. A baby's reaction to its mother is different from earliest infancy. It is an instinctive faith that this one person, above all others, can and will supply all its needs. This faith in mother decreases as the child develops and becomes more self-reliant. He loses faith in the parent as he develops faith in himself. Finally he arrives at a point where he depends upon himself entirely. When Alcoholism develops and he begins to lose faith in himself, he feels completely helpless.

He must then start rebuilding faith, first in the Group or his Sponsor, then in the Program itself, and finally in God. When this is accomplished, then faith returns in himself.

Hazelden Foundation

Sept. 3, 2017 - Good morning to a serene Sunday of renewed faith, hope, strength and courage

Sept. 2, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017

Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Gratitude

Sometimes in life, things happen too fast. We barely solve one problem when two new problems surface. We're feeling great in the morning, but we're submerged in misery by nightfall.

Every day we face interruptions, delays, changes, and challenges. We face personality conflicts and disappointments. Often when we're feeling overwhelmed, we can't see the lessons in these experiences.

One simple concept can get us through the most stressful of times. It's called gratitude. We learn to say thank you for these problems and feelings. Thank you for the way things are. I don't like this experience, but thank you anyway.

Force gratitude until it becomes habitual. Gratitude helps us stop trying to control outcomes. It is the key that unlocks positive energy in our life. It is the alchemy that turns problems into blessings, and the unexpected into gifts.

Today, I will be grateful. I will start the process of turning today's pain into tomorrow's joy.

You are reading from the book:

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

The Language of Letting Go © 1990 by Hazelden Foundation

Sept. 2, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

Step by Step

Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017

Today, simplify the program as it relates to my recovery to three basic concepts: choice, consequences, and responsibility. If I take the infamous first drink or use, after all the excuses or justifications I can think of and all the blame I can put on other people or circumstances, drinking or using is my choice. And with that choice comes consequences, and with the consequences comes personal responsibility. Ultimately, I am the only one who will be responsible to the consequences of my choice, and the consequences of my drinking became simply too high for me to want to face the responsibility of my choice to drink or use again. And we must honestly remember the consequences of our choice to use or drink - separation from or loss of family and-or friends, loss of a job or the threat of it, standing before a judge after spending the night in the county jail's drunk tank after being nailed for another DUI or for physically hurting someone else like a passing motorist or whoever we picked a fight with. Today, I can pray that the high cost of the consequences of choosing to drink and now not wanting to be responsible to those consequences will keep me clean and sober another 24 Hours. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2017

Sept. 2, 2017 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017

AA Thought for the Day
"Outline the program of action to new prospects, explaining how you made a self-appraisal, how you straightened out your past, and why you are now endeavoring to help them. It is important for them to realize that your attempt to pass this on to them plays a vital part in your own recovery. The more hopeless they feel, the better. They will be more likely to follow your suggestions. Tell them about the fellowship of AA and, if they show interest, lend them a copy of the book."

Can I get over the AA story to another alcoholic?

Meditation for the Day
You should try to stand aside and let God work through you. You should try not to block Him off by your own efforts, or prevent His spirit working through you. God desires your obedient service and your loyalty to the ideals of the new life you are seeking. If you are loyal to God, He will give you protection against mistakes. His spirit will plan for you and secure for you a sufficiency of all spiritual help. You will have true victory and real success, if you will put yourself in the background and let God work through you.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may not interfere with the working of God's spirit in me and through me. I pray that I may give it full rein.

Hazelden Foundation