Oct. 31, 2015 - How fathers can raise clean teens in substance-abusing families
Oct. 31, 2015 - Who is 'The Pink Marine?'
Oct. 31, 2015 - Religious freedom may already have doomed Indiana's governor
Oct. 31, 2015 - Asexuality: Not everyone likes sex
Oct. 31, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation
Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015
Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
-- Mark Twain
Which of the Twelve Steps teach us how to handle our fear? The Steps that scare us the most! For many of us, that would be Step Three, Step Five, and Step Nine. These Steps ask us to move from one place in our life to a new place.
Step Three asks us to let go of the life we are leading and to step into a new life. We have faith that it is okay to do so because we have come to believe in a Higher Power that will restore us to balance and sanity.
Step Five asks us to move from a secret life to a life of openness. We have to leave our hiding place, take off our masks, and let someone else see us as we really are.
In Step Nine, we take responsibility for our past actions. We face the people we have hurt, and we do what we can to repair the damage we caused.
Each of these Steps teaches us courage.
Prayer for the Day
Higher Power, give me courage to move into the new life You have made open to me. All I need to do is take the Steps to get there.
Today's Action
Today I will think about my courage in my recovery.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
-- Mark Twain
Which of the Twelve Steps teach us how to handle our fear? The Steps that scare us the most! For many of us, that would be Step Three, Step Five, and Step Nine. These Steps ask us to move from one place in our life to a new place.
Step Three asks us to let go of the life we are leading and to step into a new life. We have faith that it is okay to do so because we have come to believe in a Higher Power that will restore us to balance and sanity.
Step Five asks us to move from a secret life to a life of openness. We have to leave our hiding place, take off our masks, and let someone else see us as we really are.
In Step Nine, we take responsibility for our past actions. We face the people we have hurt, and we do what we can to repair the damage we caused.
Each of these Steps teaches us courage.
Prayer for the Day
Higher Power, give me courage to move into the new life You have made open to me. All I need to do is take the Steps to get there.
Today's Action
Today I will think about my courage in my recovery.
You are reading from the book:
God Grant Me. . . © 2005 by Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 31, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step
Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015
"I spend a great deal of time passing on what I learned to others who want and need it badly. I do it for four reasons:
1. Sense of duty.
2. It is a pleasure.
3. Because in so doing I am paying my debt to the man who took time to pass it on to me.
4. Because every time I do it I take out a little more insurance for myself against a possible slip." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, "Personal Stories, Pioneers of AA", Ch 1 ("Doctor Bob's Nightmare"), pp 180-81.
Today, admitting that my motive to quit drinking was self-serving and hardly altruistic, I am required now to be responsible to my sobriety. That responsibility is no clearer in any other than the 12th Step, the one that gives us our marching orders to carry the message to people who need and want it. A dividend like sobriety that we have earned through blood, sweat and tears brings with it a responsibility, and we appreciate and treasure that dividend when we share it with someone else, and when it works as well for them. As a drinking alcoholic, I blamed my problems on anyone and anything but myself, and it overwhelmed me. Sober now, so must I share it and, hopefully, sobriety will become even stronger than alcohol. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2015
Oct. 31, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015
AA Thought for the Day
I have more peace and contentment. Life has fallen into place. The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle have found their correct position. Life is whole, all of one piece. I am not cast hither and yon on every wind of circumstance or fancy. I am no longer a dry leaf cast up and away by the breeze. I have found my place of rest, my place where I belong. I am content. I do not vainly wish for things I cannot have. I have "the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference."
Have I found contentment in AA?
Meditation for the Day
In all of us there is an inner consciousness that tells of God, an inner voice that speaks to our hearts. It is a voice that speaks to us intimately, personally, in a time of quiet meditation. It is like a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. We can reach out into the darkness and figuratively touch the hand of God. As the Big Book puts it: "Deep down in every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God. We can find the Great Reality deep down within us. And when we find it, it changes our whole attitude toward life."
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may follow the leading of the inner voice. I pray that I may not turn a deaf ear to the urging of my conscience.
Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 31, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time
Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015
Reflection for the Day
If I'm to continue growing in The Program, I must literally "get wise to myself." I must remember that for most of my life I've been terribly self-deceived. The sin of pride has been at the root of most of my self-deception, usually masquerading under the guise of some virtue. I must work continually to uncover pride in all its subtle forms, lest it stop me in my tracks and push me backward once again to the brink of disaster.
When it comes to pride, do I believe, in Emerson's words, that "it is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself ...?"
Today I Pray
May I know that button-popping pride is inappropriate for me as a recovering addict. It hides my faults from me. It turns people off and gets in the way of my helping others. It halts my progress because it makes me think I've done enough self-searching and I'm "cured." I pray to my Higher Power that I may be realistic enough to accept my success in The Program without giving in to pride.
Today I Will Remember
Pride halts progress.
Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 31, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener
Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015
The Founders of AA acted wisely when they fixed it so there would be no Big Shots in our fellowship. We are not the best people in the world when it comes to bearing heavy responsibilities. It has proven to be poison to many a good man.
After all, it is not necessary for your fame to spread around the world - there are more drunks on your own street than you can help.
Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 30, 2015 - How gay men can love themselves again
Oct. 30, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Friday, Oct. 30, 2015
Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
Be strong and of good courage; be not frightened, neither be dismayed....
-- Joshua 1:9
It has been said when we are at the end of our rope, we can do one of three things: let go, tie a knot and hang on, or splice the rope and begin again. Whenever we feel there's nowhere to go but down and nobody to turn to, that's when we can start all over again. If we can learn to look beyond the end of something, we'll always see an exciting, fresh beginning.
At the end of every storm is calm. At the end of every argument is silence. At the end of one relationship there is another. Although life is composed of many endings, there are just as many new beginnings. "Life goes on" is even assured by the passage of time - at the end of each minute there's another.
Nights may have many endings, but they will also have just as many beginnings. Just as the sun will set, so the moon will rise and the stars will appear. Just as the day's activities will end, so the evening's activities will begin. And when those activities are over, there will be new experiences the next day.
I can be unafraid of endings because I know they are only the first half of beginnings.
Be strong and of good courage; be not frightened, neither be dismayed....
-- Joshua 1:9
It has been said when we are at the end of our rope, we can do one of three things: let go, tie a knot and hang on, or splice the rope and begin again. Whenever we feel there's nowhere to go but down and nobody to turn to, that's when we can start all over again. If we can learn to look beyond the end of something, we'll always see an exciting, fresh beginning.
At the end of every storm is calm. At the end of every argument is silence. At the end of one relationship there is another. Although life is composed of many endings, there are just as many new beginnings. "Life goes on" is even assured by the passage of time - at the end of each minute there's another.
Nights may have many endings, but they will also have just as many beginnings. Just as the sun will set, so the moon will rise and the stars will appear. Just as the day's activities will end, so the evening's activities will begin. And when those activities are over, there will be new experiences the next day.
I can be unafraid of endings because I know they are only the first half of beginnings.
You are reading from the book:
Night Light by Amy E. Dean. © 1986, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 30, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Friday, Oct. 30, 2015
"Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks - drinking which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change, there is very little hope of his recovery." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, "The Doctor's Opinion," pp xxvi-vii.
Today, if I cannot forget "the effect" of alcohol as I grew progressively drunker, let me never forget the morning after with its consequences, none of which I care to be responsible for anymore. If I can remember the morning-after costs and that they were my "bottom," may they be potent enough to remove any desire to drink again because, should I drink again, there likely will be no a deeper bottom - if I survive. I abused that "firm resolution" not to drink again when I was hung over, or standing in front of a judge with my latest DUI or after I broke every promise I'd made to family and friends. A "firm resolution" is so easy then. It can be just as easy if I apply it to being sober - if I remember the consequence instead of "the effect." Today, I don't need or want to remember the effect; the consequences are enough. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2015
Oct. 30, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Friday, Oct. 30, 2015
AA Thought for the Day
I have real friends, where I had none before. My drinking companions could hardly be called my real friends though, when drunk, we seemed to have the closest kind of friendship. My idea of friendship has changed. Friends are no longer people whom I can use for my own pleasure or profit. Friends are now people who understand me and I them, whom I can help and who can help me to live a better life. I have learned not to hold back and wait for friends to come to me, but to go halfway and to be met halfway, openly and freely.
Friday, Oct. 30, 2015
AA Thought for the Day
I have real friends, where I had none before. My drinking companions could hardly be called my real friends though, when drunk, we seemed to have the closest kind of friendship. My idea of friendship has changed. Friends are no longer people whom I can use for my own pleasure or profit. Friends are now people who understand me and I them, whom I can help and who can help me to live a better life. I have learned not to hold back and wait for friends to come to me, but to go halfway and to be met halfway, openly and freely.
Does friendship have a new meaning for me now?
Meditation for the Day
There is a time for everything. We should learn to wait patiently until the right time comes. Easy does it. We waste our energies in trying to get things before we are ready to have them, before we have earned the right to receive them. A great lesson we have to learn is how to wait with patience. We can believe that all our life is a preparation for something better to come when we have earned the right to it. We can believe that God has a plan for our lives and that this plan will work out in the fullness of time.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may learn the lesson of waiting patiently. I pray that I may not expect things until I have earned the right to have them.
Hazelden Foundation
Meditation for the Day
There is a time for everything. We should learn to wait patiently until the right time comes. Easy does it. We waste our energies in trying to get things before we are ready to have them, before we have earned the right to receive them. A great lesson we have to learn is how to wait with patience. We can believe that all our life is a preparation for something better to come when we have earned the right to it. We can believe that God has a plan for our lives and that this plan will work out in the fullness of time.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may learn the lesson of waiting patiently. I pray that I may not expect things until I have earned the right to have them.
Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 30, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Friday, Oct. 30, 2015
Reflection for the Day
When I'm motivated by pride - by bondage of self - I become partly or even wholly blind to my liabilities and shortcomings. At that point, the last thing I need is comfort. Instead, I need an understanding friend in The Program - one who knows "where I'm at" - a friend who'll unhesitatingly chop a hole through the wall my ego has built so that the light of reason can once again shine through.
Do I take time to review my progress, to spot-check myself on a daily basis, and to promptly try to remedy my wrongs?
Today I Pray
God, I pray that the group - or just one friend - will be honest enough to see my slippery manifestations of pride and brave enough to tell me about them. My self-esteem was starved for so long, that with my first successes in The Program, it may swell to the gross proportions of self-satisfaction. May a view from outside myself give me a true picture of how I am handling the triumph of my sobriety - with humility or with pride.
Today I Will Remember
Self-esteem or self-satisfaction?
Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 30, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Friday, Oct. 30, 2015
Each and every one of us have what we have only by the Grace of God. Even if we acquired all our possessions through our own industry and intelligence, still you must admit that you gave yourself none of these attributes that made your acquisition possible.
These were not necessarily inherited traits, for geniuses have had morons for children. You have what you have because God so willed it, so use them as God would will it.
Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 29, 2015 - The Mental Illness Happy Hour with Paul Gilmartin
Oct. 29, 2015 - Scare tactics to demonize the mentally ill
Oct. 29, 2015 - Especially for men, the wounds of abuse are like no other
Oct. 29, 2015 - Lonely in lust, men are harmed by objectification as well
Oct. 29, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015
Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
Let everyone sweep in front of his [or her] own door, and the whole world will be clean.
-- Goethe
Taking care of ourselves rather than trying to control others may be difficult. Our character defects may lead us to believe we should take responsibility for the actions of others. Sometimes we may feel we know how a spouse, co-worker, or friend should act. We may even go so far as to tell someone what he or she should do or do it for them.
Tonight we can reflect on our actions of today. Did we cover up another's behavior, or tell someone what to do, or take control of something that was not our responsibility? We need to realize that taking charge of another's life is not beneficial to anyone. Focusing on another's life keeps us from looking at ours. Doing for others what they should be doing for themselves takes away valuable lessons for growth.
What would happen if everyone in a classroom were the teacher? Who would listen and learn? Who would mature and grow? The teacher in our lives is our Higher Power. Let us respect our instructor and let our Higher Power do the guiding while we grow.
Help me listen and learn and let go of controlling others.
Let everyone sweep in front of his [or her] own door, and the whole world will be clean.
-- Goethe
Taking care of ourselves rather than trying to control others may be difficult. Our character defects may lead us to believe we should take responsibility for the actions of others. Sometimes we may feel we know how a spouse, co-worker, or friend should act. We may even go so far as to tell someone what he or she should do or do it for them.
Tonight we can reflect on our actions of today. Did we cover up another's behavior, or tell someone what to do, or take control of something that was not our responsibility? We need to realize that taking charge of another's life is not beneficial to anyone. Focusing on another's life keeps us from looking at ours. Doing for others what they should be doing for themselves takes away valuable lessons for growth.
What would happen if everyone in a classroom were the teacher? Who would listen and learn? Who would mature and grow? The teacher in our lives is our Higher Power. Let us respect our instructor and let our Higher Power do the guiding while we grow.
Help me listen and learn and let go of controlling others.
You are reading from the book:
Night Light by Amy E. Dean. © 1986, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 29, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015
" ...(A) terrible thing happened. I ran out of people! Even my family didn't have much use for me. When they saw me coming, they locked up the silverware and everything else of value. I felt very lonely and hurt, because nobody understood me. I felt very sorry for myself and attempted suicide on many occasions, making sure there was always somebody within reaching distance to see that I didn't finish the job. Any time I tried to kill myself, I was either drunk or pilled up or both ..." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, "They Lost Nearly All," Ch 4 ("Belle of the Bar"), pp 478-79.
Today: " I ran out of people, " ...nobody understood me," "I felt very sorry for myself." What once was my prescription for life now sounds pathetic. Perhaps I refused or couldn't understand anyone else because I was too self-absorbed. Maybe I felt sorry for myself because I had nothing to give or even offer anyone else. And maybe I ran out of people because I drove them away with my expectations that they make my wants and needs their total focus. As we sober up, we recover. As we recover, we see what we allowed our addictions to do to us and, in the end, what it did made us pathetic souls. In sobriety, I have no use, no excuse, no need and don't want to be that pathetic creature who expects to be the focus of everyone else's attention and, when I'm not, lash out in self-righteous indignation. I am not perfect in sobriety, but I don't have to be and I'm grateful to say I'm not the pathetic self-seeker I once was. So it goes for progress in the Program. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2015
Oct. 29, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015
AA Thought for the Day
My relationships with my children have greatly improved. Those children who saw me drunk and were ashamed, those children who turned away in fear and even loathing have seen me sober and like me, have turned to me in confidence and trust and have forgotten the past as best they could. They have given me a chance for companionship that I had completely missed. I am their father or their mother now. Not just "that person that Mom or Dad married and God knows why." I am a part of my home now.
Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015
AA Thought for the Day
My relationships with my children have greatly improved. Those children who saw me drunk and were ashamed, those children who turned away in fear and even loathing have seen me sober and like me, have turned to me in confidence and trust and have forgotten the past as best they could. They have given me a chance for companionship that I had completely missed. I am their father or their mother now. Not just "that person that Mom or Dad married and God knows why." I am a part of my home now.
Have I found something that I had lost?
Meditation for the Day
Our true measure of success in life is the measure of spiritual progress that we have revealed in our lives. Others should be able to see a demonstration of God's will in our lives. The measure of His will that those around us have seen worked out in our daily living is the measure of our true success. We can do our best to be a demonstration each day of the power of God in human lives, an example of the working out of the grace of God in the hearts of men and women.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may so live that others will see in me something of the working out of the will of God. I pray that my life may be a demonstration of what the grace of God can do.
Hazelden Foundation
Meditation for the Day
Our true measure of success in life is the measure of spiritual progress that we have revealed in our lives. Others should be able to see a demonstration of God's will in our lives. The measure of His will that those around us have seen worked out in our daily living is the measure of our true success. We can do our best to be a demonstration each day of the power of God in human lives, an example of the working out of the grace of God in the hearts of men and women.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may so live that others will see in me something of the working out of the will of God. I pray that my life may be a demonstration of what the grace of God can do.
Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 29, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015
Reflection for the Day
Virtually all of us suffered the defect of pride when we sought help through The Program, the Twelve Steps and the fellowship of those who truly understood what we felt and where we had been. We learned about our shortcomings - and of pride in particular - and began to replace self-satisfaction with gratitude for the miracle of our recovery, gratitude for the privilege of working with others, and gratitude for God's gift - which enabled us to turn catastrophe into good fortune.
Have I begun to realize that "pride is to character like the attic to the house - the highest part, and generally the most empty ...?"
Today I Pray
God, please tell me if I am banging my shins on my own pride. Luckily for me, The Program has its own built-in check for flaws like this - the clear-eyed vision of the group, which sees in me what I sometimes cannot see myself. May I know that any kind of success has always gone straight to my head, and be watching for it as I begin to reconstruct my confidence.
Today I Will Remember
"Success" can be a setback.
Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 29, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015
We human beings are more miraculous than the ape organically. We do not even have some powers possessed by brute creation - for example, we cannot change color at will as can some reptiles. We can't change our physical make-up as the tadpole does when it becomes a frog, or a caterpillar when it changes into a butterfly.
Yet we are the miracle of all miracles, for we alone have a soul, which enables us to transcend this planet and commune with God himself.
Hazelden Foundation
Oct. 28, 2015 - Masculinity and its effect on men’s mental health
Oct. 28, 2015 - The make-aholic and the alcoholic: The perfect friendship
Oct. 28, 2015 - Commentary - Finish the job: Put an end to gay conversion therapy
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