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Jan. 1, 2016 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation
Friday, Jan. 1, 2016
Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke
We carry problems and discrepancies within us, quandaries that are not easily answered - and we have bigger questions about life and the world. Why did I act as I did in my younger years? Can my life partnership be happy again? How should I handle a secret that I carry? What is this thing we call Higher Power and God?
We are on a journey and, in some ways, this journey is a quest for answers. The questions give energy and direction to our seeking. We cannot expect to get quick or easy answers. And some questions will always remain just that: questions. But we can learn to be patient with ourselves, tolerant of our incompleteness, and always curious about how it will all turn out.
Today I will practice patience with myself and embrace my unsolved questions as crucial elements in my quest.
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke
We carry problems and discrepancies within us, quandaries that are not easily answered - and we have bigger questions about life and the world. Why did I act as I did in my younger years? Can my life partnership be happy again? How should I handle a secret that I carry? What is this thing we call Higher Power and God?
We are on a journey and, in some ways, this journey is a quest for answers. The questions give energy and direction to our seeking. We cannot expect to get quick or easy answers. And some questions will always remain just that: questions. But we can learn to be patient with ourselves, tolerant of our incompleteness, and always curious about how it will all turn out.
Today I will practice patience with myself and embrace my unsolved questions as crucial elements in my quest.
You are reading from the book:
Wisdom to Know © 2005 by Hazelden Foundation
Jan. 1, 2016 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step
Step by Step
Friday, Jan. 1, 2016
"FOREWORD TO SECOND EDITION
Figures given in this foreword describe the Fellowship as it was in 1955"Since the original Foreword to this book was written in 1939, a wholesale miracle has taken place. Our earliest printing voiced the hope 'that every alcoholic who journeys will find the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination. Already,' continues the early text, 'twos and threes and fives of us have sprung up in other communities.'
"Sixteen years have elapsed between our first printing of this book and the presentation in 1955 of our second edition. In that brief space, Alcoholics Anonymous has mushroomed into nearly 6,000 groups whose membership is far above 150,000 recovered alcoholics." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, "Foreword to the Second Edition," p xv.
Today, when tradition prods us to think in terms of new beginnings and resolutions, the history of AA as measured in the years between 1939 and 1955 assures us of a new start - if we work toward and apply the steps and principles of the program. In the years since this foreword, the number of recovering alcoholics has multiplied by more than 10 times. If the program has worked for that vast a number of people, why, then, can't it work for me? It can, and if I have failed in the past, it is because I failed the program and not that the program failed me. On this day when we are encouraged to let go of the old and ring in the new, my recovery somehow appropriately begins with the hope that I, too, can be in that number of recovering alcoholics. So let the new begin. And our common journey continues. Step by step.- Chris M., 2016
Jan. 1, 2016 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Friday, Jan. 1, 2016
AA Thought for the Day
When I came into AA, was I a desperate person? Did I have a soul-sickness? Was I so sick of myself and my way of living that I couldn't stand looking at myself in a mirror? Was I ready for AA? Was I ready to try anything that would help me to get sober and to get over my soul-sickness?
Should I ever forget the condition I was in?
Meditation for the Day
In the new year, I will live one day at a time. I will make each day one of preparation for better things ahead. I will not dwell on the past or the future, only on the present. I will bury every fear of the future, all thoughts of unkindness and bitterness, all my dislikes, my resentments, my sense of failure, my disappointments in others and in myself, my gloom and my despondency. I will leave all these things buried and go forward, in this new year, into a new life.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that God will guide me one day at a time in the new year. I pray that for each day, God will supply the wisdom and the strength that I need.
Hazelden Foundation
Jan. 1, 2016 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time
Friday, Jan. 1, 2016
Reflection for the Day
In the old days, I saw everything in terms of forever. Endless hours were spent rehashing old mistakes. I tried to take comfort in the forlorn hope that tomorrow "would be different." As a result, I lived a fantasy life in which happiness was all but nonexistent. No wonder I rarely smiled and hardly ever laughed aloud.
Do I still think in terms of "forever?"
Today I Pray
May I set my goals for the New Year not at the year-long mark, but one day at a time. My traditional New Year's resolutions have been so grandly stated and so soon broken. Let me not weaken my resolve by stretching it to cover "forever" - or even one long year. May I reapply it firmly each new day. May I learn not to stamp my past mistakes with that indelible word "forever." Instead, may each single day in each New Year be freshened by my new-found hope.
Today I Will Remember
Happy New Day.
Hazelden Foundation
Jan. 1, 2016 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener
Friday, Jan. 1, 2016
Without the introduction of a purpose into our lives, we would be but dried-up drunks, wallowing in self-pity for the loss of that which we were forced to deny ourselves in order to bring about some semblance of order in our lives. We would be "off the bottle" but not for a moment happy about it - never with any sense of security.
We who have found AA have introduced that something into our lives that enabled us, with the Grace of God, to "fix" ourselves.
We have not given up anything - we have acquired something; we are no longer frustrated people, because we have introduced into our lives a reliance in a Power greater than ourselves, that we did not have before. That Power has opened up a new way of life, free of worry, fear and frustration.
Hazelden Foundation
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