Oct. 9, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Monday, Oct. 9, 2023

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

What I have wanted is consistency, ever since the day back in Wyncote when my mom and dad split. I have wanted to be liked. I have wanted to be loved. I have wanted to be in a family-type atmosphere.

— Reggie Jackson

How many of us gave ourselves away trying to fix painful childhood longings? We thought if we were good boys, good men, caretakers, we would have the love we wanted. Sadly, our remedies for childhood pain have often been childish solutions. Our need for security may have become a self-centered obsession and blocked our ability to hear our loved ones. We may have become so fervent about accepting others that we failed to stand up for ourselves, and we lost their respect.

Most of us reach adulthood with leftover pain no person could ever fix. We learn grown-up responses by accepting our load of pain and by asking others for help. Intimacy and companionship reduce the weight. We tell our friends about our burdens, and we learn what they are carrying. In the process, we grow in wisdom and maturity.

Today, I will remember I do not have to be alone with my pain.

Hazelden Foundation

Oct. 9, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step

Monday, Oct. 9, 2023

” …’If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.’” — Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, “They Lost Nearly All,” Ch 12 (“Freedom from Bondage”), p 552.

Today, if resentment is the deadliest poison to alcoholics alongside alcohol, I will make a sincere effort to free myself of it once and for all. If “Let Go and Let God” has failed because I have taken back my resentment, I’ll try what is suggested here — pray for the person or thing I resent to receive what I want for myself. Even if I can’t say I am sincere and honest in my hopes for whoever or whatever I resent, I will try for two weeks to pray for the best for them. God granting, after two weeks, the monkey on my back will be gone. Like alcohol and all the garbage that comes with it, as for resentment: enough is enough. Time to get rid of it. And our common journey continues. Step by step. — Chris M., 2023

Oct. 9, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Monday, Oct. 9, 2023

AA Thought for the Day

Am I willing to be bored sometimes at meetings? Am I willing to listen to much repetition of AA principles? Am I willing to hear the same thing over and over again? Am I willing to listen to a long blow-by-blow personal story, because it might help some new member? Am I willing to sit quietly and listen to long-winded members go into every detail of their past? Am I willing to take it, because it is doing them good to get it off their chest? My feelings are not too important. The good of AA comes first, even if it is not always comfortable for me.

Have I learned to take it?

Meditation for the Day

God would draw us all closer to Him in the bonds of the spirit. He would have all people drawn closer to each other in the bonds of the spirit. God, the great Spirit of the universe, of which each of our own spirits is a small part, must want unity between Himself and all His children. “Unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace.” Each experience of our life, of joy, of sorrow, of danger, of safety, of difficulty, of success, of hardship, of ease, each should be accepted as part of our common lot, in the bonds of the spirit.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may welcome the bonds of true fellowship. I pray that I may be brought closer to unity with God and other people.

Hazelden Foundation

Oct. 9, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Monday, Oct. 9, 2023

Reflection for the Day
I remember once hearing someone in The Program say, “Life is a series of agreeings or disagreeings with the universe.” There is much truth in that statement, for I’m only a small cog in the machinery of the universe. When I try to run things my way, I’ll experience only frustration and a sense of failure. If, instead, I learn to let go, I’ll have time to count my blessings, work on my shortcomings, and live fully and richly in The Now.

Do I believe that what I am meant to know will come to my knowledge if I practice the Eleventh Step — praying only for knowledge of God’s will for me and the power to carry that out?

Today I Pray
May I take my direction from the Eleventh Step — and not fall into my usual habit of making itemized lists for God of all my pleas and entreaties and complaints. May I no longer second-guess God with my specific solutions, but pray only that His will be done. May I count my blessings instead of my beseechings.

Today I Will Remember
Stop list-making for God.

Hazelden Foundation

Oct. 9, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Monday, Oct. 9, 2023

So you killed the goose that laid the Golden Egg? That’s too bad. You can’t bring it back to life, but you can do the next best thing – you can eat the goose. You can’t unscramble an egg, but you can bake a cake.

It is water going over the dam that drives the machinery. You are an alcoholic — you can’t help that fact, but you can use your alcoholism for the benefit of other alcoholics and society generally.

Hazelden Foundation

Oct. 9, 2023 – Good morning and make it a marvelous Monday and new week

 

Good morning to Monday and a new week, and let nothing and no one discourage you from making both the day and week as good as you can

Oct. 8, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

May you live all the days of your life.

— Jonathan Swift

The truth is, life is hard. Accepting this fact will make life easier. Remember how well it worked in Step One? Once we admitted and accepted that we were powerless over alcohol and other drugs, we were given the power to recover. It works the same with life’s problems.

We can spend a lot of energy trying to avoid life’s hardships. But our program teaches us to use this same energy to solve our problems. Problems are chances to better ourselves and become more spiritual. We have a choice: we can either use our energy to avoid problems, or we can face them. When we stop wasting energy, we start to feel more sure of ourselves.

Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, life is to be lived, both the easy and the hard parts. Help me face and learn from it all.

Action for the Day

I’ll work at not complaining about how hard life is. I’ll take the same energy and use it to solve problems I may face.

Hazelden Foundation

Oct. 8, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step

Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023

“In AA, we can begin again no matter how late it may be. I have begun again. At 54, I have had come true for me the old wish, ‘If only I could live my life over, knowing what I know.’ That’s what I am doing, living again, knowing what I know. I hope I have been able to impart …at least a bit of what I know; the joy of living, the irresistible power of divine love and its healing strength, and the fact that we, as sentient beings, have the knowledge to choose between good and evil, and, choosing good, are made happy.” — Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, “They Lost Nearly All,” Ch 11 (“He Who Loses His Life”), p 543.

Today, it’s not too late until it’s too late — and it’s too late only when I’ve died. Until then, I have the lifeline and the choice of sobriety, and all I need do is grab and hold onto the lifeline, the lifeline being recovery. Even if I cannot yet envision the Program’s promise of sobriety if I adhere to the Twelve Steps, I know already all too well the life I have if I don’t begin anew. In the end, the decision is a matter of choice — to continue in the life of active drinking that I already know with agonizing pain, or to choose something better. Today, I choose something better: it’s not too late because I’m here! And our common journey continues. Step by step. — Chris M., 2023

Oct. 8, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023

AA Thought for the Day

There is such a thing as being too loyal to any one group. Do I feel put out when another group starts and some members of my group leave it and branch out into new territory? Or do I send them out with my blessing? Do I visit that new offshoot group and help it along? Or do I sulk in my own tent? AA grows by the starting of new groups all the time. I must realize that it’s a good thing for a large group to split up into smaller ones, even if it means that the large group — my own group — becomes smaller.

Am I always ready to help new groups?

Meditation for the Day

Pray — and keep praying until it brings peace and serenity and a feeling of communion with One who is near and ready to help. The thought of God is balm for our hates and fears. In praying to God, we find healing for hurt feelings and resentments. In thinking of God, doubts and fears leave us. Instead of those doubts and fears, there will flow into our hearts such faith and love as is beyond the power of material things to give, and such peace as the world can neither give nor take away. And with God, we can have the tolerance to live and let live.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may have true tolerance and understanding. I pray that I may keep striving for these difficult things.

Hazelden Foundation

Oct. 8, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023

Reflection for the Day
Determination — our clenched-jaw resolve that we can do something about everything — is perhaps the greatest hindrance to achieving serenity. Our old tapes tell us, “The difficult can be done immediately; the impossible will take a little longer.” So we tighten up and prepare ourselves for battle, even though we know from long experience that our own will dooms us in advance to failure. Over and over, we are told in The Program that we must “Let Go and Let God.” And we eventually do find serenity when we put aside our own will while accepting His will for us.

Am I learning to relax my stubborn grip? Do I allow the solutions to unfold by themselves?

Today I Pray
May I loosen my tight-jaw, my tight-fists, my general up-tightness — outward indications of the “do-it-myself” syndrome which has gotten me into trouble before. May I know from experience that this attitude — of “keep a grip on yourself” and on everybody else, too — is accompanied by impatience and followed by frustration. May I merge my own will with the greater will of God.

Today I Will Remember
Let up on the strangle-hold.

Hazelden Foundation

Oct. 8, 2023 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023

A shipwrecked sailor on a desert island may eventually find another in a like predicament, but the poor alcoholic is all alone with himself, even in a world full of alcoholics.

That is one of the most brutal characteristics of the malady that separates us from the world about us and makes us men without a country, without a hope and without a friend.

Hazelden Foundation