March 25, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Dealing with daily problems

For many of us, substances were an escape from the trials of the world. We deeply resented them and earnestly sought escape. Simply getting sober did not wipe away all our problems. Now, however, we have an opportunity to deal with them constructively.

If we do not take that first pill, drink, or fix, our problems can be solved, and stumbling blocks can become stepping stones to a better life.

Am I learning how to deal with daily problems?

Higher Power, I pray to accept my daily problems and for your help in dealing with them.

One thing I will do today to deal constructively with my problems is…

Hazelden Foundation

March 25, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step
Thursday, March 25, 2021

Today, focus on compulsiveness so as not to react to anyone or anything with the heightened emotions that nurtured the defects of my character. From a behavioral standpoint, we alcoholics drank with compulsion. As such, my alcoholism is both physical and behavioral in nature. To get the discipline to prevent compulsion from gaining an upper hand in all my affairs, I can work Step Three as I begin this day by handing over to my Higher Power my will and ask instead for His will. Today, as I set out, I surrender my will - or self-will run riot - to my Higher Power with faith that He will strengthen me to act accordingly and responsibly instead out of the compulsiveness that contributed to my spiritual and mental defects. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2021

March 25, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Thursday, March 25, 2021

AA Thought for the Day

Strength comes from coming to believe in a Higher Power that can help you. You can't define this Higher Power, but you can see how it helps other alcoholics. You hear them talk about it and you begin to get the idea yourself. You try praying in a quiet time each morning and you begin to feel stronger, as though your prayers were heard. So you gradually come to believe there must be a Power in the world outside yourself, which is stronger than you and to which you can turn for help.

Am I receiving strength from my faith in a Higher Power?

Meditation for the Day

Spiritual development is achieved by daily persistence in living the way you believe God wants you to live. Like the wearing away of a stone by steady drops of water, so will your daily persistence wear away all the difficulties and gain spiritual success for you. Never falter in this daily, steady persistence. Go forward boldly and unafraid. God will help and strengthen you, as long as you are trying to do His will.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may persist day by day in gaining spiritual experience. I pray that I may make this a lifetime work.

Hazelden Foundation

March 25, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Reflection for the Day

If a chemically-dependent person wants to live successfully in society, he or she must replace the power of chemicals over his/her life with the power of something else - preferably positive, at least neutral, but not negative. That is why we say to the agnostic newcomer: If you can't believe in God, find a positive power that is as great as the power of your addiction, and give it the power and dependence you gave to your addiction. In The Program, the agnostic is left free to find his or her Higher Power, and can use the principles of The Program and the therapy of the meetings to aid in rebuilding his/her life.

Do I go out of my way to work with newcomers?

Today I Pray

May the Power of The Program work its miracles equally for those who believe in a personal God or in a Universal Spirit or in the strength of the group itself, or for those who define their Higher Power in their own terms, religious or not. If newcomers are disturbed by the religiosity of The Program, may I welcome them on their own spiritual terms. May I recognize that we are all spiritual beings.

Today I Will Remember

To each his own spirituality.

Hazelden Foundation

March 25, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Thursday, March 25, 2021

No man with certainty can see beyond this instant. Yesterday we had a friend, hale, hearty and bubbling over with energy and ambition. Today we write a letter of condolence to his widow. No one knows the day or the hour, but this we do know - we are alive right now, people are suffering right now, we can help them right now.

Hazelden Foundation

March 25, 2021 - Good morning and let's set out with determination to make today an awesome Thursday

 

Good morning with hopes for a fantastic Thursday for everyone ...make it productive and worthwhile but safe, and don't justify anything and anyone out to wreck it by giving them your time

March 24, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

I wasn’t exactly brought up in one of those Norman Rockwell paintings you used to see on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. —Reggie Jackson

We have many myths about other people’s lives. When we compare ourselves to these stories, we come up short. We think of Hollywood families, TV sitcoms, or maybe even those Rockwell paintings that idealized small-town American life in the mid-1900s. We may have stories our father told about his moment of glory and how he met his challenges. Any of these images selects part of the truth and highlights it, creating a myth that might be worthwhile if we don’t take it too literally.

Living real life never feels as serene as our fantasies. A myth lifts us up and carries us away to other possibilities, but we should always take it with a grain of salt. A father’s recollections or a Rockwell painting romanticizes a piece of reality by omitting the drudgery and confusion of life. Myths are meant as inspirations, not as measurements of our lives.

The difficulties and confusion I feel may just be part of real life. Serenity comes when I accept the mixture that real life is.

Hazelden Foundation

March 24, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Today, no looking beyond the current 24 Hours about the length of my sobriety, be it one day, one week, one month, one year, one decade or longer. Alcoholism is chronic and incurable but can be in arrested by abstinence, and all the 24 Hours of clean time we accrue are gone if we buy into the myth that we can get away with "just one." And "just one" sets in motion total relapse. Even if we have racked up a significant number of 24 Hours, we are no more sober than the alcoholic who woke up this morning with a hangover. Remember the yesterdays when we awoke to the harsh reality that the 24 Hours we had before are gone, and know that our yesterdays are the best predictor of our behavior today and tomorrow - and learn from yesterday to avoid repeating its mistakes. Keep the ego in check - the other alcoholic who woke up hung over yesterday but is sober this morning is no less clean than we. Today, when it comes to being and staying sober, take it literally just for today. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2021

March 24, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

AA Thought for the Day

Strength comes from honestly telling your own experiences with drinking. In religion, they call it confession. We call it witnessing or sharing. You give a personal witness, you share your past experiences, the troubles you got into, the hospitals, the jails, the break-up of your home, the money wasted, the debts and all the foolish things you did when you were drinking. This personal witness lets out the things you had kept hidden, brings them out into the open, and you find release and strength.

Am I receiving strength from my personal witnessing?

Meditation for the Day

We cannot fully understand the universe. The simple fact is that we cannot even define space or time. They are both boundless, in spite of all we can do to limit them. We live in a box of space and time which we have manufactured by our own minds and on that depends all our so-called knowledge of the universe. The simple fact is that we can never know all things, nor are we made to know them. Much of our lives must be taken on faith.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that my faith may be based on my own experience of the power of God in my life. I pray that I may know this one thing above all else in the universe.

Hazelden Foundation

March 24, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Reflection for the Day

All of us are faced with the troubles and problems of daily living, whether we've been in The Program two days or 20 years. We'd sometimes like to believe we could take care of all our problems right now, but it rarely works that way. If we remember the slogan "Easy Does It" when we are ready to panic, we may come to know that the very best way to handle all things is "Easy." We put one foot in front of the other, doing the best we are capable of doing. We say, "Easy Does It," and we do it.

Are The Program's slogans growing with me as I grow with The Program?

Today I Pray

May even the words "Easy Does It" serve to slow me down in my headlong rush to accomplish too much too fast. May just the word "Easy" be enough to make me ease up on the whips that drive my ambitions, ease up on the accelerator which plunges me into new situations without enough forethought, ease off the number of hours spent in material pursuits. May I hark to the adage that Rome wasn't built in a single day. Neither can I build solutions to my problems all at once.

Today I Will Remember

Easy Does It.

Hazelden Foundation

March 24, 2021 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Life is not a succession of days on earth, but rather it is an accumulation of experiences. Days are simply time locations where experiences transpired. The day on which no event occurred is a day lost out of life, for it had nothing in it to justify its memory.

Hazelden Foundation