April 24, 2024 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.

-- Willa Cather

As adults, we have become more practical about meeting our economic needs and responsibilities. Perhaps we've gone so far in the process of learning to be fiscally responsible that we've become greedy or cynical. Some of us may have forgotten that there are things more sacred than monetary success.

Creativity, play, love, connection to a Higher Power, joy -- all of these are among our needs. They are as important to our spirits as food and shelter are to our physical survival. If we've given up on our creative side because "it doesn’t pay" or because we're "not good enough to succeed," we may be denying the spirit within us the nourishment it yearns for. We must determine what success means to each of us; we need not be limited by others' definitions or goals. Creative expression is its own reward. It is the voice of our soul.

Today, I express my creativity in something I do, simply for its own sake.

Hazelden Foundation

April 24, 2024 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step
Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Today, the link between consequences and responsibility -- and the reality that I and I alone am responsible to the consequences of my behavior and choices, including drinking, and that excuses and justifications will not spare me either consequences or responsibility. The Program’s 12th Step suggests I “practice these principles in all (my) affairs” -- to live by AA’s principles and not weasel out of owning my feelings, actions and behavior and the consequences of each. If, for example, I slip or relapse, I cannot blame anything but myself because, in the end, I made the choice to drink. No one tied me down and poured it down my throat, and I and no one else will endure the physical and emotional consequences of my choice to drink. Today, I am mindful that all I say, do and feel will bear consequences and that I alone am responsible to those consequences. And if I want to avoid responsibility to the consequences, the “out” is clear: don’t do what I don’t want to suffer consequences for. And our common journey continues. Step by step. -- Chris M., 2024

April 24, 2024 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

AA Thought for the Day

It’s been proved that we alcoholics can’t get sober by our willpower. We’ve failed again and again. Therefore, I believe there must be a Higher Power which helps me. I think of that power as the grace of God. And I pray to God every morning for the strength to stay sober today. I know that Power is there because it never fails to help me.

Do I believe that AA works through the grace of God?

Meditation for the Day

Once I am “born of the spirit,” that is my life’s breath. Within me is the life of life, so that I can never perish. The life that down the ages has kept God’s children through peril, adversity and sorrow. I must try never to doubt or worry, but follow where the life of the spirit leads. How often, when little I know it, God goes before me to prepare the way, to soften a heart, or to overrule a resentment. As the life of the spirit grows, natural wants become less important.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that my life may become centered in God more than in self. I pray that my will may be directed towards doing His will.

Hazelden Foundation

April 24, 2024 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Reflection for the Day

We come to know in The Program that there is no deeper satisfaction and no greater joy than in a Twelfth Step well done. To watch the eyes of men and women open with wonder as they move from darkness to light, to see their lives quickly fill with new purpose and meaning, and above all to watch them awaken to the presence of a loving God in their lives -- these things are the substance of what we receive as we carry the message of The Program.

Am I learning through Twelfth Step experiences that gratitude should go forward, rather than backward?

Today I Pray

May my Twelfth Steps be as wholehearted and as convincing and as constructive as others’ Twelfth-Stepping has been to me. May I realize that the might of The Program and its effectiveness for all of us come through “passing it on.” When I guide someone else to sobriety, my own sobriety is underlined and reinforced. I humbly ask God’s guidance before each Twelfth Step.

Today I Will Remember

To pass it on.

Hazelden Foundation

April 24, 2024 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

The reasoning of the practicing alcoholic is in such foul shape that he is apt to take any attitude on the drinking question and usually does.

It is unreasonable to expect them to view their own or anyone else’s sobriety in a rational way. Naturally plain common sense is not possible in the midst of an alcoholic fog, but why -- oh, why -- do so many practicing alcoholics, including slipees, invariably persist in looking for the most insecure member of AA in their quest for a drinking partner?

If you are homesick for the gutter, go on back to it. But don’t take anyone with you.

Hazelden Foundation

April 24, 2024 – Rise ‘n shine for a marvelous and worry-free Wednesday

 

Good morning with confidence that there’s nothing this beautiful 

Wednesday 

will serve up that we can’t handle …have a marvelous day, and don’t waste it on people and things who don’t deserve our attention

April 23, 2024 - Readings in Recovery: Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

 

Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Today's Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

A crisis is an opportunity to rely on our Higher Power.

When we came to this program, we were told right away that a Higher Power is watching out for us and that we can look to that Power whenever we want guidance or peacefulness. Let's not resist this invitation.

Most of us had daily crises before turning to this program for help. Our attempts to control other people caused many of these crises. So did our reactions to the natural ebb and flow of human existence. Now we have to take the plunge and begin to rely on our God, however we understand God, to show us the way to handle every experience that's part of our Divine unfolding.

I will look to God today, and every experience will make sense in the whole of my existence.

Hazelden Foundation

April 23, 2024 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step
Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Today, reflect on the choices and responsibilities of sponsorship. If I have progressed in my recovery that I need to ask someone to sponsor me, where and how do I begin? My home group is fertile ground, and I may think about selecting three or four members, narrow them down to those I feel I can trust most and then approach that potential sponsor in confidence. If I am being asked to sponsor someone, however, I ask my Higher Power for the wisdom and responsibility before taking on such a sacred trust. Let me understand that sponsorship does not mean I am the sponsee’s pseudo-priest and that the job does not make me “preacher.” Today, I extend my recovery to include asking to be sponsored and, God willing, consenting to someone’s request to offer my strength, hope and experience to him. And our common journey continues. Step by step. -- Chris M., 2024

April 23, 2024 - Readings in Recovery: Twenty-Four Hours a Day

 

Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

AA Thought for the Day

Men and women keep coming into AA, licked by alcohol, often given up by doctors as hopeless cases, they themselves admitting they’re helpless to stop drinking. When I see these men and women get sober and stay sober over a period of months and years, I know that AA works. The change I see in people who come into AA not only convinces me that there must be a Power greater than ourselves which helps us to make that change.

Am I convinced that a Higher Power can help me to change?

Meditation for the Day

Cooperation with God is the great necessity for our lives. All else follows naturally. Cooperation with God is the result of our consciousness of His presence. Guidance is bound to come to us as we live more and more with God, as our consciousness becomes more and more attuned to the great Consciousness of the universe. We must have many quiet times when we not so much ask to be shown and led by God, as to feel and realize His presence. New spiritual growth comes naturally from cooperation with God.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that God may supply me with strength and show me the direction in which He wants me to grow. I pray that these things may come naturally from my cooperation with Him.

Hazelden Foundation

April 23, 2024 - Readings in Recovery: A Day at a Time

 

A Day at a Time

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Reflection for the Day

No matter what it is that seems to be our need or problems, we can find something to rejoice in, something for which to give thanks. It is not God who needed to be thanked, but we who need to be thankful. Thankfulness opens new doors to good in our life. Thankfulness creates a new heart and a new spirit in us.

Do I keep myself aware of the many blessings that come to me each day and remember to be thankful for them?

Today I Pray

May God fill me with a spirit of thankfulness. When I express my thanks, however fumbling, to God or to another human being, I am not only being gracious to Him or that other person for helping me, but I am also giving myself the greatest reward of all – a thankful heart. May I not forget either the transitive “to thank,” directed at someone else, or the intransitive “giving thanks,” which fills my own great need.

Today I Will Remember

Thank and give thanks.

Hazelden Foundation

April 23, 2024 - Readings in Recovery: The Eye Opener

 

The Eye Opener

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

It would be possible for a nation, or even the world, to exist without many of the natural resources we have. But no nation could exist without men. The strength of the nation is the strength of its men.

The men who comprise the population of the nation are individuals, and the sum total of the virtues of the individuals is the character of the nation.

Our value to society is not our newfound sobriety but our new character as developed by our new and better way of living.

Hazelden Foundation