Daily Recovery Readings - August

[bluidkiti]

August 19

Daily Reflections

A FRAME OF REFERENCE

Referring to our list [inventory] again. Putting out of our minds the
wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes.
Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened?
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 67

There is a wonderful freedom in not needing constant approval from
colleagues at work or from the people I love. I wish I had known about
this Step before, because once I developed a frame of reference, I felt
able to do the next right thing, knowing that the action fit the situation
and that it was the correct thing to do.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

"People of faith have a logical idea of what life is all about. There is a
wide variation in the way each one of us approaches and conceives of
the Power greater than ourselves. Whether we agree with a
particular approach or conception seems to make little difference.
There are questions for each of us to settle for ourselves. But in each
case the belief in a Higher Power has accomplished the miraculous, the
humanly impossible. There has come a revolutionary change in their
way of living and thinking." Has there been a revolutionary change in
me?

Meditation For The Day

Worship is consciousness of God's divine majesty. As you pause to
worship, God will help you raise your humanity to His divinity. The
earth is a material temple to enclose God's divinity. God brings to
those who worship Him a divine power, a divine love, and a divine
healing. You only have to open your mind to Him and try to absorb
some of His divine spirit. Pausing quietly in the spirit of worship, turn
your inward thoughts upward and realize that His divine power may be
yours, that you can experience His love and healing.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may worship God by sensing the eternal Spirit. I pray
that I may experience a new power in my life.

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As Bill Sees It

Privileged to Communicate, p. 231

Everyone must agree that we A.A.'s are unbelievably fortunate
people; fortunate that we have suffered so much; fortunate that
we can know, understand, and love each other so supremely well.

These attributes and virtues are scarcely of the earned variety.
Indeed, most of us are well aware that these are rare gifts which
have their true origin in our kinship born of a common suffering and
a common deliverance by the grace of God.

Thereby we are privileged to communicate with each other to a
degree and in a manner not very often surpassed among our
nonalcoholic friends in the world around us.

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"I used to be ashamed of my condition and so didn't talk about it. But
nowadays I freely confess I am a depressive, and this has attracted
other depressives to me. Working with them has helped a great
deal."*

1. Grapevine, October 1959
2. Letter, 1954
*Bill added that he had no depression after 1955.

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Walk In Dry Places

Inventory is now
Personal Inventory.
In the early days of AA, the dramatic accounts of drinking escapades seemed to show honesty. Taking personal inventory often included telling others about bizarre behavior connected with drinking.
We know today that inventory ought to continue on a daily basis, even
though years have passed since our last drink. We've learned
through painful experiences that in sobriety we can still display many of
the shortcomings that plagued us as practicing alcoholics.
It can also be a trap to focus on our past wrongs rather than today's
faults. We may be using this focus on the past to avoid being
honest about where we stand today. Let's remember that inventory is always now. Taking inventory of the past won't help us with today's shortcomings.
I won't use a discussion of my past wrongs as a subterfuge to keep
from being honest about today's wrongs. I'll continue to take
personal inventory and admit wrongs as they come up.

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Keep It Simple

The future is made of the same stuff as the present. --- Simone Weil
We found we didn’t need magic to recover---we needed a miracle! Now we are walking miracles.
Part of our miracle is that we see how important today is. We can’t change our future unless we change today. So we live One Day at a Time. By living today well, we make our future better. There is comfort in knowing that the program will be there. Hope we’ll be there.
Old-timers say sobriety is easy if we go by one simple rule: don’t drink and go to meeting.
Life can get simpler; they don’t change much. Staying sober will be easier for us over time.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me keep my sobriety simple. Help me accept the rules of life.
Action for the Day: I will list three things that will be there for me tomorrow and the next day, because I’m working on them today.

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Each Day a New Beginning

...to have a crisis and act upon it is one thing. To dwell in perpetual crisis is another. --Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
Exaggerating the negative element in our lives is familiar behavior for all too many of us. But this obsession is our choice. We can stop at any moment. We can decide to let go of a situation that we can't control, turn it over to God, and be free to look ahead at the possibilities for happiness.
Perhaps we can learn to accept a serious situation in our lives as a special opportunity for growth first of all, but even more as an opportunity to let God work in our lives. We learn to trust by giving over our dilemmas to God for solutions. With patience, we will see the right outcomes, and we will more easily turn to God the next time.
Crises will lessen in number and in gravity in direct proportion to the partnership we develop with our higher power. The stronger our dependence on that power, for all answers and all directions, the greater will our comfort be in all situations.
Serenity is the gift promised when we let God handle our lives. No crisis need worry us. The solution is only a prayer away.
I will take action against every crisis confronting me--I will turn to God. Each crisis is an invitation to serenity.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

MORE ABOUT ALCOHOLISM

“I went to my hotel and leisurely dressed for dinner. As I crossed the threshold of the dinning room, the thought came to mind that it would be nice to have a couple of cocktails with dinner. That was all. Nothing more. I ordered a cocktail and my meal. Then I ordered another cocktail. After dinner I decided to take a walk. When I returned to the hotel it struck me a highball would be fine before going to bed, so I stepped into the bar and had one. I remember having several more that night and plenty next morning. I have a shadowy recollection of being in a airplane bound for New York, and of finding a friendly taxicab driver at the landing field instead of my wife. The driver escorted me for several days. I know little of where I went or what I said and did. Then came the hospital with the unbearable mental and physical suffering.

p. 41

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Nine - "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."

There can only be one consideration which should qualify our desire for a complete disclosure of the damage we have done. That will arise in the occasional situation where to make a full revelation would seriously harm the one to whom we are making amends. Or--quite as important--other people. We cannot, for example, unload a detailed account of extramarital adventuring upon the shoulders of our unsuspecting wife or husband. And even in those cases where such a matter must be discussed, let's try to avoid harming third parties, whoever they may be. It does not lighten our burden when we recklessly make the crosses of others heavier.

p. 86

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"Lost time is never found again."
--Benjamin Franklin

Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except
what you're going to do now and do it.
--William Durant

When you have read the Bible, you will know it is the word of God,
because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own
happiness, and your own duty.
--Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924)

"It doesn't matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes.
What matters most is getting off. You can not make progress without
making decisions."
--Jim Rohn

All that is necessary to make this world a better place to live is to
love....to love as He loved.
--Isadora Duncan

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of
throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned."
--Buddha

Whatever my problem today, I will let God have it. A solution is in the
making. I'll see it just as quickly as I can let go of the problem.
--unknown

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
--Shakespeare

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

DECISION

"When you see a snake, never
mind where he came from."
-- W. G. Benham

So many alcoholics have died looking for "the problem" that made
them drink. The wife, family, neighborhood or unemployment was
why they thought they got drunk. They died seeking a reason.
Alcoholics Anonymous clearly states that alcohol is the problem
for alcoholics.

Alcohol is the problem! A statement that is so simple yet so profound
in its healing. Today thousands upon thousands are choosing not to
die by not taking the first drink. To see the problem clearly and
honestly is the beginning of wisdom. O.A., ACoA, N.A., G.A.,
Al-Anon and others have used these simple principles with
profound results. Do I see the snake?

Teach me to avoid those things that cause me pain and destruction.

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"For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and
understanding."
Proverbs 2:6

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and
let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the
livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move
along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image
of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed
them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the
earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the
air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Then
God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the
whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be
yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of
the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that
has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it
was so.
Genesis 1:26-30

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Daily Inspiration

Begin each day with the certainty that today is the best day of your life and watch what happens. Lord, I celebrate my life and give thanks for everything because for everything there is a reason.

Make today the best day of your life. Lord, I have been greatly blessed not only by what I have, but by those burdens that I have been spared.