Daily Recovery Readings - August

[bluidkiti]

August 27

Daily Reflections

CENTERING OUR THOUGHTS
When World War II broke out, our A.A. dependence on a Higher
Power had its first major test. A.A.'s entered the services and
were scattered all over the world. Would they be able to take the
discipline, stand up under fire, and endure . . . ?
As Bill Sees It, p.200

I will center my thoughts on a Higher Power. I will surrender all to
this power within me. I will become a soldier for this power, feeling
the might of the spiritual army as it exists in my life today. I will
allow a wave of spiritual union to connect me through my
gratitude, obedience and discipline to this Higher Power. Let me allow
this power to lead me through the orders of the day. May the
steps I take today strengthen my words and deeds, may I know
that the message I carry is mine to share, given freely by this power
greater than myself.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

"We must be willing to make amends to all the people we have
harmed. We must do the best we can to repair the damage done in
the past. When we make amends, when we say: ‘I'm sorry,' the
person is sure at least to be impressed by our sincere desire to set
right the wrong. Sometimes people we are making amends to admit
their own faults, so feuds of long standing melt away. Our most
ruthless creditors will sometimes surprise us. In general, we must
be willing to do the right thing, no matter what the consequences
may be for us." Have I made a sincere effort to make amends to
the people I have harmed?

Meditation For The Day

The grace of God cures disharmony and disorder in human
relationships. Directly you put your affairs, with their confusion
and their difficulties, into God's hands. He begins to effect a cure
of all the disharmony and disorder. You can believe that He will cause
you no more pain in the doing of it than a physician that knows
how to effect a cure would cause a patient. You can have faith that
God will do all that is necessary as painlessly as possible. But you
must be willing to submit to His treatment, even if you cannot now
see the meaning or purpose of it.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may willingly submit to whatever spiritual discipline
is necessary. I pray that I may accept whatever it takes to live a
better life.

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As Bill Sees It

Maudlin Martyrdom, p. 238

"Self-pity is one of the most unhappy and consuming defects we
know. It is a bar to all spiritual progress and can cut off all effective
communication with our fellows because of its inordinate demands
for attention and sympathy. It is a maudlin form of martyrdom,
which we can ill afford.

"The remedy? Well, let's have a hard look at ourselves, and a still
harder one at A.A.'s Twelve Steps to recovery. When we see how
many of our fellow A.A.'s have used the Steps to transcend great
pain and adversity, we shall be inspired to try these life-giving
principles for ourselves."

Letter, 1966

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Walk In Dry Places

Finding Our Real Selves
Building Self-esteem
Many of us sold ourselves short while we were drinking. We wanted approval and
acceptance, but often felt unworthy of it, even accepting the unfavorable
opinions others had toward us. We resented such opinions, but secretly feared that our critics were right.
In the Twelve Step program, however, we discover a higher and better self
that hadn't found expression during active drinking. We no longer have to impress anybody, we no longer need applause, and we no longer crave the false camaraderie that passes for friendship among problem drinkers. We can, in many ways, become new people.
When we experience such change and growth, we may come to wonder how we
ever could have been so deluded by the sick self of our drinking years. We feel relief when we realize that we no longer have to live and think that way.... if we continue in the program and make sobriety our highest priority. We will realize too that the self we find in sobriety is the real self.... a person who was there all along but was crowded out and suppressed by the demands of our sick nature. This real self is what we were created to be, and sobriety brought its discovery.
I'll go about my affairs today knowing that my real self is what God wants me to be. Being sober, I can now find answers and opportunities that were beyond my reach when I was still drinking.

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Keep It Simple

Things do not change, we do. ---Henry David Thoreau
There are still as many bars as there were when we were drinking. There are still lots of drugs around. The world hasn’t changed. What’s changed is that we now live a different way of life.
We’ve learned that, for us, alcohol and other drugs are poison.
For us, there are now two worlds: the world we left behind, and our new world of recovery. In our old world, we’d try to get everyone else to change. We had the right. In our new world, we look for ways we can change for the better. In our new life, we’re willing to change.
Prayer for the Day: I pray that I may be like a mighty river, always changing.
Action for the Day: I will list changes I need to make in my new life.

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Each Day a New Beginning

Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgment of the facts of a situation. Then deciding what you're going to do about it. --Kathleen Casey Theisen
Recovery offers us courage to make choices about the events of our lives. Passive compliance with whatever is occurring need no longer dominate our pattern of behavior. Powerlessly watching our lives go by was common for many of us, and our feelings of powerlessness escalated the more idle we were.
Today, action is called for, thoughtful action in response to the situations begging for our attention. Recovery's greatest gift is the courage to take action, to make decisions that will benefit us as well as the people who are close to us. Courage is the byproduct of our spiritual progress, courage to accept what we cannot change, believing that all will be well, courage to change in ourselves what we do have control over.
An exhilaration about life accompanies the taking of action. The spell that idleness casts over us is broken, and subsequent actions are even easier to take. Clearly, making a choice and acting on it is healthful. The program has given us the tools to do both.
Decisions will be called for today. I will be patient with myself, and thoughtful. I will listen closely to the guidance that comes from those around me.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

WE AGNOSTICS

IN THE PRECEDING chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.

p. 44

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Ten - "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it."

Before we ask what a spot-check inventory is, let's look at the kind of setting in which such an inventory can do its work.
It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us.
If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? What about "justifiable" anger? If somebody cheats us, aren't we entitled to be mad? Can't we be properly angry with self-righteous folk? For us of A.A. these are dangerous exceptions. We have found that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it.

p. 90

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"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by
people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."
--Dale Carnegie

Sometimes lack of thought is a very good sign. It means you are totally
relaxed and have control of your mind.
--unknown

Getting the job done requires doing your work, not just talking about
it.
--unknown

When we take things for granted we forget life is a gift.
--unknown

Love is a gift to your self.
--unknown

In quiet meditation I listen to my own Higher Power.
I connect with my personal spirituality in my own time and place.
--Ruth Fishel

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

PURPOSE

"I have never doubted that God
created man for great purposes .
. . "
-- Preston Bradley

I am special today. I know that there is a purpose for my life and that
it is essentially good and creative. I know that beauty is not just in
things that I can see . . . beauty is also in me. Today I affirm my great
purpose in this world . . . to be the best that I can be.

For too many years I gave my God-given power away; I gave it to
alcohol, I gave it to people, I gave it to a belief system that did not
make sense to me. Today I am discovering the power that God has
given to me, and I feel good about myself. Today I reclaim my divinity.

Creator of this wonderful universe, make me an instrument of Your
peace.

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"If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."
Galatians 5:25

"On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried
out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. "He who
believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow
rivers of living water."
John 7:37-38

"I will praise the name of God with a song, And will magnify Him with
thanksgiving."
Psalm 69:30

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His
own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who
called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."
1 Peter 2:9

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Daily Inspiration

When children speak, listen. They freely share the joys of life that we are often too preoccupied to remember. Lord, help me bring back those qualities that I had as a child that would allow me to be more lighthearted, more playful and more determined to live happy.

Enthusiasm keeps the mind young and the spirit growing. Lord, may I always see wonder in the ordinary happenings of my day.