Daily Recovery Readings - 6/6

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<big>Daily Reflections
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<big><small>ALL WE DO IS TRY
Can He now take them all -- every one?
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 76
In doing Step Six it helped me a lot to remember that I am striving for
"spiritual progress." Some of my character defects may be with me for
the rest of my life, but most have been toned down or eliminated. All
that Step Six asks of me is to become willing to name my defects, claim
them as my own, and be willing to discard the ones I can, just for today.
As I grow in the program, many of my defects become more
objectionable to me than previously and, therefore, I need to repeat Step
Six so that I can become happier with myself and maintain my serenity.
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<big style="text-decoration: underline;">Twenty-Four Hours A Day</big>

A.A. Thought For The Day
Drinking is the way we alcoholics express our maladjustment's to life. I
believe that I was a potential alcoholic from the start. I had an inferiority
complex. I didn't make friends easily. There was a wall between me and
other people. And I was lonely. I was not well adjusted to life. Did I
drink to escape from myself?

Meditation For The Day

According to the varying needs of each person, so does each person
think of God. It is not necessary that you think of God as others think of
Him, but it is necessary that you think of Him as supplying what you
personally need. The weak need God's strength. The strong need God's
tenderness. The tempted and fallen need God's saving grace. The
righteous needs God's pity for sinners. The lonely need God as a friend.
The fighters for righteousness need a leader in God. You may think of
God in any way you wish. We usually do not turn to God until we need
Him.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may think of God as supplying my needs. I pray that I will
bring all my problems to Him for help in meeting them.

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</big></b><b><big>As Bill Sees It

</big></b><small><b><big>Talk or Action?, p. 187

In making amends, it is seldom wise to approach an individual who still
smarts from our injustice to him, and announce that we have gone
religious. This might be called leading with the chin. Why lay ourselves
open to being branded fanatics or religious bores? If we do this, we may
kill a future opportunity to carry a beneficial message.

But the man who hears our amends is sure to be impressed with our
sincere desire to set right a wrong. He is going to be more interested in
a demonstration of good will than in talk of spiritual discoveries.

Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 77

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</big></b><b><big style="text-decoration: underline;">Keep It Simple</big>

</b> Fortunate are the people whose roots are deep.---Agnes Meyer
A tree's roots seek water and minerals. Though the roots can't be seen easily seen, they are there.
The life of the tree depends on them. The stronger a tree's roots, the higher a tree can grow.
We need to set deep roots into the soil of recovery. The soil of recovery is made up of the Twelve Steps, fellowship, and service to others. We'll have to get through storms and high winds in our return to health. In so doing, we'll become beautiful, strong, and spiritual. We'll be able to live with both the gentle breezes and the heavy winds of life.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me believe in what I can't see. Just as I believe that the roots of a tree are there because I can see the leaves. I believe in a Higher Power because I can see the results.
Action for the Day: I will ask myself, "Which Step do I need to work on the most right now?" I will volunteer to give a meeting on that Step.
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</big></b><b><big>Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

</big></b><b><big><small><big>Fear Of Fear
</big></small></big></b>This lady was cautious. She decided she wouldn't let herself go in her drinking. And she would never, never take that morning drink!

We have only been in A.A. a few years, but now we're trying to make up for lost time. Twenty-seven years of confusion is what my early married life was. Now the picture has changed completely. We have faith in each other, trust in each other, and understanding. A.A. has given us that. It has taught me so many things. It has changed my thinking entirely, about everything I do. I can't afford resentments against anyone, because they are the build-up of another drunk. I must live and let live. And "think"---that one important words mean so much to me. My life was always act and react. I never stopped to think. I just didn't give a whoop about myself or anyone else.

p. 293<b><big><small>

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<b><big>
</big></b><b><big>Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

</big></b><b><big><small>Step Seven - "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings."</small></big></b>
<b><big><small>
But today, in well-matured A.A.'s, these distorted drives have been restored to something like their true purpose and direction. We no longer strive to dominate or rule those about us in order to gain self-importance. We no longer seek fame and honor in order to be praised. When by devoted service to family, friends, business, or community we attract widespread affection and are sometimes singled out for posts of greater responsibility and trust, we try to be humbly grateful and exert ourselves the more in a spirit of love and service. True leadership, we find, depends upon able example and not upon vain displays of power or glory.

p. 124

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</big></b><small><b><big>Live to learn and you will learn to live.
--Portuguese Proverb

It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the
consequences of dodging our responsibilities.
--Sir Josiah Stamp

You cannot raise a man up by calling him down.
--William Boetcker

"Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person
is like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian."
--Dennis Wholey

Don't let yesterday use up too much of today.
--Will Rogers

Realize the acts of others are not for or against you. They are
experiences in his or her life.
--unknown

We do not have to be perfect, self assured, and untarnished, to be
accepted and loved.
--SweetyZee

Anxiety separates us from experiencing a great life. So caught up are we
in our worry, we may even cut ourselves off from giving and receiving
love. God invites us into a fuller life in which we recognize that there is
no anxiety that our Creator cannot handle, if we only remember to ask.
--Mary Manin Morrissey

Nothing can separate us from God's love.
--Luis Aramayo

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<big style="text-decoration: underline;">Father Leo's Daily Meditation</big>

SCIENCE

"As long as men are free to ask
what they must - free to say what
they think - free to think what they
will - freedom can never be lost
and science can never regress."
--J. Robert Oppenheimer

We need to press on in this wonderful journey of life because new
discoveries await us in our tomorrows. Spirituality always brings joy in
the journey. In the traveling is the fun for we will never reach our
destination in this life.

The freedom to question is the discipline of science, and science is
involved in the treatment and recovery of addiction. We must always be
looking for better ways of treatment, more vivid ways of teaching and
creative aids to recovery.

Science, and every other creative discipline, should be used in the
treatment of addictions: God is to be found in the many.

Lord, let us remember that You gave mankind a scalpel and a prayer
book.

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</big></b><small><b><big>"No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man;
but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what
you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape,
that you may be able to bear it."
1 Corinthians 10:13

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and
in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how
we set our hearts at rest in His presence whenever our hearts condemn
us. For God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything.
1 John 3:18-20

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher
than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:9</big></b></small><b><big></big></b>

[admin]

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</big></b><b><big>Daily Inspiration
<small>Even the most difficult of trials is God's way of preparing us for something else. Lord, may I view my challenges as an opportunity to grow rather than as an opportunity to fail.

Jesus said, "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.". Lord, I pray, I believe, and I thank you even before it is fulfilled.</small></big></b>

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<big><big>You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
A good anger acted upon is beautiful as lightning and swift with power. A good anger swallowed clots the blood like slime.
--Marge Piercy
How does it feel when someone tells us we should play basketball when we don't want to? Often, it angers us that someone else is telling us what to do. After we have been told we should do something many times, we begin to believe it and forget how we really feel. Even though we have forgotten what we wanted to do, we feel angry, often without realizing it. Such hidden anger can leave us feeling bad without knowing why.
It is important to know when we are angry, and to say so. There are healthy ways of expressing anger without blaming others. Saying we are angry, and thereby claiming it as our own feeling and not something others force on us, is a way to express it which also affirms our right to be angry.
If there is anger in me today, can I express it correctly?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
Words and magic were in the beginning one and the same thing, and even today words retain much of their magical power. --Sigmund Freud
We shape our experiences with the words we use to describe them. Word images create expectations and we naturally move toward them. When a man says, "I can't!" he is commanding his unconscious self to be helpless. When he has a picture in his mind of moving toward his goal, he may say, "It's hard, but I'm going to give it my best effort." If, every time he makes a mistake, he mutters berating statements to himself like, "You idiot! You can't do anything right," he is teaching himself to be inadequate.
It's our responsibility in recovery to use respectful, honest, health- giving words. We can no longer use defeating, shaming, or derogatory words. Our language has a hypnotic effect on us and the people around us. So let's look at our resources today and name them. Let's meet our difficulties with our strength, our patience, and the backing of our Higher Power.
Today, I will call forth images and use words to show I respect myself and others.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
>From early infancy onward we all incorporate into our lives the message we receive concerning our self-worth, or lack of self-worth, and this sense of value is to be found beneath our actions and feelings as a tangled network of self-perception. --Christina Baldwin
Lifting our self-esteem is not a particularly easy task for most of us. It's probable that again and again our confidence wavered before we sought help from the program. It's also probable that our confidence still wanes on occasion. The old fears don't disappear without effort.
But each day we can do some one thing that will help us to feel better about ourselves. All it takes is one small act or decision, each day. The program can give us the strength we need each day to move forward one step.
Today, I will do one thing I've been putting off. A whole collection of "one days" will lay the groundwork for the person I'm building within.


You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go.
The Gift of Readiness
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. --Step Six of Al-Anon
We progress to the Sixth Step by working diligently, to the best of our ability, on the first Five Steps. This work readies us for a change of heart, openness to becoming changed by a Power greater than ourselves - God.
The path to this willingness can be long and hard. Many of us have to struggle with a behavior or feeling before we become ready to let it go. We need to see, over and over again, that the coping device that once protected us is no longer useful.
The defects of character referred to in Step Six are old survival behaviors that once helped us cope with people, life, and ourselves. But now they are getting in our way, and it is time to be willing to have them removed.
Trust in this time. Trust that you are being readied to let go of that which is no longer useful. Trust that a change of heart is being worked out in you.
God, help me become ready to let go of my defects of character. Help me know, in my mind and soul, that I am ready to let go of my self defeating behaviors, the blocks and barriers to my life.


I know that I cannot be hurt by anyone if I consistently look for their best. Today I continue to search out the best in all my relationships, looking for something I can love in everyone. --Ruth Fishel</big></big>

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Recovery Doesn't Happen Overnight

"The Twelve Steps of Narcotics Anonymous are a progressive recovery process established in our daily living."
Basic Text, p. 96
After some time in recovery, we may find we are faced with what seem like overwhelming personal problems, angry feelings, and despair. When we realize what's going on, we may wail, "But I've been working so hard. I thought I was..." Recovered, maybe? Not hardly. Over and over, we hear that recovery is an ongoing process and that we are never cured. Yet we sometimes believe that if we just work our steps enough, pray enough, or go to enough meetings, we'll eventually... Well, maybe not be cured, but be something!
And we are "something." We're recovering-recovering from active addiction. No matter what we've dealt with through the process of the steps, there will always be more. What we didn't remember or didn't think was important in our first inventory will surely present itself later on. Again and again, we'll turn to the process of the steps to deal with what's bothering us. The more we use this process the more we'll trust it, for we can see the results. We go from anger and resentment to forgiveness, from denial to honesty and acceptance, and from pain to serenity.
Recovery doesn't happen overnight, and ours will never be complete. But each day brings new healing and the hope for more tomorrow.
Just for today: I will do what I can for my recovery today and maintain hope in the ongoing process of recovery.
pg. 164

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Wisdom for Today<!--mstheme-->

Somewhere in the recovery process, as we truly begin to develop our spiritual lives, we come to realize that we did not achieve sobriety on our own. A genuine sense of recognition that recovery was achieved, “But for the Grace of God.� This program motto reminds us not to take too much credit for our sobriety. Yes, we have to walk the walk, but none of us would have even found the path, let alone stayed on it without His Grace. As we walk through the process of recovery, all of us will see those who choose not to accept His Grace. These individuals end up back in the sauce. We also will run into those who need the program, but are not yet ready. Here we look at these individuals and say, “But for the Grace of God, there go I.�
This statement helps to remind us of who we are. It reminds us that we still have this disease. Yes, we may be strong in our recovery today, but this is only true because we have accepted His gracious gift. This statement also reminds us to be grateful for what we have been given. And we are certainly given much in the recovery process. Each of the promises of the program only happen through our willingness to put into action suggestions given us and because of the Grace that our Higher Power affords us each and every day that we remain clean and sober. Humbly we stand before our Higher Power, and we see the majesty of what he has done and continues to do for us. Have I accepted the gift of recovery through His Grace?
<!--mstheme-->Meditations for the Heart<!--mstheme-->

I am not sure that I can look back and say with any certainty when I knew in my heart that God loved me. In my brokenness and shame, I stood in the door of a clubhouse wanting desperately to find a way out of the insanity. I had no idea what awaited me and could not even begin to imagine where the path of recovery would lead. I do know that once I really knew in my heart that God loved me, my whole life changed. Gratitude was a constant companion, especially when I walked through difficult times. Cares and worries seemed to just disappear as I began to realize that I was being helped and could see that much of the goodness I experienced in life came about, not because of what I was doing, but because of what He was doing. I began to see that not only was I cared for but I also began to see that I had a friend. Am I grateful for this love that is given me so freely?
<!--mstheme-->Petitions to my Higher Power<!--mstheme-->

God,
It is You that has walked with me each and every step of this path. I am truly grateful for the guidance and direction I receive. The outpouring of love and care I receive from You humbles me. I do not understand this Grace, but I am glad in my heart for this gift. Help those that still suffer and open their hearts to accept this wonderful gift of recovery.
Amen