Daily Recovery Readings - June

[bluidkiti]

June 29

Daily Reflections

A RIPPLING EFFECT

Having learned to live so happily, we'd show everyone else how. . .Yes,
we of A.A. did dream those dreams. How natural that was, since most
alcoholics are bankrupt idealists. . .So why shouldn't we share our way
of life with everyone?
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 156

The great discovery of sobriety led me to feel the need to spread the
"good news" to the world around me. The grandiose thoughts of my
drinking days returned. Later, I learned that concentrating on my own
recovery was a full-time process. As I became a sober citizen in
this world, I observed a rippling effect which, without any
conscious effort on my part, reached any "related facility or outside
enterprise," without diverting me from my primary purpose of staying
sober and helping other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

The program of Alcoholics Anonymous involves a continuous striving
for improvement. There can be no long resting period. We must try to
work at it all the time. We must continually keep in mind that it is a
program not to be measured in years, because we never fully reach
our goals nor are we ever cured. Our alcoholism is only kept in
abeyance by daily living of the program. It is a timeless program in
every sense. We live it day by day, or more precisely, moment by
moment - now. Am I always striving for improvement?

Meditation For The Day

Life is all a preparation for something better to come. God has a plan
for your life and it will work out, if you try to do His will. God has
things planned for you, far beyond what you can imagine now. But you
must prepare yourself so that you will be ready for the better things to
come. Now is the time for discipline and prayer. The time of
expression will come later. Life can be flooded through and through
with joy and gladness. So prepare yourself for those better things to
come.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may prepare myself for better things that God has in
store for me. I pray that I may trust God for the future.

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As Bill Sees It

Community Problem, p. 180

The answer to the problem of alcoholism seems to be in education--education in
schoolrooms, in medical colleges, among clergymen and employers, in families, and in the
public at large. From cradle to grave, the drunk and the potential alcoholic will have to
be completely surrounded by a true and deep understanding and by a continuous barrage
of information.

This means factual education, properly presented. Heretofore, much of this education
has attacked the immortality of drinking rather than the illness of alcoholism.

Now who is going to do all this education? Obviously, it is both a community job and a job
for specialists. Individually, we A.A.'s can help, but A.A. as such cannot, and should not,
get directly into this field. Therefore, we must rely on other agencies, on outside friends
and their willingness to supply great amounts of money and effort.

Grapevine, March 1958

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Walk In Dry Places

Willingness is the Key
Strong Desire
Although willpower alone does not work in overcoming alcoholism, there is a place for the will, or willingness, in the search for a happy sobriety. Things can happen if we are willing to let them happen. More important, progress often depends on our willingness to give up what stands in our way. It also requires our willingness to take the actions necessary for success.
This same willingness, so vital to finding sobriety, is also applicable in other areas of our lives. The pioneers of AA suggested that getting sober required being willing to go to any lengths. This is the key to other achievements and to the overcoming of problems besides alcohol.
We often have to put up with unpleasant conditions simply because we do not want to change them badly enough. For example, we may dislike the unpleasant coughing and risks of smoking, but lack the willingness to quit. We may brood over lost opportunities, but be unwilling to take advantage of the opportunities we have now.

The key to constructive change in our lives is willingness...... and that applies to other matters as well as to alcohol...............I'll try to be honest today about what I really want. I will remind myself that if I want something badly enough, willingness is the key to action and to success.

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Keep It Simple

I don't believe in the life afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.---Woody Allen
Most of us have many questions about a Higher Power. Sometimes we have more questions than answers. No matter how much we believe about God, there are always questions. Why do bad things happen if God is good? Does God punish people?
Is God called Jesus, Buddha, the Great Spirit? Perhaps we've chosen a name for our Higher Power, or maybe we haven’t. Yet, we know there is some Power great than ourselves that's helping us in recovery.
We know what we need to know about God for today. We know how to ask for help, and how to accept help.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to know You more clearly. There's much I'm not sure about. For now, I will act as if the help I get comes from You.
Action for the Day: I'll think of three ways my Higher Power has done just the right thing for me.

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Each Day a New Beginning

I am convinced, the longer I live, that life and its blessings are not so entirely unjustly distributed (as) when we are suffering greatly we are so inclined to suppose. --Mary Todd Lincoln
Self-pity is a parasite that feeds on itself. Many of us are inclined toward self-pity, not allowing for the balance of life's natural tragedies. We will face good and bad times--and they will pass. With certainty they will pass.
The attitude, "Why me?" hints at the little compassion we generally feel for others' suffering. Our empathy with others, even our awareness of their suffering, is generally minimal. We are much too involved in our own. Were we less self-centered, we'd see that blessings and tragedies visit us all, in equal amounts. Some people respond to their blessings with equanimity, and they quietly remove the sting from their tragedies. We can learn to do both.
Recovery is learning new responses, feeling and behaving in healthier ways. Self-pity need not catch us. We can always feel it coming on. And we can let it go.
Self-pity may beckon, today. Fortunately, I have learned I have other choices.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

THERE IS A SOLUTION

How many time people have said to us: “I can take it or leave it alone. Why can’t he?” “Why don’t you drink like a gentleman or quit?” “That fellow can’t handle his liquor.” “Why don’t you try beer and wine?” “Lay off the hard stuff.” “His will power must be weak.” “He could stop if he wanted to.” “She’s such a sweet girl, I should think he’d stop for her sake.” “The doctor told him that if he ever drank again it would kill him, but there he is all lit up again.”
Now these are commonplace observations on drinkers which we hear all the time. Back of them is a world of ignorance and misunderstanding. We see that these expressions refer to people whose reactions are very different from ours.
Moderate drinkers have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely if they have good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone.

p. 20

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Six - "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character."

Some who feel they have done well may dispute this, so let's try to think it through a little further. Practically everybody wishes to be rid of his most glaring and destructive handicaps. No one wants to be so proud that he is scorned as a braggart, nor so greedy that he is labeled a thief. No one wants to be angry enough to murder, lustful enough to rape, gluttonous enough to ruin his health. No one wants to be agonized by the chronic pain of envy or to be paralyzed by sloth. Of course, most human beings don't suffer these defects at these rock-bottom levels.

p. 66

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A hug is a great gift. One size fits all, it can be given for any occasion
and it's easy to exchange.
--Anon

"When you've got one foot in yesterday and the other in tomorrow,
you can only piss on today."
--unknown

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look
so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been
opened for us.
--Helen Keller

Life's short. If you don't look around once in a while you might miss it.
--unknown

The butterfly often forgets it was a caterpillar.
--Swedish Proverb

Don't reckon your eggs before they are laid.
--Italian Proverb

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

RISK

"We should be careful to get out of
an experience only the wisdom
that is in it."
--Mark Twain

I need to risk in life. I need to try again. I need to face life and not
run from it. Early in my sobriety I was scared to try new things
because I was afraid I might get hurt. I was afraid to express my
feelings. I hid in the idea of simply "not drinking".

Spirituality is about being willing to reach out into new areas, engage
in new and different relationships, enjoy the richness of God's world.
As I grow in sobriety I develop the capacity to react differently to
painful situations and overcome them. I learn that mistakes can make
for new conquests. That lasting joys and achievements are born in the
risk.

Teach me to overcome yesterday's sorrows with today's optimism.

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And the LORD restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
Job 42:10

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept
the faith."
2 Timothy 4:7

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in
me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:9

"For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by
the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live."
Romans 8:13

"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your
heart."
Psalm 37:4

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Daily Inspiration

Spend less time trying to understand the behaviors of others and more time on the reasons you do things. Lord, help me to know myself better because then it will become possible to change the habits I don't like and improve on the ones I do.

Many of God's gifts are in the form of opportunities that we must recognize and then act upon. Lord, I will never say that You don't answer my prayers, but I will pray that I will recognize Your answers.