Daily Recovery Readings - May

[bluidkiti]

May 29

Daily Reflections

TRUE TOLERANCE

The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 139

I first heard the short form of the Third Tradition in the Preamble.
When I came to A.A. I could not accept myself, my alcoholism, or a
Higher Power. If there had been any physical, mental, moral, or
religious requirements for membership, I would be dead today. Bill W.
said in his tape on the Traditions that the Third Tradition is a charter
for individual freedom. The most impressive thing to me was the
feeling of acceptance from members who were practicing the Third
Tradition by tolerating and accepting me. I feel acceptance is love and
love is God's will for us.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

We who have learned to put our drink problem in God's hands can
help others to do so. We can be used as a connection between an
alcoholic's need and God's supply of strength. We in Alcoholics
Anonymous can be uniquely useful, just because we have the
misfortune or fortune to be alcoholics ourselves. Do I want to be a
uniquely useful person? Will I use my own greatest defeat and failure
and sickness as a weapon to help others?

Meditation For The Day

I will try to help others. I will try not to let a day pass without reaching
out an arm of love to someone. Each day I will try to do something to
lift another human being out of the sea of discouragement into which
he or she has fallen. My helping hand is needed to raise the helpless to
courage, to strength, to faith, to health. In my own gratitude, I will
turn and help other alcoholics with the burden that is pressing too
heavily upon them.

Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may be used by God to lighten many burdens. I pray that
many souls may be helped through my efforts.

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As Bill Sees It

More than Comfort, p. 148

When I am feeling depressed, I repeat to myself statements such as
these: "Pain is the touchstone of progress." . . . "Fear no evil." . . .
"This, too, will pass." . . . "This experience can be turned to benefit."

These fragments of prayer bring far more than mere comfort. They
keep me on the track of right acceptance; they break up my
compulsive themes of guilt, depression, rebellion, and pride; and
sometimes they endow me with the courage to change the things I
can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

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Walk in Dry Places

Guarding against disguised hostility
Fairness.
One of the pitfalls in continued recovery is the tendency to become self-righteous and judgmental. Sometimes this fuses into a hostility directed toward newcomers or chronic "slippers". Now and then, we've seen grumpy older members demanding that those who slip get honest.
While we may be right in concluding that a person is not showing honesty, we have NO RIGHT to denounce or expose anyone in a group setting. Far from helping the person, we may be showing off. If there is hostility in our words or manner, the other person will certainly sense it.
The best group setting for good recovery is always one that expresses warmth, acceptance, and understanding. There are few, if any, times when a verbal assault can be justified. Before we lash out at another person's lack of honesty, we must take an honest look at our own motives and feelings.
I'll face the day with a feeling of goodwill and acceptance in my dealings with every person I meet. If I attend a meeting, I'll show the same warmth and acceptance toward every person there.

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Keep It Simple

The more one judges the less on love.---Balzac
At times we need to make judgments about people's behavior. We stand back and look at how their lives affect our sobriety. We have to do this to choose people whose relationships will be good for us. We have to do this before we trust someone in business. We should take a good look at the others person before we fall in love. But we decide to trust or love someone, we have to stop judging.
When we love someone, we don't stand back. We move in close. We give them all our love can offer. We don't just think and judge. We feel. We are on their side. We look for the good in them. We don't pick them apart. We love the whole person.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to judge a little and love a lot. Help me accept the people I love, faults and all. Help me love them better.
Action for the Day: Today, I'll catch myself when I start to judge others. I will accept them as they are.

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Each Day a New Beginning

Women sometimes gossip when they want to get close to people. --Joan Gilbertson
Feeling alone and lonely heightens our fears of inadequacy. In our alienation from others, paranoia grips us. We yearn to feel connection with someone, and gossip about another someone can draw two lonely people close. We are bonded.
We need a sense of belonging, every one of us: belonging to the neighborhood; belonging to the staff where we work; belonging to the group we call friends. Knowing that we do belong fosters the inner warmth that accompanies security, well-being. And our fears are melted.
The program's Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Steps guarantee that we'll feel the closeness we long for when we work them. Self-revelation strengthens our ties to the people we long to connect with Gossip loses its appeal when we know we share a closeness already. Mingling our vulnerabilities secures our closeness.
We need to be attentive to our judgments of others, be they verbalized in gossip or only savored in silence. These judgments act as barometers of our own self-image. Our security in knowing we belong, that we are one, relieves us of the need to judge others unfairly.
Loneliness pushes me to behavior that even compounds the loneliness. Real closeness will come when I talk about myself rather than someone else.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

BILL'S STORY

He had come to pass his experience along to me---if I cared to have it. I was shocked, but interested. Certainly I was interested. I had to be, for I was hopeless.10

pp. 9-10

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Four - "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."

Therefore, thoroughness ought to be the watchword when taking inventory. In this connection, it is wise to write out our questions and answers. It will be an aid to clear thinking and honest appraisal. It will be the first tangible evidence of our complete willingness to move forward.

p. 54

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"Good friends are good for your health."
--Irwin Sarason

"Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you."
--Elbert Hubbard

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into
enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order,
confusion to clarity. . . . Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings
peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
--Melody Beattie

Why do birds sing in the morning? It's the triumphant shout: "We got
through another night."
--Enid Bagnold

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
--Kahlil Gibran

No matter where our journey takes us, God walks with us.

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

SELF

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in
the stars, but in ourselves that
we are underlings."
--William Shakespeare

My addiction to alcohol led me away from "self": today in my sobriety
I am beginning to understand me. For years I blamed others for my
misfortunes but today I see that I was the enemy in my life. It was a
"cop-out" to blame God, family, job or life for my alcoholism - I
needed to take responsibility for "self".

Part of my recovery program today involves me not looking "outside"
for answers but looking within. The answer is not in the stars, not in
fate - but rather in the destiny I create by the decisions I make today.
I, and I alone, forge my future.

O Lord, let me create a life that is pleasing in Your sight.

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Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the
LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that
spreadeth out her roots by the river.
Jeremiah 17:8

"The LORD is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble;
And He knows those who trust in Him."
Nahum 1:7

The LORD said, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you."
Isaiah 43:2

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Daily Inspiration

Sometimes we spend our time demanding that the present moment be different than it is instead of facing the situation and dealing with it. Lord, strengthen my faith because through You I will have enough power to overcome any obstacles.

Take heart in the beauty of your life because God loves, helps, fights and wins. Lord, I will never fear because nothing can triumph over Your Will.