Today's Thought - March

[bluidkiti]

March 15

AA Thought for the Day

After I became an alcoholic, alcohol poisoned my love for my family and friends, it poisoned my ambition, it poisoned my self-respect. It poisoned my whole life, until I met AA. My life is happier now than it has been for a long time. I don't want to commit suicide. So with the help of God and AA, I'm not going to take any more of that alcoholic poison into my system. And I'm going to keep training my mind never even to think of liquor again in any way except as a poison. Do I believe that liquor will poison my life if I ever touch it again?
Meditation for the Day

I will link up my frail nature with the limitless Divine Power. I will link my life with the Divine Force for Good in the world. It is not the passionate appeal that gains Divine attention as much as the quiet placing of the difficulty and worry in the Divine Hands. So I will trust God like a child who places its tangled skein of wool in the hands of a loving parent to unravel. We please God more by our unquestioning confidence than by imploring Him for help.
Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may put all my difficulties in God's hands and leave them there. I pray that I may fully trust God to take care of them.

Today's reading is from the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day: A Spiritual Resource with Practical Applications for Daily Life*

[bluidkiti]

March 16

H.A.L.T.

~AA Slogan

H.A.L.T. stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired. These feelings can be of danger to us. They can lead us away from our program.

We need to eat regular meals. When we get too hungry, we get cranky. Then we say and do things we regret.

We need to turn anger over to our Higher Power, or else our anger can turn into rage.

We need friends to help us in recovery. If we get too lonely, we may turn to our addictive ways for friendship. We don't stay sober by ourselves.

We need a clear mind to deal with life. If we get too tired, we tend to feel sorry for ourselves. Being tired gets us into crazy thinking.
Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, remind me to H.A.L.T. Help me to not get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.
Action for the Day

Today, I'll review the four parts of H.A.L.T. In which areas do I practice good self-care? In which areas do I not? How can I improve?

Today's reading is from the book Keep it Simple: Daily Meditations for Twelve Step Beginnings and Renewal*

[bluidkiti]

March 17

My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.

~Clarence Budington Kelland

We learn much of what we need to know about being men from models we have in other men. Some of us have fond memories of being next to our fathers and imitating their ways. Many of us also have the feeling of a gap in our models. Perhaps our fathers weren't around enough, or we may have rejected some of their habits and values, creating an uncertainty about masculine roles. We may feel unsure of ourselves, or we may berate ourselves for what we don't know.

It is well to remember how much we have already learned in our adult years. It is never too late. No man ever reaches adulthood having learned everything from his father that he will need to know about masculinity. We can look around us for more models in the men we know. For a man to be our model, we first choose someone we admire and then get to know him well. In this way, we carry on the human tradition of one man learning from another.

I am continuing to grow, and I can learn from the men I know now.

Today's reading is from the book Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men*

[bluidkiti]

March 18

Feel Them to Heal Them

The thing about painful emotions is that you just can't reason with them. Before I started my recovery journey, most of my life was devoted to finding ways not to feel. Bless them always, but neither of my parents were into expressing "negative" feelings - not ours and not theirs. Messages like "Dry those tears" and "Oh, just never mind" and the popular-back-then admonition "I'll give you something to cry for" were ever-present in our home.

In early recovery, I spent a lot of time exploring my feelings intellectually but still trying to avoid experiencing them. That worked for a short while. Over time, I became willing to excavate the deep, dark, painful feelings that I had buried for so long. Working through those feelings meant a lot of tear-soaked days in therapy, crying so hard that every muscle in my face ached. Feeling hard feelings is exhausting, but not as exhausting as running from them. Bringing those dark emotions to the surface, feeling them, and then releasing them is an act of self-love.

Feeling and processing sadness
can make room for more happiness.

Today's reading is from the book She Recovers Every Day: Meditations for Women*

[bluidkiti]

March 19

Being kind

Saying an unkind word to another may not inflict a lifelong hurt on that person, but what does it do to us? It separates us from our spiritual fellowship, which we cannot afford.

It is when we are out of step, out of harmony, that we are vulnerable to taking that first fix, drink, or pill. So it will help us all to be kind to others (even to those who don't seem to appreciate it).

Am I kind to others?

Higher Power, help me show kindness to all my brothers and sisters, even when it is difficult, as you have shown kindness to me.

I will show kindness today by...

Today's reading is from the book Day by Day: Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts*

[bluidkiti]

March 20

Dead, in their roots all flowers keep the light.

~Theodore Roethke

All flowers begin with the potential to grow and blossom. Yet in winter, perennial flowers are buried under the snow. Inside the dark earth, they are patiently waiting for their time to bloom. For the flowers, faith is believing that spring will return. It is carrying the light of summer deep in their roots so that even in times of cold and dark, there is hope that they will bloom again.

When spring does return, they shoot out of the ground and burst into blossom. In times of light, they drink it deep into their roots - deep enough to sustain them through the next season of darkness.

We can do the same, keeping the memory of good times deep within us, so that when we're feeling low, it will keep our faith in the happy future strong.

What helps sustain my faith today?

Today's reading is from the book Today's Gift: Daily Meditations for Families*