Daily Recovery Readings - October

[bluidkiti]

October 30

Daily Reflections

LIVE AND LET LIVE

Never since it began has Alcoholics Anonymous been divided by a major controversial
issue. Nor has our Fellowship ever publicly taken sides on any question in an embattled
world. This, however, has been no earned virtue. It could almost be said that we were
born with it. . . . "So long as we don't argue these matters privately, it's a cinch we never
shall publicly. "
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 176

Do I remember that I have a right to my opinion but that others don't have to share it?
That's the spirit of "Live and Let Live." The Serenity Prayer reminds me, with God's
help, to "Accept the things I cannot change." Am I still trying to change others? When it
comes to "Courage to change the things I can," do I remember that my opinions
are mine, and yours are yours? Am I still afraid to be me? When it comes to "Wisdom
to know the difference," do I remember that my opinions come from my experience?
If I have a know-it-all attitude, aren't I being deliberately controversial?

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

I have real friends, where I had none before. My drinking companions could hardly be
called my real friends, though when drunk we seemed to have the closest kind of
friendship. My idea of friendship has changed. Friends are no longer people whom I can
use for my own pleasure or profit. Friends are now people who understand me and I them,
whom I can help and who can help me to live a better life. I have learned not to hold back
and wait for friends to come to me, but to go half way and to be met half way, openly and
freely. Does friendship have new meaning for me?

Meditation For The Day

There is a time for everything. We should learn to wait patiently until the right time
comes. Easy does it. We waste our energies in trying to get things before we are ready to
have them, before we have earned the right to receive them. A great lesson we have to
learn is how to wait with patience. We can believe that all our life is a preparation for
something better to come when we have earned the right to it. We can believe that God
has a plan for our lives and that this plan will work out in the fullness of time.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may learn the lesson of waiting patiently. I pray that I may not expect things
until I have earned the right to have them.

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As Bill Sees It

To Rebuild Security, p. 301

In our behavior respecting financial and emotional security, fear.
greed. possessiveness, and pride have too often done their worst.
Surveying his business or employment record, almost any alcoholic can
ask questions like these: In addition to my drinking problem, what
character defects contributed to my financial instability? Did fear and
inferiority about my fitness for my job destroy my confidence and fill
me with conflict? Or did I overvalue myself and play the big shot?

Businesswomen in A.A. will find that these questions often apply to
them, too, and the alcoholic housewife can also make the family
financially insecure. Indeed, all alcoholics need to cross-examine
themselves ruthlessly to determine how their own personality defects
have demolished their security.

12 & 12, pp. 51-52

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Walk In Dry Places

Who is a winner?
Staying Sober
Newcomers in AA are urged to "stick with the winners." But who is a winner?
A winner in AA is one who finds sobriety and represents principles that help others find and maintain sobriety. Any person who can help others is a winner.
The losers are people who don't make enough of a commitment to find and maintain sobriety. It may not be their fault. On the other hand, some losers eventually become winners.
It is not our purpose to apply ratings to various individuals, whether they're winner or losers. We must know, however, that we cannot benefit from the suggestions of people who do not stay sober. We are looking for the path of recovery, not the road to ruin. The winners are people who can help us in our recovery.
I'll spend as much time as possible with people who want to stay sober. I have no intention of joining anyone on the road to ruin.

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Keep It Simple

The universe is full of magical things waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
---Eden Phillpots
How nice to have the fog lifted! Sobriety lets our wits grow sharper. We can go after our dreams and ideas. We can listen to music and sing. We are part of the magic of the universe. At times we may not feel very magical, but we are. Our spirits hold much magic. Sobriety is magic. We work at making the world a better place. In doing so, we get magical powers. Power that heals and comfort others. Power that heals and comforts others. Powers to understand things that before we could not. Powers that let us see the world as we’ve never seen it. Enjoy the magic and use your powers wisely!
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, let Your magic enter and fill my heart.
Action for the Day: I’ll list four magical powers I have from being sober.

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Each Day a New Beginning

Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way. --Florence Scovel Shinn
Should we make this move? Should we change jobs? Should we talk to others about our feelings? We are seldom short on prayers when we're filled with fear and indecision. We are, however, short on answers. Our worries block them out.
No prayer ever goes unanswered. Of this we can be certain. On the other hand, the answer may not be what we'd hoped for. In fact, we may not recognize it as the answer because we are expecting something quite different. It takes willingness on our part to be free of our preconceptions--free to accept whatever answers are offered.
Our answers come unexpectedly, a chance meeting on the street, a passage in a book or newspaper, a nagging feeling within. God speaks to each of us throughout the day. Our prayers are answered, our problems find solutions, and our worries are eased, if we but attune ourselves to the messages. They are all around.
I will be attentive to all the signs from God today. Whatever answer I seek is finding its way to me.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 5 - HOW IT WORKS

Referring to our list again. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man’s. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight.

p. 67

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Twelve - "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

And what can be said of many A.A. members who, for a variety of reasons, cannot have a family life? At first many of these feel lonely, hurt, and left out as they witness so much domestic happiness about them. If they cannot have this kind of happiness, can A.A. offer them satisfactions of similar worth and durability? Yes--whenever they try hard to seek
them out. Surrounded by so many A.A. friends, these so-called loners tell us they no longer feel alone. In partnership with others--women and men--they can devote themselves to any number of ideas, people, and constructive projects. Free of marital responsibilities, they can participate in enterprises which would be denied to family men and women. We daily see such members render prodigies of service, and receive great joys in return.

p. 120

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"Wherever you may be, look when there is apparently nothing to see, listen when all is
seemingly quiet."
--unknown

"There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to
scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment."
--Orison Swett Marden

God seldom becomes a reality until God becomes a necessity.
--unknown

G I F T = God Is Forever There.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.
--unknown

A well-spent day brings happy sleep.
--Leonardo da Vinci

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

FOOD

"Seeing is deceiving. It's eating
that's believing."
-- James Thurber

It may seem strange to many but for years my belief system revolved around my
eating. I believed that if I could eat I would be okay. Food for me was both the
pleasure and escape. I lived to eat. Feelings, good and bad, were surrounded and
stuffed down with food. Some people drank to hide, used cocaine to escape --- I ate to
avoid the problems in my life.

Seeing was deceiving for me because I refused to accept the reality of my eating. I
covered myself with clothes, avoided the beach, rarely looked at my body. I saw only
what I wanted to see --- and I was dying. Now I choose to face reality. This for me is
the meaning of spirituality. I choose to show my love for me by loving my food,
making choices around what I eat and eating slowly. Today I choose to talk about my
problems, rather than eat them.

God, help me to accept my daily bread with gratitude and abstinence.

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And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him
in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being
strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great
endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to
share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
Colossians 1:10-12

For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.
Mark 10:27

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those
who mistreat you.
Luke 6:27-28

Do not expect that your decision to forgive will result in major changes in the other
persons. Instead, pray for them.
Matthew 5:44

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Daily Inspiration

Be inspired to try something new and much of what you dream can become your life. Lord, thank you for giving me the freedom of choice, and grant me the courage to experience my opportunities and create new ones.

Worse than being a quitter is the one who is afraid to begin. Lord, grant me the courage to believe in myself and the ability to focus on what I can do, not what I can't do.

[bluidkiti]

October 31

Daily Reflections

AVOIDING CONTROVERSY

All history affords us the spectacle of striving nations and groups finally torn asunder
because they were designed for, or tempted into, controversy. Others fell apart because
of sheer self-righteousness while trying to enforce upon the rest of mankind some
millennium of their own specification.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 176

As an A.A. member and sponsor, I know I can cause real damage if I yield to temptation
and give opinions and advice on another's medical, marital, or religious problems. I am
not a doctor, counselor, or lawyer. I cannot tell anyone how he or she should live;
however, I can share how I came through similar situations without drinking, and how
A.A.'s Steps and Traditions help me in dealing with my life.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

I have more peace and contentment. Life has fallen into place. The pieces of the jigsaw
puzzle have found their correct position. Life is whole, all of one piece. I am not cast
hither and yon on every wind of circumstance or fancy. I am no longer a dry leaf cast
up and away by the breeze. I have found my place of rest, my place where I belong. I am
content. I do not vainly wish for things I cannot have. I have "the serenity to accept the
things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the
difference." Have I found contentment in A.A.?

Meditation For The Day

In all of us there is an inner consciousness that tells of God, an inner voice that speaks to
our hearts. It is a voice that speaks to us intimately, personally, in a time of quiet
meditation. It is like a lamp unto our feet and a light unto your path. We can reach out
into the darkness and figuratively touch the hand of God. As the Big Book puts it: "Deep
down in every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God. We can find the
Great Reality deep down within us. And when we find it, it changes our whole attitude
toward life."

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may follow the leading of the inner voice. I pray that I may not turn a deaf
ear to the urging of my conscience.

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As Bill Sees It

Comradeship in Peril, p. 302

We A.A.'s are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after
rescue from shipwreck, when camaraderie, joyousness, and democracy
pervade the vessel from steerage to captain's table.

Unlike the feelings of the ship's passengers, however, our joy in
escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways.
The feeling of sharing in a common peril--relapse into
alcoholism--continues to be an important element in the powerful
cement which binds us of A.A. together.

<< << << >> >> >>

Our first woman alcoholic had been a patient of Dr. Harry Tiebout's,
and he had handed her a prepublication manuscript copy of the Big
Book. The first reading made her rebellious, but the second convinced
her. Presently she came to a meeting held in our living room, and from
there she returned to the sanitarium carrying this classic message to a
fellow patient: "We aren't alone any more."

1. Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 17
2. A.A. Comes Of Age, p. 18

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Walk In Dry Places

Be still--- for a while, anyhow.
God's will for us.
The bible reminds us: "Be still, and know that I am God." What does this say to the recovering alcoholic who is struggling against a tidal wave of problems?
It must be a reminder that our true place and right work is part of a great purpose, though we may still not know who we fit into the larger plan. We can know, however, that God's plan will include peaceful actions, just and moral solutions, and results that are wholly beneficial to all concerned.
One does not have to be a theologian to decide that staying sober is part of God's will for us. That's why we can expect the support of Higher Power at all times, even when we feel fearful and abused.
Aside from staying sober, each of us will have individual work and responsibilities in life. We should be careful not to measure anyone's success--- including our own--- against worldly standards. If God is in charge, wherever we are and whatever we happen to be doing can a part of the divine will.
In keeping sober today, I'll know that I'm carrying out God's will. I'll also be open to unexpected opportunities to carry out God's directions.

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Keep It Simple

A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it is committing another mistake.
---Confucius
Step Ten tell us that when we are wrong, we must “promptly” admit it. We aren’t used to admitting our mistakes. We defend ourselves and blame others. This is call denial.
Denial is bad for two reasons. First, it keeps from learning from our mistakes, so we keep making them. Second, we don’t listen to others, so we close ourselves and become lonely.
What a relief it is to admit our wrongs! We don’t have to keep trying to do things the hard way. We can learn new way to think and act that will work better for us. We can let other people be our teachers.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me out of denial, so I can see the changes I need to make.
Action for the Day: Today, If I disagree with someone, I’ll promptly admit when I’m wrong. If I’m right, I’ll be gentle. I don’t have to prove anything.

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Each Day a New Beginning

It's a simple formula; do your best and somebody might like it. --Dorothy Baker
We're never guaranteed success by others' standards. However, if we do our best according to the standards we think God has in mind, we'll be successful. And from God we'll always receive unconditional love and acceptance.
In the past many of us were haunted by fears that our best wasn't good enough. And not infrequently those fears hindered our performance, thus validating our fears. We can slip back into those immobilizing fears if we don't attend, with vigilance, to the program and its suggestions.
Our higher power will help us do whatever task lies before us. And no task will be ours except those for which we've been readied. Our job is simply to go forth, taking God as our partner, and set about completing the task. We will not falter if we remember where our strength rests, where the guidance lies.
Self-esteem is one of the byproducts of a job done with God's help. An additional byproduct is that we learn more quickly to rely on God's direction and strength the next time, thus reducing the time we give to fear.
I can be successful today, in every endeavor, if I let God manage my moves.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 5 - HOW IT WORKS

Notice that the word “fear” is bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, the employer, and the wife. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn’t deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling? Sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble.

pp. 67-68

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Twelve - "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

Where the possession of money and material things was concerned, our outlook underwent the same revolutionary change. With a few exceptions, all of us had been spendthrifts. We threw money about in every direction with the purpose of pleasing ourselves and impressing other people. In our drinking time, we acted as if the money supply was inexhaustible, though between binges we'd sometimes go to the other extreme and become almost miserly. Without realizing it we were just accumulating funds for the next spree. Money was the symbol of pleasure and self-importance. When our drinking had become much worse, money was only an urgent requirement which could supply us with the next drink and the temporary comfort of oblivion it brought.

p. 120

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Let go your memories of a dark past in order to have a bright future.
--unknown

The solution is simple. The solution is spiritual.
--unknown

F A I T H = Fantastic Adventures In Trusting Him.

The greatest gift that you can give yourself is a little bit of your own attention.
--Anthony J. D'Angelo

The best gifts are those which expect no return.
--Norwegian proverb

"The pleasure you get from your life is equal to the attitude you put into it."
--Unknown

One person says, "When I feel far from God, I ask myself: Who moved?" God is always
there. Today I will pray for the wisdom to stay close to my spiritual source, the Creator
Spirit.
--unknown

"If you think you're having a bad day, think again, and again and again and again until
something good comes to mind."
--Rev. Larry Hickey

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

SAINTS/SINNERS

"Every saint has a past and
every sinner a future."
-- Oscar Wilde

I must not allow the painful things of my past to affect what I can do today. Guilt is a
killer if I allow it power in my life. I have made my amends. I have apologized to
those I hurt. Today I begin the rest of my life.

Alcoholism produces behavior that causes guilt and shame. In this sense it is
different from so many other diseases. The shame and guilt I felt for years grew out of
my alcoholic behavior and I need to remember that I am not responsible for being
alcoholic. It is not my fault. However, with the knowledge and acceptance of the
disease comes a determination to live responsibly. I have a sense of responsibility in
my recovery. Spirituality involves being a responsible person. The awareness and
acceptance of my past can help create a loving future.

Today I understand that in the failures of the past are sown the seeds of greatness.

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If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand
will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
Psalm 139 : 9.10

"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let you heart take courage; wait for the Lord!"
Psalm 27:14

For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
Philippians 2:13

Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so
doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.
Hebrews 13:1-2

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because
God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with
confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"
Hebrews 13:5-6

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Daily Inspiration

Allow yourself the right to say no when the world asks too much of you. Lord, help me to stay focused on my goals and responsibilites so that I have time for that which is important to me.

Our time here is short and there is still so much to be done. Lord, please let me do a little more for You today so that the world may be a little better because of me.

[willbe275]

Protection
I AM SAFE AND SECURE IN THE LIGHT OF GOD.
When we were children, we may have turned to the adults in our lives for safety and assurance. Trusted parents, grandparents, or teachers who loved and supported us were there to keep us safe and free from harm.

As a child of God, I know I can turn to God for that same assurance. As I walk the path of life, I am never alone. God is with me and within me as my guiding light—a light that never dims or fades.

If ever I feel anxious or worried, I turn within to the light of God and know that I am divinely guided and protected. I move forward in the assurance that the light of God illumines my path and keeps me safe and secure.

Do not fear, greatly beloved, you are safe. Be strong and courageous!—Daniel 10:19
From The book: The Daily Word.

W.O.W 101