Daily Recovery Readings - November

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November 16

Daily Reflections

A DAILY REPRIEVE

What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual
condition.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 85

Maintaining my spiritual condition is like working out every day, planning for the
marathon, swimming laps, jogging. It's staying in good shape spiritually, and that requires
prayer and meditation. The single most important way for me to improve my conscious
contact with a Higher Power is to pray and meditate. I am as powerless over alcohol as I
am to turn back the waves of the sea; no human force had the power to overcome my
alcoholism. Now I am able to breathe the air of joy, happiness and wisdom. I have the
power to love and react to events around me with the eyes of a faith in things that are not
readily apparent. My daily reprieve means that, no matter how difficult or painful
things appear today, I can draw on the power of the program to stay liberated from my
cunning, baffling and powerful illness.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

I have got rid of most of my inner conflicts. I was always at war with myself. I was doing
things that I did not want to do. I was waking up in strange places and wondering how I
got there. I was full of recklessness when I was drunk and full of remorse when I was
sober. My life didn't make sense. It was full of broken resolves and frustrated hopes and
plans. I was getting nowhere fast. No wonder my nerves were all shot. I was bumping up
against a blank wall and I was dizzy from it. A.A. taught me how to get organized and to
stop fighting against myself. Have I got rid of inner conflicts?

Meditation For The Day

"When two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them."
The spirit of God comes upon His followers when they are all together at one time, in one
place, and with one accord. When two or three consecrated souls are together at a
meeting place, the spirit of God is there to help and guide them. Where any sincere group
of people are together, reverently seeking the help of God, His power and His spirit are
there to inspire them.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may be in accord with the members of my group.
I pray that I may feel the strength of a consecrated group.

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As Bill Sees It

Forgiveness, p. 318

Through the vital Fifth Step, we began to get the feeling that we could
be forgiven, no matter what we had thought or done.

Often it was while working on this Step with our sponsors or spiritual
advisers that we first felt truly able to forgive others, no matter how
deeply we felt they had wronged us.

Our moral inventory had persuaded us that all-round forgiveness was
desirable, but it was only when we resolutely tackled Step Five that
we inwardly knew we'd be able to receive forgiveness and give it, too.

12 & 12, pp. 57-58

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Walk In Dry Places

Continuing to follow
A child learning to ride a bicycle discovers that it only take gentle pedaling to keep the bike in motion. The more difficult task was getting on the bike and maintaining a straight course in the right direction.
Staying sober in AA seems to be the same kind of thing. It may take a lot of effort and self-honesty to establish sobriety, but a routine of simple steps can keep it going on a daily basis. For most people, daily meditations and regular attendance at meetings are enough to maintain a straight course in the right direction.
The danger comes when people become too lazy or careless to take even these simple steps. Then, like a bike losing forward momentum, they can wobble and fall.
Even at the point of wobbling, one can get a bike up to speed again and gain stability. This is something to remember if we find our own sobriety becoming wobbly.
Nothing can be so important today that it keeps me from doing the simple things needed for continuous sobriety. I'll remember the bike.

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Keep It Simple

Pray for powers equal to your task.---Phillips Brooks
Our task is to stay sober and to help others who still suffer from addiction. We will need patience and understanding. We will need much love. Most of all, we’ll need to work a strong program.
Pray that you come to know the Steps well. Pray that you’ll want to help others---always. Pray for these things, and you’ll have a strong program. In the program, we learn that prayer works. We see prayer change our lives and the lives of those around us. We came to know the power of prayer.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, I pray for knowledge of Your will for me and the power to carry it out.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll admit my needs by praying for help from my Higher Power.

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Each Day a New Beginning

Rigidity is prevented most of the time as love and compassion mesh us into tolerant human beings. --Kaethe S. Crawford
Looking outward with love, offering it freely to our friends and family, makes fluid, flowing, and fertile our existence. Each expression of love engenders more love, keeping tender our ties to one another, encouraging more ties.
The more flexible our lives, the more easily we'll be attracted to an unexpected opportunity. And flexibility is fostered by a loving posture. As we approach the world, so it greets us. We are not mere recipients of life's trials and tribulations. We find what our eyes are wanting to see. When our focus is rigid and narrow, so are our opportunities.
The Steps are leading us to be freer with our love, more tolerant in our expectations. The level of our compassion, fully felt and fully expressed, is the measure of our emotional health. Rigid attitudes, rigid behavior, rigid expectations of others recede as the level of our emotional health rises. Our approach to life changes and so do the results we meet.
I will love others. It's my only assignment in life, and it guarantees the security I crave.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

BILL'S STORY

I took a night law course, and obtained employment as an investigator for a surety company. The drive for success was on. I'd prove to the world I was important. My work took me about Wall Street and little by little I became interested in the market. Many people lost money - but some became very rich. Why not I? I studied economics and business as well as law. Potential alcoholic that I was, I nearly failed my law course. At one of the finals I was too drunk to think or write. Though my drinking was not yet continuous, it disturbed my wife. We had long talks when I would still her forebodings by telling her that men of genius conceived their best projects when drunk; that the most majestic constructions of philosophic thought were so derived.

p. 2

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

Our Southern Friend

Pioneer A.A., minister's son, and southern farmer, he asked, "Who am I to say there is no God?"

I am in another fellow's room at college. "Freshman," said he to me, "do you ever take a drink?" I hesitated. Father had never directly spoken to me about drinking and he never drank any, so far as I knew. Mother hated liquor and feared a drunken man. Her brother had been a drinker and had died in a state hospital for the insane. But his life was unmentionable, so far as I was concerned. I had never had a drink but I had seen enough merriment in the boys who were drinking to be interested. I would never be like the village drunkard at home. How a lot of people despised him! Just a weakling!
"Well," said the older boy, "Do you?"
"Once in a while," I lied. I could not let him think I was a sissy.

pp. 208-209

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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."

Most married folks in A.A. have very happy homes. To a surprising extent, A.A. has offset the damage to family life brought about by years of alcoholism. But just like all other societies, we do have sex and marital problems, and sometimes they are distressingly acute. Permanent marriage breakups and separations, however, are unusual in A.A. Our main problem is not how we are to stay married; it is how to be more happily married by eliminating the severe emotional twists that have so often stemmed from alcoholism.

p. 117

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Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love
what you are doing, you will be successful.
--Dr. Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

If I have the opportunity to help one person today, I'll have done something
worthwhile if I've helped at least one person today.
--RJabo3

Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth catching?
--unknown

Joy isn't the absence of pain -- it's the presence of God.
--unknown

A B C = Acceptance, Belief, Change.

"If you were walking back from a well, carrying a bucket of water & someone jostled you,
there could be spilled from the bucket only that which it contained. As you walk along the
way of life, people are constantly bumping into you. If your heart is full of ill nature, bad
temper, and ugly disposition, only those things will be spilled from it. On the other hand, if
it is full of love, you will spill a smile or pleasant remark. You can spill from your bucket
only that which it contains."
--Author Unknown

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

FRIENDSHIP

"True friendship comes when
silence between two people is
comfortable."
-- Dave Tyson Gentry

Part of the spiritual life that awakens serenity is silence or stillness. "Be still and
know that I am God." I believe that true friendship is divine. It is a special love that
binds two hearts as one. It is a comfortableness that is the opposite of dis-ease.
Friendship is necessary to recovery and it involves the sharing of feelings. Often
the feelings are silent; unspoken emotions; cherished moments that exist in
"word-less-ness".

As a recovering alcoholic, I have a thousand friends who attest to the silent witness of
love by simply being there.

Thank You for the joy of friendship that grows in silence.

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"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end."
Lamentations 3:22

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness,
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Romans 14:17

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Daily Inspiration

Life is a challenge so accept it for what it truly is. Lord, help me face what today brings with energy, determination and a joy that allows me to take control.

Pray about every task that you take on today and don't take on those tasks which you have no time to pray about. Lord, tonight I will rest well because today You and I will accomplish many things. Thank You for Your constant blessings in my life.