Daily Recovery Readings - December

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December 24

Daily Reflections

A "SANE AND HAPPY USEFULNESS"
We have come to believe He would like us to keep our
heads in the clouds with Him, but that our feet ought
to be firmly planted on earth. That is where our
fellow travelers are, and that is where our work must
be done. These are the realities for us. We have found
nothing incompatible between a powerful spiritual
experience and a life of sane and happy usefulness.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 130

All the prayer and meditation in the world will not
help me unless they are accompanied by action.
Practicing the principles in all my affairs shows me
the care that God takes in all parts of my life. God
appears in my world when I move aside, and allow Him
to step into it.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

We have been given a new life, just because we happened to become alcoholics. We
certainly don't deserve the new life that has been given us. There is little in our past to
warrant the life we have now. Many people live good lives from their youth on, not getting
into serious trouble, being well adjusted to life, and yet they have not found all that
we drunks have found. We had the good fortune to find Alcoholics Anonymous and with it
a new life. We are among the lucky few in the world who have learned a new way of life.
Am I deeply grateful for the new life that I have learned in A.A.?

Meditation For The Day

A deep gratitude to the Higher Power for all the blessings which we have and which we
don't deserve has come to us. We thank God and mean it. Then comes service to our
fellow men, out of gratitude for what we have received. This entails some sacrifice of
ourselves and our own affairs. But we are glad to do it. Gratitude, service, and then
sacrifice are the steps that lead to good A.A. work. They open the door to a new life for
us.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may gladly serve others, out of deep gratitude for what I have received. I
pray that I may keep a deep sense of obligation.

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As Bill Sees It

Individual Responsibilities, p.262

Let us emphasize that our reluctance to fight one another, or
anybody else, is not counted as some special virtue which entitles us
A.A.'s to feel superior to other people. Nor does this reluctance
mean that the members of A.A. are going to back away from their
individual responsibilities as citizens. Here they should feel free to
act as they see the right upon the public issues of our times.

But when it comes to A.A. as a whole, that's quite a different matter.
As a group we do not enter into public controversy, because we are
sure that our Society will perish if we do.

12 & 12, p.177

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Walk In Dry Places

Jealousy toward loved ones
Feeling
Though resentment gets more attention in AA than jealousy, both of these ugly emotions can plague us in sobriety. Some of us can be very distressed and ashamed when the green demon of jealousy suddenly assaults us. Does this mean we're not working our program?
No, because the purpose of our program is to bring honesty and healing into our lives, not denial of basic human emotions. It's very understandable that we have pangs of jealousy even in sobriety. Quite often, this jealousy will be felt toward loved ones and close friends.
One young AA father disclosed he was jealous of his wife when their infant son seemed more responsive to her than to him. We can also experience jealousy when others close to us receive things we'd like to have. It's even possible to be jealous of another's standing in AA.
When such feelings arise, we always have the answer: We must discuss our feelings with certain AA friends and turn these problems over to our Higher Power. This, not denial, is always the solution.
If the green demon of envy and jealousy arises today, I'll let the healing power of the Twelve Steps go to work on it.

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Keep It Simple

We must all hang together or we will hang separately.---Ben Franklin
We didn't get ourselves sober. And we don't keep ourselves sober. Our program does this. That is why the Twelfth Step is important. We must be willing to give service to our program whenever it's needed. When a friend calls and say he or she feels like using, we don't say we're sorry. We get our friend and take him or her to a meeting. Our survival depends on this kind of action. We are to carry the message. We carry the message by deeds, not words. We are part of a fellowship based on action. A fellowship guided by love. It is not words that keep us sober--it is action.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me be ready whenever there's a need. Help me be ready to put my self-will aside. Give me strength.
Action for the Day: I will think of my group members. Who could use a supportive call or visit? I will call or visit those who need my help.

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Each Day a New Beginning

Follow your dream . .
if you stumble, don't stop
and lose sight of your goal,
press on to the top.
For only on top
Can we see the whole view . . .
--Amanda Bradley
Today, we can, each of us, look back on our lives and get a glimmering of why something happened and how it fit into the larger mosaic of our lives. And this will continue to be true for us. We have stumbled. We will stumble. And we learn about ourselves, about what makes us stumble and about the methods of picking ourselves up.
Life is a process, a learning process that needs those stumbles to increase our awareness of the steps we need to take to find our dream at the top. None of us could realize the part our stumbling played in the past. But now we see. When we fall, we need to trust that, as before, our falls are "up," not down.
I will see the whole view in time. I see part of it daily. My mosaic is right and good and needs my stumbles.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

BILL'S STORY

I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within. Common sense would thus become uncommon sense. I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as He would have me. Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive. But that would be in great measure.

p. 13

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

Because I'm An Alcoholic

This drinker finally found the answer to her nagging question, "Why?"

With my attempts to cut down, I stopped keeping alcohol around the house, drank up whatever was there, over and over deciding not to get more. Then on the way home after work or an evening out, I'd have to see if I could scrape together enough money for a bottle. There were liquor stores just about every block, and I rotated them so the salesmen wouldn't know how much I drank. On Sundays when the liquor stores were closed, I had to make do with beer or hard cider from the grocery.

p. 342

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

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

Now let's ponder the need for a list of the more glaring personality defects all of us have in varying degrees. To those having religious training, such a list would set forth serious violations of moral principles. Some others will think of this list as defects of character. Still others will call it an index of maladjustments. Some will become quite annoyed if there is talk about immorality, let alone sin. But all who are in the least reasonable will agree upon one point: that there is plenty wrong with us alcoholics about which plenty will have to be done if we are to expect sobriety, progress, and any real ability to cope with life.

p. 48

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Sharing our experiences with other people gives them hope.
--unknown

What I am is God's gift to me.
What I make of myself is my gift to Him.
--unknown

"An apology is the superglue of life: it can repair just about anything."
--Unknown

A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world. Beauty is eternity gazing at
itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
--Kahlil Gibran

"Joy is not in things; It is in us"
--Richard Wagner

"Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To
a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good
example. To yourself, respect."
--Oren Arnold

"At this time of the year, we need to remind ourselves that what we give from deep within
has a much greater worth than what we give from our wallets. Some attempt to impress
others with their contributions, but the real acts of kindness are when we give our time,
our talents, and gifts that are a reflection of our hearts.
-*Neil Eskelinn

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

BROTHERHOOD

"I am a citizen, not of Athens or
Greece, but of the world."
-- Socrates

My recovery has enabled me to see that I belong; I belong not simply to a race or
nation but to the world. The freedom experienced in my recovery enables me to
embrace different cultures, races and religions. Spirituality has brought harmony into
my life.

Today I can go where I please. I can learn languages and communicate with people in
foreign lands. I can listen to ideas and philosophies that enrich God "as I understand
Him". The healing that I have experienced in my recovery is more than discovering
my choice around alcohol, it is discovering my choice around life. Today I am not
content to exist in my life, I choose to live it. Welcome to my world!

May I always choose to see and appreciate the richness of my life.

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He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. All the ways of the
LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.
Psalm 25 9-10

"Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level
ground."
Psalm 143:10

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Daily Inspiration

As you draw closer and closer to God, you won't have to tell anyone because it will show in your face. Lord, teach me Your ways as I am ready and let Your love and peace flow through me even in my difficult moments.

When you live in the spirit of God you will always feel the love within you. Lord, may I seek peace in You and not from the outside world.

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NA Just For Today

The Group

"The Twelfth Step of our personal program also says that we carry the message to the addict who still suffers.... The group is the most powerful vehicle we have for carrying the message."
Basic Text pg. 65

When we first come to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, we meet recovering addicts. We know they are addicts because they talk about the same experiences and feelings we've had. We know they are recovering because of their serenity - they've got something we want. We feel hope when other addicts share their recovery with us in NA meetings.

The atmosphere of recovery attracts us to the meetings. That atmosphere is created when group members make a commitment to work together. We try to enhance the atmosphere of recovery by helping set up for meetings, greeting newcomers, and talking with other addicts after the meeting. These demonstrations of our commitment make our meetings attractive and help our groups share their recovery.

Sharing experience in meetings is one way in which we help one another, and it's often the foundation for our sense of belonging. We identify with other addicts, so we trust their message of hope. Many of us would not have stayed in Narcotics Anonymous without that sense of belonging and hope. When we share at group meetings, we support our personal recovery while helping others.

Just for today: I will reach out to another addict in my group and share my recovery.

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You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
He is Father. Even more, God is Mother, who does not want to harm us.
--Pope John Paul I
God is many things to different people. Some call God "Father," others "Mother," still others "Higher Power," "Inner Light," "Deeper Self," and "Supreme Being."
It doesn't matter what name we use. No one name is ever fully adequate, and each of us has our own private way of trying to understand that which we can't ever understand fully. We give God names which attempt to express what God means to us personally, what God does for us as individuals, and how we see ourselves in relation to God.
Could it also be true that other people can't be labelled and put into one box? Doing so limits them to one particular way of being understood, and it limits the ways we can get to know them. If we are all made in God's image, then we all deserve the freedom to be seen differently by different people.
How does God look to me today?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
Celebration is a forgetting in order to remember. A forgetting of ego, of problems, of difficulties. A letting go. --Matthew Fox
A holiday presents us men with an opportunity to practice the letting go of this program. This is a special day to set aside our work and our routines, to put our problems and burdens on the shelf. Let us join with others who are also letting go on this day and celebrate. Maybe we can learn from them how they do it.
We may have been too compulsive on past holidays to celebrate. Or perhaps our holidays are clouded with painful memories. We might miss loved ones or we may recall disappointments or the chaos of earlier holidays. There is no need for perfection in our celebration. We can have some tension, or pain, and yet set it aside as we join with others for a special day.
Today, I will set my ego aside and let go of the usual things in my life in order to reach out to others and participate in celebration.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
Follow your dream . .
if you stumble, don't stop
and lose sight of your goal,
press on to the top.
For only on top
Can we see the whole view . . .
--Amanda Bradley
Today, we can, each of us, look back on our lives and get a glimmering of why something happened and how it fit into the larger mosaic of our lives. And this will continue to be true for us. We have stumbled. We will stumble. And we learn about ourselves, about what makes us stumble and about the methods of picking ourselves up.
Life is a process, a learning process that needs those stumbles to increase our awareness of the steps we need to take to find our dream at the top. None of us could realize the part our stumbling played in the past. But now we see. When we fall, we need to trust that, as before, our falls are "up," not down.
I will see the whole view in time. I see part of it daily. My mosaic is right and good and needs my stumbles.


You are reading from the book The Language Of Letting Go.
Getting Through the Holidays
For some, the sights, signs, and smells of the holidays bring joy and a warm feeling. But, while others are joyously diving into the season, some of us are dipping into conflict, guilt, and a sense of loss.
We read articles on how to enjoy the holidays, we read about the Christmas blues, but many of us still can't figure out how to get through the holiday season. We may not know what a joyous holiday would look and feel like.
Many of us are torn between what we want to do on the holiday, and what we feel we have to do. We may feel guilty because we don't want to be with our families. We may feel a sense of loss because we don't have the kind of family to be with that we want. Many of us, year after year, walk into the same dining room on the same holiday, expecting this year to be different. Then we leave, year after year, feeling let down, disappointed, and confused by it all.
Many of us have old, painful memories triggered by the holidays.
Many of us feel a great deal of relief when the holiday is ended.
One of the greatest gifts of recovery is learning that we are not alone. There are probably as many of us in conflict during the holidays than there are those who feel at peace. We're learning, through trial and error, how to take care of ourselves a little better each holiday season.
Our first recovery task during the holidays is to accept ourselves, our situation, and our feelings about our situation. We accept our guilt, anger, and sense of loss. It's all okay.
There is no right or perfect way to handle the holidays. Our strength can be found in doing the best we can, one year at a time.
This holiday season, I will give myself permission to take care of myself.


Today I am willing to be increasingly aware of my spiritual life. --Ruth Fishel

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Journey To The Heart

Heal Yourself

Infuse healing energy into yourself, into your being. For too long, we’ve been attracted to things that drain us, exhausting our body, depleting our soul. That time has passed.

The world is a spa, a nature retreat, a wealth of healing resources. Pour epsom salts and essential oils into your bath. Sit quietly by a tree or in a garden. Walk around the block in your neighborhood. Spend an afternoon in a nearby park or a day at the lake or beach. Throw stones into the river while you sit on the bank contemplating the eternal stream of life. Allow beautiful music to quietly imbue the stillness with healing instead of the pounding of your mind. Light a fire and awaken that darkened hearth to glowing flames and soothing warmth.

Rise from your bed early in the morning. Open the curtains. Watch the sunrise. Feel the sunrise. Let it infuse you with its message. Let it energize you, invigorate you, fill you with life. At day’s end return to the window. Or step outside. Watch the sun set. Absorb its changing colors spreading beyond the horizon. Feel how it changes the earth and all it touches.

Pet a puppy, stroke a piece of velvet, listen to a symphony. If you can’t slow down long enough to absorb the energy the first time, do it a second and a third. Absorb revitalizing energy until you can hear your voice, hear your heart tell you what would feel good, what would bring peace, what would bring stillness and joy. Before long, doing what brings healing and joy will become as natural as it used to be to do what drains, tires, depletes, and exhausts.

It isn’t enough to draw near to the light. Absorb it into you. Let it charge you and change you with its energy and its power. Healing is all around you. Wherever you are, whatever your resources, healing energy, and joy are there.

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More Language Of Letting Go

Let your family be

Timothy attended one of those seminars, the kind that talks about personal growth and encourages people to open their hearts. After the seminar, he was so moved by what he’d heard that he called his father on the phone. He hadn’t talked to his father for many years. They had a squabble years earlier when Timothy left home. Neither one wanted tp make the first move or to forgive the other person for the harsh words that had transpired. Timothy made the first move. He and his father have been close ever since.

Jessica had her share of troubled times with her mother,too. Over the years there had been times when they’d been close, times when they didn’t talk, and times when Jessica just did the minimum in the relationship, mostly out of a sense of obligation and guilt. As Jessica got older, she began feeling bad about her troubled relationship with her mother. She’d done her family of origin work. She knew her mother had been troubled; but after all, her mother was just a person. Why not forgive and forget? Jessica planned a big trip for the two of them to take, a mother-daughter vacation that would melt away the irritation and conflict from all the years. Jessica had so many hopes the day she met her mother at the airport. But when they got together in the same room for their two weeks of joy, Jessica realized she felt the same way she always had when she was around her mother: irritable, ashamed, and not good enough.

Clarence liked his dad when he was a boy. But the older he got, the more he wanted to leave home. His father had issues; Clarence did, too. After Clarence left home, he only spent a few minutes each year talking to his father. One day, when Clarence reached his thirties, he decided it was time for him and his father to be friends. He planned a trip to his father’s house. He couldn’t wait for the heart-to-heart talk they’d have. Clarence would talk about the struggles of being a man and growing up, and surely his father would identify with him. But when they got together, alone in the house, after Clarence poured out his heart, all his father had to say was, “Can you come outside and help me change the tire on the car?”

Families and parents come in all different kinds. Do your family of origin work. Be grateful for the good passed on to you from your ancestors and your heritage. Reach out, if that’s what your heart leads you to do. Be the best son or daughter you can, whatever that means to you. But don’t torture yourself if your relationship with your parents is not what you dreamed. Let each member of your family be who he or she is. Love them as much as you can. But if you never got along all that well before, you might not get along now, even after you open your heart.

Laugh. Smile. You don’t have to react. You know how to take care of yourself.

God, heal my heart toward all my family members. Help me accept each person for who he or she is. Then help me genuinely accept myself,too.

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Beyond Counting Blessings
Being Truly Thankful by Madisyn Taylor

Our gratitude deepens when we begin to be thankful for being alive during this time and living the life we are living.

Often when we practice being thankful, we go through the process of counting our blessings, acknowledging the wonderful people, things and places that make up our reality. While it is fine to be grateful for the good fortune we have accumulated, true thankfulness stems from a powerful comprehension of the gift of simply being alive, and when we feel it, we feel it regardless of our circumstances. In this deep state of gratitude, we recognize the purity of the experience of being, in and of itself, and our thankfulness is part and parcel of our awareness that we are one with this great mystery that is life.

It is difficult for most of us to access this level of consciousness as we are very caught up in the ups and downs of our individual experiences in the world. The thing to remember about the world, though, is that it ebbs and flows, expands and contracts, gives and takes, and is by its very nature somewhat unreliable. If we only feel gratitude when it serves our desires, this is not true thankfulness. No one is exempt from the twists and turns of fate, which may, at any time, take the possessions, situations, and people we love away from us. Ironically, it is sometimes this kind of loss that awakens us to a thankfulness that goes deeper than just being grateful when things go our way. Illness and near-miss accidents can also serve as wake-up calls to the deeper realization that we are truly lucky to be alive.

We do not have to wait to be shaken to experience this state of being truly thankful for our lives. Tuning in to our breath and making an effort to be fully present for a set period of time each day can do wonders for our ability to connect with true gratitude. We can also awaken ourselves with the intention to be more aware of the unconditional generosity of the life force that flows through us regardless of our circumstances. Published with permission from Daily OM

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

We came to The Program as supplicants, literally at the ends of our ropes. Sooner or later, by practicing the principles of the Twelve Steps, we discover within ourselves a very precious thing. We uncover something with which we can be comfortable in all places and situations. We gain strength and grow with the help of God as we understand Him, with the fellowship of The Program, and by applying the Twelve Steps to our lives. Can anyone take my new life from me?

Today I Pray

May my prayers of desperate supplication, which I brought to my Higher Power as a newcomer to The Program, change to a peaceful surrender to the will of God. Now that I have seen what can be done through the endless might of a Higher Power, may my gift to others be that strong conviction. I pray that those I love will have the faith to find their own spiritual experiences and the blessings of peace.

Today I Will Remember

Peace — inner and outer — is God’s greatest blessing.

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One More Day

I have been sick and I have found out, only then, how lonely I am. Is it too late? – Eudora Welty

At one time, we may have thought in absolute terms. Either a person was our best friend or not. Things were right or wrong. We may have driven people from us — people we could have loved and who would have enriched our lives.

We have learned that if we are not happy, we need not accept things as they stand. The first step is always to admit there is a problem. Whether it’s loneliness, or we have been too brusque with others, or we need a spiritual change, we can admit it and do whatever is necessary to improve. We can turn to friends or even professionals for help if we need it. We can do this because it’s never too late.

Although the very thought of change is frightening, I will assess my life and begin anew today.

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Food For Thought

Thinking Straight

Before we found this program, we did a great deal of thinking in circles. Since we did not know how to stop eating compulsively, we spent a lot of time thinking up reasons for our behavior, making plans for change, and rationalizing another day's failure to eat normally. Our thinking often wandered away into fantasy, spinning dreams of when we would be thin and on top of things. Since we had to have reasons for our inability to make the dreams materialize, we blamed our failure on the people around us. "If they were only more loving, considerate, capable, exciting, smarter..."

Such circular thinking got us nowhere. The more we fantasized, the more we ate, and the more we ate, the more we withdrew from reality.

When our minds are not muddled by too much food, our thinking is clarified. The Twelve Steps put us on the road to responsible action, rather than irresponsible rationalization. Accepting the fact that we have a disease keeps us in the world of reality instead of a fantasyland.

With Your truth, keep my thinking straight.

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One Day At A Time

REGRET
“Regret is an appalling waste of energy;
you can't build on it;
it’s only good for wallowing in.”
Katherine Mansfield

Before I came into the program, I allowed fear to rule my life and prevent me from trying new things. I was absent from my own life. I was emotionally unavailable to my children and I stayed stuck in a deep hole of self-pity. I never really heard beautiful music or gloried in the miracles of nature. Although I had what people might perceive as a pretty normal life, it was actually an empty shell and I merely existed. I feel so saddened now at the thought of all the wasted years. I cannot bring them back, but I can learn from them.

When I came into the program and read the Promises in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, I realized that it was futile to regret the past or to shut the door on it. Those years and all the pain I went through are what made me the person I am today. I need to always remember where I came from, because if I don't, I can just as easily go back there. I can also use my experience to help others on this wonderful road to recovery. I am able to give away what has been given to me so freely, because it’s only then that I can keep what I have.

One Day at a Time . . .
I must always remember where I came from so that I can help others in this program of recovery and keep myself from going back into the patterns of my past.
Sharon S.

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AA 'Big Book' - Quote

Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks - drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is little hope of his recovery. - Pg. xxviii-xxix - 4th. Edition - The Doctor's Opinion

Hour To Hour - Book - Quote

In our recovery it is easy to forget to listen. We get two weeks of clean time and suddenly 'got it made.' Listening is actually our second greatest teacher, the horrors of addiction being our first. If we forget to listen to those who have gone before us, our first great teacher will take over again.

May I please keep my ears open, more then my mouth during these initial learning months.

Inner Hearing, Inner Sight

Today, I will trust my own heart. The clear message that whispers within me has more to tell me than a thousand voices. I have a guide within me who knows what is best for me. There is a part of me that sees the whole picture and knows how it all fits together. My inner voice may come in the form of a strong sense, a pull from within, a gut feeling or a quiet knowing. However my inner voice comes to me, I will learn to pay attention. In my heart I know what is going on. Though I am conditioned by the world to look constantly outside myself for meaning, today I recognize that it is deeply important for me to hear what I am saying from within. I give myself the gift of listening.

I will trust my inner voice.

- Tian Dayton PhD

Pocket Sponsor - Book - Quote

When we feel that fate has dealt us a bad hand with chemical dependency, we simply remember that many people have MS, cancer, diabetes, lupus, or a myriad of maladies that are not so easily put into remission.

Because I count my blessings, my blessings count.

"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

Be kind to unkind people. It gets to them.

Time for Joy - Book - Quote

Today I am willing to be increasingly aware of my spiritual life.

Alkiespeak - Book - Quote

This guy had been dragged out of his car drunk by the police. He was handcuffed and chained to a bench at the police station, he'd just urinated on himself, and he looked up at the cop and said; 'I have got to stop driving.' - Scott R.