[bluidkiti]

July 2

Step by Step

Today, if it should be the anniversary of the passing of someone dear to me or any other observance that rekindles a sense of loss and bittersweet, let me look to my program not to mourn what is gone but to be grateful that I experienced the good in the first place. And let me look to the lessons and examples of who or what I was once blessed enough to have to pay respect to their memories. As a drinking alcoholic, loss was a cornerstone of my existence; today, in recovery, gratitude and honoring the memories of people or things now gone are my hope. AA has given me the tools to come to terms with loss but, more importantly, how to handle the sometimes unkind changes of life without alcohol, self-pity, anger, anguish and a subtle longing for days and times long gone. Today, if the date resurrects the bittersweet, the gift of sobriety can overcome the bitter. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M.

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~ EASY DOES IT ~ (A Book of Daily 12 Step Meditations) ~

LET GO AND LET GOD

We can't carry the person, we can only carry the message. The results are in God's hands.

~ Anonymous ~

"Let go, let God" doesn't mean we stop caring: it means we can't do it all for someone else. We in the Program care deeply. We can sometimes pick up another person's pain more quickly than our own. There is a very natural inclination to want to stop the hurting. There are even times we have neglected our own well-being to help another.

We need to remember our own experience. It was not until we did our First Step that we became available for recovery. The First Step was an admission and acceptance of our powerlessness. No one did our First Step for us. This fact is true for others as well. We can't carry anyone through the Steps, and expect them to understand recovery.

If my hand is holding onto someone else's too tightly, that person's hand can't hold onto God's.

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~ WISDOM TO KNOW ~ (More Daily Meditations For Men) ~

My life is in the hands of any fool who makes me lose my temper.

~ Joseph Hunter ~

Many of us have learned that we can get a real buzz from anger. It seems to give us direct access to our egos, where we feel an inflated sense of power and entitlement. We no longer feel vulnerable; we see things in black and white terms. We believe we are right. But in this primitive state of excitement, we are reacting from the animal level, and our grown-up brain has been bypassed. This kind of habitual reaction can leave a lot of damage in its aftermath. It undermines our dearest relationships and our own self-respect.

We need to examine our patterns with anger. We don’t seek to be rid of it but to manage it as grown men. Do we take responsibility for staying honest in the midst of anger? Can we hold onto our humility while being angry? When we express angry feelings, do we avoid abusive words and intimidating actions? We can feel our anger and express it without reverting to our primitive brain.

Today I will be aware of angry feelings and express them with a clear sense of my grown-up masculinity.

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~ A WOMAN’S SPIRIT ~ (More Meditations For Women) ~

Too many things in today’s rushed and hurried world seem to require immediate action. I need to differentiate between the things that require immediate action and the things that can wait.

~ Karen Davis ~

Not to get caught up in the mania of activity around us takes monumental effort. It seems that everyone else is on a fast track, and if we abstain from the race, we worry about getting left behind, thus missing an opportunity that may surface only once in our lives.

In spite of our fears, very few circumstances need immediate attention. By taking the time to think through our alternatives and then to ask our Higher Power for guidance, we are assured the right response to every circumstance. With practice we will learn that pausing a moment or two won’t mean missing an opportunity that has our name on it.

Some situations, such as a swerving car or a col-lapsed friend, require a quick response. However, even those circumstances call for reaction that is thoughtful rather than rushed. Every decision we make will be better when we let God give us a hand.

I can slow my pace today. My friends and I will benefit from my thoughtful responses.

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~ TODAY I WILL DO ONE THING ~ (Daily Readings for Awareness and Hope) ~

I am taking care of my body

Only now can I see how my addiction and emotional illness made it hard to take care of my body. First, I put all my energy into getting street drugs and staying high. Second, I put substances into my body that damaged it.

Free of chemicals, I am coming to care more about my physical body. I eat at regular times and I watch what I eat. I let my dog take me for a walk. When my body gets tired, I give it the extra rest it seems to need in recovery. These lays I am paying attention to my body, and it feels right.

I will incorporate my new habits into my daily recovery plan.

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~ BODY, MIND, AND SPIRIT ~ (Inspiration and Support for Recovery) ~

No man is wise enough by himself.

~ Plautus ~

The people in our fellowship come together with a single purpose: the desire to remain sober. We are of various backgrounds and different races. Some of us are rich, while others have no money at all. We’re all so different, yet we share a common bond: we seek sobriety. Separately, the task is insurmountable, but together we are powerful in our quest. What one of us lacks in hope and strength we find by coming together within this fellowship. Each member offers a link connecting the other. Broken, the chain is useless. Together, the strength and beauty of each link is made even more powerful. We join together in a spiritual bond that transcends our differences.

Before we joined the fellowship and chose a Higher Power, isolation made our task seem overwhelming. Now, as we look around the room at smiling and caring faces, we can thank God that in our pain we have found such strength and the wisdom we need to stay sober one day at a time.

Today let me be humbly grateful for my sobriety.

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~ MORNING LIGHT ~ (Meditations to Begin Your Day) ~

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

~ William Blake ~

When you were a child and were asked, “How deep is the ocean?” you may have spread your arms as wide as you could to signify the ocean’s massive size. When you were a bit older and asked how big something enormous was, you might have answered, “It’s as big as infinity.” You had learned a word that would signify what your arms had expressed. But when you were using and were asked, “How much did you have to drink?” or “How much money did you take out of the bank to gamble?” you may have answered, “Not much” or “Just a little.” The reality was, you had more than a few drinks. The truth was, you withdrew more money than you wanted to admit.

While lies and an altered vision of your universe may have helped you change your perspective so you could continue to use and abuse, this perspective was foolish and far from reality.

Today you know the value of honesty, and how it enables you to see and speak the truth. As hard as it may be to accept the truth, growth springs from such knowledge. You can become wiser and, in so doing, become more in touch with reality.

I will see the world as it really is, not as I want it to be.

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~ NIGHT LIGHT ~ (A Book Of Nighttime Meditations) ~

When we stop looking at whatever troubles us, and turn in faith to God, the source of good, the difficulty disappears and a new condition takes its place.

~ William A. Clough ~

If our garden is choked with weeds, we don't stare at it and think, "My garden is going to have a lousy growing season." We start pulling those weeds to give our plants room to grow and the nutrition they need. Because we believe clearing the weeds will make the garden grow we change a bad condition into a good one.

But what do we do when we see ourselves being choked by debts, bad relationships, or health problems? Do we take action to affect change or do we become paralyzed at our view of an unchangeable situation? We need to learn to take our focus off fears, doubts, worries, and insecurities and place it instead upon faith and a belief that all will work out.

We can begin to replace difficulties with faith. No matter what problems we have, none is too big for faith to change. Our belief that these conditions can change is the first step in letting faith work its own way.

Tonight I can change my outlook by replacing my difficulties with faith.

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~ DAY BY DAY ~ (Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts) ~

Overcoming worry

Worrying only succeeds in ruining our days and driving us nuts. It’s better if we don’t burden ourselves with what we need to do until we need to do it—and then promptly do it. And if worry weakens, action strengthens. If we stay active, we don’t have time to worry.

Our Higher Power knows our needs and will give us the knowledge and power to get them if we wholly trust. Besides, why worry when we can pray?

Do I let God help me with my worries?

Higher Power, help me to stay active and to trust that you’ll take care of me.

I will practice not worrying today by

God help me to stay clean and sober today!

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~ IF YOU WANT WHAT WE HAVE ~ (Sponsorship Meditations) ~

Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.

~ QUEEN VICTORIA ~

Newcomer

A health insurance claim got rejected, and I have to submit it all over again; a plumbing job was left unfinished, and I’m going to have to keep calling my landlord; some equipment needs a minor adjustment, but I’ll have to rebox the whole thing and get it to the repair place. . . . Life seems to be an endless succession of these little nightmares.

Sponsor

Two things seem wonderful to me about the complaints you have about your life today. The first is that you haven’t picked up an addictive substance or behavior. In the old days, what set me off most was the little things. I’ve heard one person in recovery say, "I rarely drank or drugged over real tragedies. I did fine with the big things; it was when I broke a shoelace that I was in danger of losing my balance.” Today, your “broken shoelaces” didn’t send you off the deep end.

The other blessing that strikes me, hearing these problems, is how full of life they are. We have places to live, running water, equipment to care for, and relationships with landlords and plumbers. We’ve been taking care of our health, and we have the ability to face filling out insurance forms. We can laugh more easily at glitches when we realize that they arise out of choices we’ve made to immerse ourselves in reality.

Today, my glass is no longer half empty, but half full.

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~ THE EYE OPENER ~

We not only are judged by our words and actions, but also we are frequently misjudged by them. If you do or say anything at all, you will be either judged or misjudged and the purity of your motives will not affect the verdict.

Therefore take but little thought of the judgement of men but in all things strive to earn the commendation of that still, small voice within you.

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~ The 12 STEP PRAYER BOOK ~ (A Collection of Favorite 12 Step Prayers and Inspirational Readings) ~

I've found a Reason

Dear God, as long as my life was preoccupied with my own problems, my own unwillingness and dark moods, I was critical, insensitive, rigid, and defiant. But when I honestly faced my defects and failures and the worst was known and surrendered to You, the whole nature of living changed. I am no longer the emotional center of all things and no longer take everything as personal to myself. I've found a reason for all the suffering through which I have passed. It is to be used in understanding and helping others. Out of darkness comes light.

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~ AROUND THE YEAR WITH EMMET FOX ~ (A Book of Daily Readings) ~

FIND MATURITY

Why do you not remember your previous lives? Consider how prone people are to worry and grieve foolishly over the past events of this one life, and imagine their state if they had the material of many lives to handle in this way.

And so the past is mercifully withheld from us until we reach the stage when we can regard our own histories impersonally and objectively, and when we do reach that stage it is possible to remember our previous lives.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
The soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter darkness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.

~ Wordsworth ~

Is it absolutely necessary to come back? The answer is that you need not come back if you will concentrate your whole heart upon God, and seek His Presence until you realize it completely. If you can do this, of all tasks the most difficult, then you will leave this earth planet to enter into full communion with God, and you need never come back. Hardly anyone, however, is able to do this at present, and so we have to go on by stages, learning from experience, study, prayer, and meditation; living life after life until at last we “grow up" spiritually.

. . . I trust in the mercy of the Lord forever and ever (Psalm 52:8).

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~ A DEEP BREATH OF LIFE ~ (365 Daily Inspirations for Heart-Centered Living) ~

No Psychic Required Here

Call on God, but row away from the rocks.

~ Indian proverb ~

As I was leaving a restaurant with my professional psychic friend, Denise, a fellow approached and asked if I wanted to buy a stereo. Since I was in the market for a car stereo at the time, I told him, "Maybe," and he invited Denise and me to his showroom in the trunk of his car. There he displayed an extensive collection of unusually shoddy stereos at remarkably high prices. When I asked him if he offered any warranty, he told me that his boss did not like people coming to the warehouse (for insurance purposes, you understand). When he asked me if I wanted one of the stereos, Denise leaned over and whispered in my ear, "l don't think you should buy anything from this man.”

I whispered back, "I don't need a psychic to tell me that.” I thanked the fellow, bid him good day, and off we went.

Many on the spiritual path have a difficult time differentiating between judgment and discernment. Some feel that to say no or acknowledge that someone is hurting himself or another would be an act of judgment. While we must not judge, we must discern. Judgment is distinguished by turbulent emotion and fear, while discernment is based on clarity and peace. you serve another if you refuse to participate in an activity that would hurt him or yourself.

It is loving to tell the truth and hurtful to put up with a lie. lf someone is not coming from a place of integrity or is endangered by an addictive behavior, it is your duty to call the situation as you see it. Perhaps God is giving you the insight that this situation needs correction. You don’t need to be a psychic to see the truth, which is always trying to make itself obvious, if you are open to seeing it.

Give me the wisdom and the courage to call the truth as I see it.

My divine mind guides me on my right path.