Daily Recovery Readings - March

[bluidkiti]

March 4, 2014

Daily Reflections

WEEDING THE GARDEN

The essence of all growth is a willingness to make a
change for the better and then an unremitting
willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this
entails.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 115

By the time I had reached Step Three I had been freed
of my dependence on alcohol, but bitter experience has
shown me that continuous sobriety requires continuous
effort. Every now and then I pause to take a good look
at my progress. More and more of my garden is weeded
each time I look, but each time I also find new weeds
sprouting where I thought I had made my final pass with
the blade. As I head back to get the newly sprouted
weed (it's easier when they are young), I take a moment
to admire how lush the growing vegetables and flowers
are, and my labors are rewarded. My sobriety grows and
bears fruit.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

Having surrendered our lives to God and put our drink
problem in His Hands doesn't mean that we'll never be
tempted to drink. So we must build up strength for the
time when temptation will come. In this quiet time, we
read and pray and get our minds in the right mood for
the day. Starting the day right is a great help in keeping
sober. As the days go by and we get used to the sober
life, it gets easier and easier. We begin to develop a
deep gratitude to God for saving us from that old life.
And we begin to enjoy peace and serenity and real quiet
happiness. Am I trying to live the way God wants me to live?

Meditation For The Day

The elimination of selfishness is the key to happiness
and can only be accomplished with God's help. We start
out with a spark of the Divine Spirit but a large amount
of selfishness. As we grow and come in contact with other
people, we can take one of two paths. We can become more
and more selfish and practically extinguish the Divine
Spark within us or we can become more unselfish and develop
our spirituality until it becomes the most important thing
in our lives.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may grow more and more unselfish, honest, pure
and loving. I pray that I may take the right path every day.

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As Bill Sees It

Free Of Dependence, p. 63

I asked myself, "Why can't the Twelve Steps work to release me
from this unbearable depression?" By the hour, I stared at the St.
Francis Prayer: "It is better to comfort than to be comforted."

Suddenly I realized what the answer might be. My basic flaw had
always been dependence on people or circumstances to supply me
with prestige, security, and confidence. Failing to get these things
according to my perfectionists dreams and specifications, I fought for
them. And when defeat came, so did my depression.

Reinforced by what grace I could find in prayer, I had to exert every
ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional
dependencies upon people and upon circumstances. Then only could I
be free to love as Francis had loved.

Grapevine, January 1958

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Walk in Dry Places

Don't feed the Habit _____ Enhancing Sobriety
We quickly learn that it's wrong to do anything that "feeds" a drinking habit. A recovering person would be foolish, for example, to spend time in a drinking environment simply to "be with friends."
It's constructive to take that same approach toward other problems we'd like to get out of our lives. If gossip has been my problem, I should not feed it by listening to gossip or even by reading gossipy articles and books. IF I have accumulated debts through overspending, I should cut off window shopping and other practices that may bring on more unnecessary debt. And if I want to rid my life of self-pity, I should not spend a single moment brooding over the bad breaks I have had in the past.
Bad habits have a life of their own. They are somewhat like rodents that have found their way into the house and have become star borders. One way to control rodents is to eliminate their food supply. That same principle applies to bad habits we want to eliminate from our own lives.
I'll make a strong effort to cut off any line of thinking that feeds my bad habits, whatever they are. This might include avoiding practices that others see as harmless and trivial. However, nothing is harmless or trivial if it has become destructive in my life.

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Keep It Simple

Better bend than break.-------Scottish proverb
Our program is based on bending. We call it "surrender." We surrender our self-will to the care of God. We do what we believe our Higher Power want us to do. We learn this as an act of love.
Many of us believed surrender was a sign of weakness. We tried to control everything. But we change as we're in the program longer and longer. We learn to bend. We start to see that what is important is learning. We learn to do what's best for us and others. To learn, we need an open mind. To bend, we must stay open. Love and care become the center of our lives.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, teach me that strength comes from knowing how and when to bend.
Action for the Day: Today, I'll check myself. How open am I? Do I bend when I need to?

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Each Day a New Beginning

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. --Ursula K. LeGuin
Goals give direction to our lives. We need to know who we are and where we want to go. But the trip itself, the steps we travel, offer us daily satisfaction moment by moment--fulfillment, if we'd but realize it. Too often we keep our sights on the goal's completion, rather than the process--the day-to-day living that makes the completion possible.
How often do we think, "When I finish college, I'll feel stronger." Or, "After the divorce is final, I can get back to work." Or even, "When I land that promotion, my troubles are over." Life will begin "when"--or so it seems in our minds. And when this attitude controls our thinking, we pass up our opportunity to live, altogether.
Looking back on goals already completed in our lives, what so quickly follows the end of a job well done is a let-down. And how sad that the hours, the days, the weeks, maybe even the months we toiled are gone, with little sense of all they could have meant.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - First Edition

Chapter 8 - TO WIVES

Let's now go back to number one. Oddly enough, he is often difficult to deal with. He enjoys drinking. It stirs his imagination. His friends feel closer over a highball. Perhaps you enjoy drinking with him yourself when he doesn't go too far. You have passed happy evenings together chatting and drinking before your fire. Perhaps you both like parties which would be dull without liquor. We have enjoyed such evenings ourselves; we had a good time. We know all about liquor as a social lubricant. Some, but not all of us, think it has its advantages when reasonably used.

p. 110

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Tradition Eleven - "Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films."

The way this restraint paid off was startling. It resulted in more favorable publicity of Alcoholics Anonymous than could possibly have been obtained through all the arts and abilities of A.A.'s best press agents. Obviously, A.A. had to be publicized somehow, so we resorted to the idea that it would be far better to let our friends do this for us. Precisely that has happened, to an unbelievable extent. Veteran newsmen, trained doubters that they are, have gone all out to carry A.A.'s message. To them, we are something more than the source of good stories. On almost every newsfront, the men and women of the press have attached themselves to us as friends.

p. 181

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God, help me find and create true joy and peace in my world.
--Melody Beattie

I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.

It doesn't matter what we have done in the past.
--Melody Beattie

Learning and maturation in the life of the spirit cannot be hurried,
and as in physical and intellectual development, a great deal depends
on our readiness.
--Mary McDermott Shideler

God's will never takes me where his grace will not sustain me.
--Ruth Humlecker

Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door to everlasting love.

Antidote for stress:
Take a deep breath and think of something that pleases you.

An argument had with a spouse is a loving moment lost forever.

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

HELL

"The hottest places in Hell are
reserved for those, who in time
of great moral crises, maintain
their neutrality."
-- Dante Alighieri

Each human being makes a personal hell here on earth. Often we do
it not by what we perpetrate but in what we allow to happen. So much
of the loneliness and isolation that many addicts and their families
experience is caused by them remaining hidden and silent. The
pretense that everything is okay is not only untrue but deadly.
Silence and compliance kills more addicts than a thousand needles!

Today I choose not to be neutral in my life. I speak about my
alcoholism so that I can on a daily basis make war on the disease that
nearly killed me. I speak out about the disease of addiction so that
society cannot say that it did not know what was happening. I speak
up for treatment and recovery because I know it can work in the vast
majority of cases. I am not neutral when it comes to addiction
because I am fighting for my life.

God, give me the courage to speak up in the crowd; let me live the
message I was privileged to receive.

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"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be
dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.
Joshua 1:9

God is not unjust, he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you
have helped people and continue to help them.
Hebrews 6:10

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we
do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially
to those who belong to the family of believers.
Galatians 6:9-10

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Daily Inspiration

Life isn't always fair, but don't let that stop you from making the world a better place every chance you get. Lord, help me to serve You where I am right now.

The first and most powerful commandment is love. Through love we unite ourselves together with God and with each other and bring ourselves closer to our desired goal. Lord, I love You with all my heart and soul and mind.