[bluidkiti]

January 15

Step by Step

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” – Step Three

Today, for the alcoholic stumbling out of the fog of an extended drunk, there could be a problem with the use of the word “God” with a capital “G” and the reference to Him with a capital “H.” “God” and “Him” smack of religious connotations, a potential turnoff to the person new to the Program. But recovery is a spiritual, not religious process, and the God referenced here could be the “power” evoked in Step Two – and that power stronger than ourselves could be something as simple as our awakening to the reality that we could not sober up on our own. But Step Three requires another action – surrendering to something unseen but which, by sheer faith, is stronger than us. Step Three leads us to the admission that we are powerless over what we cannot control and have come to believe in a power greater than ourselves – and then entrusting ourselves to the care of that stronger power. Today, my decision is to turn my will and my life over to that force that I trust – on sheer faith – will handle me better than I ever could. And our common journey continues. Step by step. – Chris M.

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

ANGER

I was angry with my foe. I told it not. My wrath did grow.

~ William Blake ~

Anger is a common defect in our attitudes and personalities. Like all other character defects, anger grows more harmful the longer it is contained within ourselves. Unless we expose it freely for others to see, it can consume all our good intentions. We must “get the monkey off our backs before it reaches for our throats.”

How can we possibly make peace and form worthwhile relationships unless we bring anger into the open by working Steps 4, 5, 6, and 7? Letting go of hidden anger and returning to a stable state of mind is the first step in finding a comfortable peace with life.

We find that “letting it all out” through the Steps is the way to become free and happy. We continue to take daily personal assessments of our spiritual growth by monitoring our anger.

When I become angry, I’ll count to ten and deal with my anger in an appropriate way.

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

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ~

Hope and freedom and the right to dignity as a man are very personal things for every one of us in recovery. Regardless of our race or creed or ethnic origin, we are alike in that we are walking this healing path out of subjugation to addiction and codependency. Today is the birthday of a heroic man, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who dedicated his life not to his own self-interest, but to peace and the right of all people to be free. He spoke to all people who have struggled under a yoke of pain and trouble.

We must accept disappointments along our path. They are inevitable. We strive hard to achieve a goal and it may slip from our fingers. We fall in love and lose the one we love. In the midst of disappointment we may doubt whether we can handle it. But life goes on. We take our setbacks and ask, what do I need to learn from this? We don’t lose sight of our long-term objective to become the best kind of man we can be and to live in line with our spiritual principles. That is the path to our personal freedom and dignity.

Today I am grateful that those who have gone before us have shown us the path.

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

Blaming someone or something else doesn’t help me to grow as an individual.

~ Chris DeMetsenaere ~

It is not unusual to meet women in recovery who have survived harrowing childhoods or brutal marriages. Many of us have lived troubled lives and felt powerless to change the circumstances. If we continue to focus on those times, however, we will grow far less than we deserve.

What has happened has happened. We can’t redo the past. Hanging on to it in order to blame other people for our failures and shortcomings builds a barrier to growth. With our minds on the past, we are not actively and consciously involved in the present, and this moment is all we have.

It’s understandable that we want to blame others for our circumstances. Although we know that taking full responsibility for our lives is a sign of spiritual and emotional maturity, many of us still fear others’ expectations. Being fully responsible, we will quit blaming others and make the amends we need to make. We will learn to pause before acting or responding to others.

I will feel empowered today if I accept responsibility for my every thought and act.

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

I don’t have to blame myself

I know myself enough to know that when I make a mistake, even a small one, I can be hard on myself. With a dual disorder, I am more apt to make mistakes and so am more vulnerable than ever. All too often I feel shameful, guilty, defective. I get scared at how much I dislike myself at times.

Fortunately my therapist has helped me deal with these strong feelings. I am learning that (a) I am not to blame for my dual illnesses; they are caused by imbalances in brain chemistry and perhaps by some early nurturing problems—neither of which I’m responsible for. (b) I am responsible for my recovery, (c) Making mistakes is not a bad thing. Mistakes are one of my many teachers, (d) The more I accept this, the easier it is for me to accept my situation and take my struggle in stride.

I will look at a recent mistake to see what I can learn from it.

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

A faithful friend is the medicine of life.

~ The Apocrypha ~

When a friend loses a job or a loved one, we hurt, too. We wish there was something we could do, really do to help, something that would ease the pain. It hurts us to see our friends upset and frightened. But our head tells us there’s really nothing we can do except stand by and offer support.

One thing we can do is simply be there when they need to talk and listen when silence is best. We can let them know that our relationship is the same, that we don’t feel any differently. We can offer our time, when needed. And we can let them grieve and be angry without criticizing them.

We need to remember that the important thing is our friend’s pain, not our own. Sometimes we hurt so badly for others that they end up feeling they must help us. In our hurry to stop the pain we often try to over-control the situation and demand that a friend race through the process of grief. We might try to push him or her into action that isn’t right. Now that we can see this pattern, we try to avoid it. And we can remember that a friend needs respect, not interference. A friend needs love, not pampering or care- taking. A friend needs support, not babying. Sometimes all a friend needs is someone to listen.

Today help me put aside my tendency to “fix” things, and simply be there to listen.

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

The Horse and the Mule

Traveling together, a horse sported a fine coat and a magnificent saddle with ornate decorations, while a mule was burdened with a heavy load. Its coat was matted and filled with burrs.

“Oh how I wish I could be as beautiful and graceful as you are ” the mule told the horse. “I wish, too, that I was as unburdened and carefree.”

A few days later, a great war broke out and the horse went into battle, while the mule carried supplies. During a skirmish, the horse was gravely wounded and lay dying upon the ground when the mule came upon him. It was then that the mule realized, that in being himself, he had fulfilled his purpose and been kept safe.

The moral of the story: Be secure in who you are.

You may look at others and what they have, and wish you had the same characteristics or were in the same place as they. Ultimately, how you feel about who you are deter-mines your level of self-esteem. Even though there are things you want to change about yourself, these things make up who you are today. No matter what your defects or imperfections, accept who you are in the present moment.

Today I will appreciate who I am and what I have.

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

What was completely forbidden for me to do would be to kill myself. . . . If I were to commit suicide, I would be throwing God’s gift back in his face.

~ Dr. Raymond A. Moody ~

Many of us have had suicidal thoughts at one time or another. We hear at meetings how others have tried suicide in the past. We may have tried it ourselves or our lives may have been touched by the suicide of someone we knew. We may now find that living a clean, sober, spiritual life is overwhelming. Sometimes we may feel like giving up.

That’s when we need to call someone. Talk it out. Or get to a meeting and be honest with the group about our feelings. There are people who care. Our friends and our peers are God’s human messengers, ready to give understanding to those in need.

If a friend of ours felt down on life, wouldn’t we want to help? Now is the time to open ourselves up to caring and love from another human being.

Do I think about giving up? Who can I open up to for caring and love?

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

Sharing feelings

Many of us just did what other people did: We took drugs. But we felt so different from “normal” people. Why? Because of the way we did drugs and because drugs were so unfulfilling for us. It’s a joke among us recovering addicts that we tried so hard to look normal.

Non-addicts didn’t know our torment, didn’t know that we lived in another world. While high, we felt moments of euphoria and false well-being. When the drugs wore off, we suffered centuries of misery. Both are feelings that “normal” people did not experience.

In the fellowship, however, we share all our feelings because we know that we are among friends, we know that we are finally home.

Do I share my true feelings with others?

Higher Power, I pray for the willingness to see my true feelings more clearly and to share myself with my fellow addicts.

The feelings I will share today are

God help me to stay clean and sober today!

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

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

~ MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS ~

Newcomer

I’m having a horrible day. I have way too much to do. This morning I felt overwhelmed, but I went to a meeting as you told me to. Instead of making me feel better, the meeting made me feel worse: I got upset at what someone shared and started to cry. Now I have a headache and I can’t concentrate on what I was supposed to do. How will I ever get this stuff done?

Sponsor

What you experienced at the meeting was not to blame for your sadness. More likely, whatever triggered your tears was already inside you, waiting for something to release it. Most of us who are in recovery have a lot of stored-up grief. Tears are beneficial and cleansing.

There are days like this, when we feel sad, distracted, overwhelmed. Some days—especially in early recovery- are unexpectedly emotional. On such days, we may have to accept that it’s enough simply to breathe, eat three meals, drink water, and abstain from using our drug of choice. And, yes, to go to a meeting. Meetings remind us that when an alcoholic stays sober, an overeater eats moderately, or a perfectionist knows that he or she has done enough, a significant victory has been achieved. For those of us living with addiction, one day without addictive behavior is a precious step forward on our journey.

I am willing to revise my goals for this day. I give myself the gift of keeping it simple for one day of recovery.

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~ THE EYE OPENER ~

Looking back at our ambitions and aspirations we can recall many things we wanted and which we thought would make our lives complete. Some of them were impossible; they were the offspring of childish dreams, and later on, alcoholic wishing. Some of those things were possible for others but unattainable for us with our limited abilities.

We can now accept the fact that those things were not for us and wouldn’t have been good for us if we had had them. Some of them we obtained and wished we hadn’t. Their realizations were nothing compared to our expectations and the more we got the more we wanted. Ambitions were never realized because the more we advanced the more the horizons receded.

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~ WALK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG BOOK ~ (Official & Unofficial Sloganeering From the 12 Step Programs) ~

1) Accidents aren’t planned—slips are.

2) There are no fatal decisions, as long as you don’t pick up that first fix, pill, or drink.

3) You used to be good at being bad. Now you’re going to get good a being good.

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

God, Help Me Live Today

God, more than anything else in this world, I just don’t want to be sick any more.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change (people, places, and things),
The courage to change the things I can (my attitudes),
And the common sense to know the difference.
God, help me please to stay clean and sober this day, even if it’s in spite of myself. Help me, Lord, to stay sensitive to my own needs and the things that are good for me, and to stay sensitive to the needs of others and the things that are good for them.
And if You please, Lord, free me enough of the bondage of self that I may be of some useful value as a human being, whether I understand or not,
That I may carry my own keys, maintain my own integrity, and live this day at peace with You, at peace with myself, and at peace with the world I live in, just for today.
God help me during this day to demonstrate that:
It is good for me to love and to be loved.
It is good for me to understand and to be understood.
It is good for me to give and to receive.
It is good for me to comfort and to allow myself to be comforted.
And it is obviously far better for me to be useful as a human being, than it is to be selfish.
God, help me please to put one foot in front of the other, to keep moving forward, and to do the best I can with what I have to work with today,
Accepting the results of whatever that may or may not be.

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

GOD IS INTELLIGENCE

The fourth main aspect of God is Intelligence. When you clearly realize that this is an intelligent universe it will make a major difference in your life. In an intelligent universe there cannot be disharmony because all ideas must work together for the common good. Neither can there be any lack. An engine which has been intelligently designed does not have any unnecessary parts and neither are any essential parts lacking.

It is especially important to realize that God is Intelligence because it sometimes happens that when people outgrow the childish idea that God is just a magnified man, they go to the opposite extreme and think of God as a blind force, like gravity or electricity. This means that they have lost all sense of the Love and Fatherhood of God, and such an idea is very little better than a subtle form of atheism.

God is not a person in the usual sense of the word, but God has every quality of personality except its limitation. The Human mind cannot imagine personality which is not limited, but this difficulty arises from the limitations of the human mind itself, and, of course, this does not affect the nature of God. The Bible says, in effect, whatever you think I am, that I will be to you: and this means that if we attribute to God every quality of an infinite, intelligent, loving personality, God will be just that to us. So we may say that we believe in a personal God.

Children and young people respond very readily indeed to a prayer for expression of Intelligence through them. If you are interested in a young person at college, pray several times a week that Intelligence will manifest through him and you will be surprised to find how his progress in his studies will increase. Remember also the wonderful fact that when you work for a person the result will be with him for the rest of this life.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! . . . (Romans 11:33).

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

Great Spirits

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

~ Albert Einstein ~

I saw a film of a meeting held by civil rights workers who were planning to go into the South in the early 1960s. A leader informed the group that three of their colleagues had just been killed by racists. He warned them that their lives would be in danger should they choose to continue their mission. “If any of you wish to change your mind, I will understand,” he calmly informed them. After a long moment, one woman in the back of the room stood and began to sing a Negro spiritual. Soon everyone in the room rose and sang with her. All of the workers went to the South.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is one of my heroes. I respect him because he relied on the power of God, truth, and love rather than falling back on base instincts. Even more important, he walked his talk. Rather than sending other men off to war, he marched in front of his troops. Rather than making a particular person or group the enemy, he singled out fear and prejudice as the enemies to be overcome. He went to jail rather than compromise his integrity. He lived his vision and died with great courage. He didn’t just talk about world transformation. He lived it.

Although you and I may not take upon ourselves the breadth of his mission, the same challenge calls to us. We must live what we believe and not give in to fear. We must act on our principles rather than simply talk about them. And we must find ways to join, not separate from, our brothers and sisters.

It is fitting that our country honors a man such as Dr. King. As we live our own ideals, we honor the cause for which he lived and died.

Give me the strength to walk with integrity; help me to live what I believe.

I am here for a mighty purpose. I change the world by following my truth.