Even More Recovery Readings and Meditations - October

[bluidkiti]

October 22

Step by Step

“The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult …There are, of course, the psychopaths who are emotionally unstable. …They are always ‘going on the wagon for keeps.’ They are over-remorseful and make many resolutions, but never a decision.
“There is the type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink. He plans various ways of drinking. He changes his brand or his environment. There is the type who always believes that after being entirely free from alcohol for a period of time he can take a drink without danger. There is the manic-depressive type, who is, perhaps, the least understood by his friends …
“Then there are types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people.
“All these, and many others, have one symptom in common: they cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving.” – Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, “The Doctor’s Opinion,” p xxviii.

Today, no wasting time figuring out in what “classification” of drinking I fit because, in the end, the common denominator for everyone is that we cannot now or ever drink responsibly. If I accept it as absolute truth and have surrendered to Step One, I can begin the work toward recovery. If I have continue to deny the reality that I can never drink again, I cannot set out on the journey toward sobriety because I have not admitted my powerlessness over alcohol. And if the medical opinion here is on the mark – that drinking is the trigger to the “phenomenon of craving” – the solution to quenching the craving is simple: don’t drink. Keep it simple! And our common journey continues. Step by step. – Chris M.

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

BEING HUMBLE

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.

~ Anonymous ~

Humility was confusing to us when we were new to the Program. Our first reaction was to think we were supposed to accept anything that came our way, however humiliating. But true humility doesn't mean a meek surrender to an ugly, destructive way of life. It means surrender to the will of our Higher Power. "Humility" and "humiliation" are entirely different things.

Being humble is being teachable. Humility opens us to growth in all other helpful ways of living a healthy and productive life. Through humility, we gain more faith, trust, hope, helpfulness, forgiveness, charity, and the ability to freely care and share.

The simple practice of gratitude, listening, and sharing help us cut through grandiosity and leads us toward growth in humility.

When I practice humility, I am growing in strength and making spiritual progress.

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

The greatest of all arts is the art of living together.

~ William Lyon Phelps ~

What is this thing called intimacy? It is letting oneself be seen and known to someone who is paying attention. We all want intimacy and we often don’t really know what it is. We confuse sex with intimacy. Many of us have sought the pleasure and excitement of sexual passion as the fast road to intimacy. Many of us focus on what we are looking for in a partner without looking at what we offer as a partner.

True, rewarding, and deep intimacy comes in letting ourselves be known. Sex itself is never more erotic and passionate than when we are emotionally open and honest. That doesn’t mean we have license to be a jerk. We can be open and honest, and genuinely put ourselves in someone else’s hands, without dumping our disrespectful or hurtful feelings on the other person. When we seek intimacy, the straight line to get there is to let ourselves be known.

Today I will let my feelings and my history be known to the one I seek intimacy with.

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

I didn’t realize until recently that the emptiness inside was gone. It started to dissipate when I began cultivating a relationship with God.

~ Cathy Stone ~

We spent our lives trying to fill the emptiness inside. We looked to drugs or food or relationships. For brief spells we may have felt filled up, but in the early morning hours the fear and loneliness generally returned. Why hadn’t we learned about the hope that comes from having a relationship with God?

Everything looks different to us when we include a caring Higher Power in our picture. The terror dissipates when God is present. The torment over what decision to make is gone when God is consulted. Expanding our perspective to embrace the reality of God’s existence changes even the tiniest details in our lives.

What a wonderful gift we have in this relationship with God. Our worries are gone, if we want them to be. Our emptiness is filled, if we want it to be. Our joy is complete, if we are ready.

My relationship with God will answer all my questions today.

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

I can handle my symptoms

I can't stand it when I get this tension, this tightness, this buzz in my body. I can't settle down. What's happening to me? Why am I feeling this way? I'm sober now. What did I do to deserve this? I want this pain to stop.

As painful as the tension is, however, I know I can handle it. I can handle it because I'm not drinking over it, I'm not adding fuel to the fire. I can handle this attack because I'm not getting anxious about my anxiety. I am thinking clearly enough to recall that people can still have episodes of anxiety even though they're sober and taking proper medication—like me. I trust this won’t last long and I can muddle through.

I will sit down and take four deep breaths each minute for four minutes.

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

And in His will, our peace.

~ Dante Alighieri ~

When something goes terribly wrong in our world we may despair, feeling life will never be right again. Some kinds of pain may seem too much for us to stand. At times like this, we need faith that our grief will fade in time, and that we can find the strength to bear our feelings until they change. Broken hearts will heal and we will learn to smile again. We will find new friends to replace those we have lost.

Our Higher Power has a plan for us that we can never really know. He will never give us more sorrow than we can bear. With faith in tomorrow’s sunrise, we can survive our grief today. Faith in our Higher Power can help us find peace while we mourn our losses. Our Twelve Step fellowship offers support, comfort, and love to sustain us through our darkest moments. As we find new communion with our Higher Power and friends, we may realize that sometimes, out of our greatest pain, our greatest joy is born.

Today I am grateful for the closeness of my Higher Power, especially in times of grief and loss.

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

You can’t wring your hands and roll up your sleeves at the same time.

~ Pat Schroeder ~

At times you may worry about how well you are doing in recovery. Even if you have not used or abused, you may have thought about drinking or drugging or even awakened from dreams in which you were using. Do such things mean you are not working the program in the right way? If you have not yet started to work on your inventory, made a list of those you have harmed, or made amends to anyone, does that mean you are not doing well in your recovery?

Or maybe you have not accepted the reality of your addiction. Or maybe you do not know why you drank so much and so often or why you did the things you did when you were drunk. Does this mean you do not belong in the program or that you need to figure out the answers to your questions first?

Edith Armstrong once wrote that she conquered worry by thinking of her mind as if it were a telephone. She kept her mind busy with “peace, harmony, health, love and abundance.” Whenever doubt, anxiety, or fear tried to “call” her, “they kept getting a busy signal.”

Rather than worry about attaining perfection in the program, I will concentrate on making progress. I will keep busy so there is no time to worry.

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

Every year I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will miss nothing, and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well.

~ Mary Cholomondeley ~

When we were children our teachers or parents would talk about realizing our full potential. "He's a bright child," they might have said, "but he's not working up to his full potential." What is our full potential? And how do we realize it?

We all have certain abilities. With these we can learn, play, love, mature, take risks, make decisions, and speak our minds. Before the program, we may not have developed abilities to do some of these things.

When we avoid developing an ability, we are not realizing our full potential. If we don't learn to play, we lose social skills and the fun-oriented part of us. If we don’t work on our capacity to love, we lose emotional and spiritual growth. By growing to our full potential, we can live life as whole people.

I can begin to include those long-ignored areas and take the first step to becoming a complete and whole person.

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

Tending spiritual needs

The less that is said about the physical nature of our disease, the more will be said of our spiritual needs. Our program is a set of suggestions for spiritual health that has worked to get many well. We have found that attending to our physical needs is not enough; we must tend to our spiritual needs as well.

When we’re able to shut out the thoughts of the ego and close in on our spiritual feelings, we have a firm foundation for spiritual growth. As confident as we may be of our own thinking, we can hardly guide ourselves alone. Only adherence to spiritual principles and to a Higher Power can make a lasting difference in our lives.

How is my spiritual health?

Higher Power, help me live my life closer to you.

Today I will enhance my spiritual health by

God help me to stay clean and sober today!

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

There are wonderful moments, those rare moments when there is silence, a tangible silence out there, a silence deeper than silence.

~ DEREK JACOBI ~

Newcomer

Sometimes I get uncomfortable when there's a long period of quiet in a meeting. It always seems strange to me when people aren't putting up their hands. There's so little time. It amazes me that not everyone wants to speak.

Sponsor

Some of us feel bored or anxious when there is silence. Many people live with the continuous sound of radio or TV in their homes, cars, and even workplaces. I moved from the nonstop noise of the city to a quiet rural village, only to find that my next-door neighbor left her TV on all night long.

Why is silence so unacceptable? Some of us are filled with excessive concern about others in the room: "They should speak; it would be good for them." Or "Have I done something to alienate them, to keep them from wanting to speak?" For some of us, silence means having to listen to the chaos of our own thoughts and feelings. If we're unwilling to sit with ourselves in stillness, letting thoughts and feelings pass through us, then we also fail to hear what lies beneath them, what some call the voice of our souls. Whether we're alone or with others, when we sit in stillness, we may begin to hear Eternity.

Today, I allow myself some time to sit in stillness.

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~ THE EYE OPENER ~

We alcoholics should never claim Justice. It is the one thing in the way of a virtue that we can't use. It would be poison.

It would be found upon examination that had we received justice we would never have gotten to the door of AA. The warden wouldn't have allowed it. If we are wise we will confine our conversations to Mercy, for this is something we want and need, but if Justice was ever given us in full measure we would find it would be something we didn't want.

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

Bad Day

Today was a bad day.
Forgive me for my anger toward others,
The anger was my own.
Forgive me for my prejudice toward others;
The prejudice and intolerance came from
my own arrogance.
Forgive me for my lack of faith in You;
My lack of faith is my own fear of failure.
Tomorrow will be a better day.
I had a bad day, but it has ended.
And I am sober.

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

CAPITALIZE YOUR DISABILITY

Success consists in the overcoming of difficulties. All men and women who have made a success of any kind have done so by over-coming difficulties. There was a time when laying a telegraph line from New York to Boston presented many difficulties. Then there was a time when doing that was easy' but laying the Atlantic cable presented difficulties. Later on, marine cable laying became a routine business, but radio across the ocean presented problems that for a time were insuperable.

If you have a personal disability that seems to keep you from success, do not accept it as such, but capitalize on it and use it as the instrument for your success. H. G. Wells had to give up a dull underpaid job because of ill health, so he stayed at home and wrote successful books and became a world known author instead. Edison was stone deaf and decided that this would enable him to concentrate better on his inventions. Theodore Roosevelt was a sickly child, very short-sighted and nervous. However, he worked hard to develop his body and became, as we know, a strong husky open air man and big game hunter.

The owner of a fashionable dress business in London was the wife of a struggling clerk, who was stricken with tuberculosis. She had never been in business, and had no training, and found herself having to support a husband and two children. She started with nothing but good taste in clothes and a belief in prayer.

Problems are signposts on the road to God.

. . . To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life (Revelation 2:7).

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

Guaranteed Overnight Delivery

Healing is available to you now, unless you believe the will of God takes time.

~ A Course in Miracles ~

One evening when I was teaching creative visualization in adult school, I guided a strong meditation on abundance. "Know that we live in a rich and abundant universe," I told the students. “All the good you seek is available and on its way to you; just open your mind and heart and let it flow." The energy of the meditation was especially poignant, and I felt something click in my own heart. The next morning I went to my mailbox to see if anyone had registered for one of my first retreats, and I was astounded to find 12 checks. My internal acceptance of abundance was mirrored by external manifestation.

A trucking company on the East Coast has huge letters painted on the sides of its trailers: G.O.D.: Guaranteed Overnight Delivery. Indeed, God is capable of Guaranteed Overnight Delivery, in far more miraculous ways than any worldly enterprise.

When the results we seek do not come about, it is not because the universe is incapable of delivering them; we may not be ready or willing to receive them. We may harbor doubts about our worthiness; we may have bought into the limitation thoughts of others; we may fear that our life will change if we succeed; or we may hold some subconscious belief that we need to suffer to be happy. None of these notions are true and we must rid them from our consciousness to make way for the success we desire.

Another way we separate ourselves from our good is with the belief that the will of God takes time. It does not. You can manifest your good now if your heart is open to receive it. An apple falls from the tree when it is ripe, there is no way it can continue to stay on the branch. In the same way, there is no way your blessings can be separated from you if you affirm in your gut, "Yes, I accept."

Show me that love is here now. Help me be open to receive all You would give me.

I accept the love of God and all my good into my life now.