Daily Recovery Readings - December

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December 3

Daily Reflections

IN ALL OUR AFFAIRS

. . . . we tried to carry this message to alcoholics,
and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 106

I find that carrying the message of recovery to other
alcoholics is easy because it helps me to stay sober
and it provides me with a sense of well-being about
my own recovery. The hard part is practicing these
principles in all my affairs. It is important that I
share the benefits I receive from A.A., especially at
home. Doesn't my family deserve the same patience,
tolerance and understanding I so readily give to the
alcoholic? When reviewing my day I try to ask, "Did I
have a chance to be a friend today and miss it?" " Did
I have a chance to rise above a nasty situation and
avoid it?" "Did I have a chance to say 'I'm sorry,'
and refuse to?" Just as I ask God for help with my
alcoholism each day, I ask for help in extending my
recovery to include all situations and all people!

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

There is some alcoholic thought, conscious or
unconscious, that comes before every slip. As long as
we live, we must be on the lookout for such thoughts
and guard against them. In fact, our A.A. training is
mostly to prepare us, to make us ready to recognize
such thoughts at once and to reject them at once. The
slip comes when we allow such thoughts to remain in
our minds, even before we go through the motions of
lifting the glass to our lips. The A.A. program is
largely one of mental training. How well is my mind
prepared?

Meditation For The Day

Fret not your mind with puzzles you cannot solve. The
solutions may never be shown to you until you have left
this life. The loss of dear ones, the inequality of life,
the deformed and the maimed, and many other puzzling
things may not be known to you until you reach the life
beyond. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot hear them now." Only step by step, stage by stage,
can you proceed in your journey into greater knowledge and
understanding.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may be content that things which I now see
darkly will some day be made clear. I pray that I may have
faith that someday I will see face to face.

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As Bill Sees It

The "Slipper" Needs Understanding, p. 99

"Slips can often be charged to rebellion; some of us are more rebellious
than others. Slips may be due to the illusion that one can be 'cured' of
alcoholism. Slips can also be charged to carelessness and
complacency. Many of us fail to ride out these periods sober. Things
go fine for two or three years--then the member is seen no more. Some
of us suffer extreme guilt because of vices or practices that we can't or
won't let go of. Too little self-forgiveness and too little prayer--well,
this combination adds up to slips.

"Then some of us are far more alcohol-damaged than others. Still
others encounter a series of calamities and cannot seem to find the
spiritual resources to meet them. There are those of us who are
physically ill. Others are subject to more or less continuous exhaustion,
anxiety, and depression. These conditions often play a part in
slips--sometimes they are utterly controlling."

Talk, 1960

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Walk In Dry Places

Raising the frustration threshold
Achievement
What happens when we hit snags in our lives? In drinking, it was a common practice to chuck everything and just get drunk. This always made things worse, sometimes so much so that we forgot about the problem that triggered our frustrations.
Dealing with frustration is another part of growing up emotionally. Self-understanding in sobriety will help us detect surges of anger and irritation when things aren't going as planned. We'll recognize these feelings as being the same emotions that plagued us in our drinking days.
In sobriety, however, we are given choices. We actually do have the choice of pausing, letting the anger drain away, and then taking charge of the situation by knowing that God is working along with us. By doing this, we can eventually raise our threshold of frustration.
If some task or issue makes me angry today, I'll back off and place the outcome in God's hands. I'll know this is working when I have a change in feeling about it.

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Keep It Simple

And to practice these principles in all our affairs. Third part of Step Twelve.
This is a statement about us. We are now people of values. These values reflect our spiritual growth. We know how to help others. We know how to admit our wrongs.
We know how to look at ourselves and change our defects. We know how to live an honest life.
Step Twelve tells us. "Go use these tools for better living. Go be all you can be. Enjoy life and live a life you can be proud of." Step Twelve also tells us about how to have loving relationships. By the time we complete Step Twelve, we make or regain many relationships. The most important one is with our Higher Power. As we grow in the program, we realize all our relationships are spiritual gifts.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, I now have one face instead of many masks. Help me be a person who will stand before You with pride, not shame.
Action for the Day: Today, I'll talk with a friend and talk about my new values. I will talk about how much my life has changed.

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Each Day a New Beginning

Sometimes, sisters have the same journey in their hearts. One may help the other or betray her. Will they cross over? Will the ship sail without them? --Louise Bernikow
Other women share our struggle. When we treat our women friends as sisters and fellow pilgrims, we find great joy in our mutual help. We pray for the wisdom to let go our feelings of insecurity and rivalry with other women.
Rivalry is not good for us. It leads us to forget our own unique qualities. We each are the best person in the world at one thing: being ourselves. When we compete, we need to retain a balanced perspective and to think well of ourselves whether we win or lose. We run the best race we can; therefore, let us not regard other women as rivals. They are our sisters, and they, too, are doing the best they can.
Today, I will pray for the serenity that will let me see when my sisters have the same journey in their hearts as I.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

BILL'S STORY

They did not need to tell me. I knew, and almost welcomed the idea. It was a devastating blow to my pride. I, who had thought so well of myself and my abilities, of my capacity to surmount obstacles, was cornered at last. Now I was to plunge into the dark, joining that endless procession of sots who had gone on before. I thought of my poor wife. There had been much happiness after all. What would I not give to make amends. But that was over now.

pp. 7-8

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition Stories

Our Southern Friend

Pioneer A.A., minister's son, and southern farmer, he asked, "Who am I to say there is no God?"

Four alcoholics play bridge in a smoke-filled room. Anything to get my mind from myself. The game is over and the other three leave. I start to clean up the debris. One man comes back, closing the door behind him.
He looks at me. "You think you are hopeless, don't you?" he asks.
"I know it," I reply.
"Well, you're not," says the man. "There are men on the streets of New York today who were worse than you, and they don't drink anymore."
"What are you doing here then?" I ask.
"I went out of here nine days ago saying that I was going to be honest, and I wasn't," he answers.
A fanatic, I thought to myself, but I was polite. "What is it?" I enquire.

pp. 213-214

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Twelve - "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

Still more wonderful is the feeling that we do not have to be specially distinguished among our fellows in order to be useful and profoundly happy. Not many of us can be leaders of prominence, nor do we wish to be. Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God's sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God's scheme of things--these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes. True ambition is not what we thought it was. True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God.

pp. 124-125

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Joy increases as you give it, and diminishes as you try to keep it for yourself. In
giving it, you will accumulate a deposit of joy greater than you ever believed possible.
--Norman Vincent Peale

A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
--English Proverb

"History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered
heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to
become discouraged by their defeats."
--B. C. Forbes

"Spend unbroken chunks of time with the most important people in your life."
--Brian Tracy

"Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to
do now and do it."
--William Durant

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

WONDER

"Wonder rather than doubt is the
root of knowledge."
-- Abraham Heschel

Living with paradox is part of my sobriety. Things are never quite what they seem.
When I think I have something figured out, I am made to be confused again
especially around my life, relationships, people, events and the universe. Life is both
simple and incomprehensible. God seems to demand an agnostic faith! There is
so much I do not know or understand.

But all of this leads to a creative and exciting sobriety. It makes life an adventure. It
feeds that artistic part of me that is reborn in my sobriety. Things I used to dislike
when I drank, I now enjoy. People and writers that once bored me now fascinate me;
even modern art has a spiritual message!

O God, let the feelings of amazement always be a part of my faith.

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"For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord;
walk as children of light."
Ephesians 5:8

"Wherefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God."
Romans 15:7

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes
in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
John 3:16

"God has given gifts to each of you from His great variety of spiritual gifts. Manage
them well so that God's generosity can flow through you."
1 Peter 4:10

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Daily Inspiration

Allow your mind to become quiet and less judgmental and you will feel improvements in all areas of your life. Lord, help my mind avoid twisting the words I hear and misjudging the intentions of others in order to justify my own righteousness. Help me to spread Your peace.

There is not one moment that we are separated from God's care unless we choose to be. Lord, You provide for my daily needs and deliver me from evil. You are my refuge.