Even More Recovery Readings and Meditations - February

[bluidkiti]

February 16

Step by Step

Today, and all other 24 Hours that might follow, no distinguishing myself as an “old-timer” from the newcomer to the program. Even though I’ve been around the program for years and if the 24 Hours since my last drink amounts to years, I am no “wiser” or more sober than the newcomer whose last drink was 24 Hours ago or who attended his first meeting last night – and he is no less sober than I. For in the program, the newcomer has exactly the same as the old-timer: sobriety in the current 24 Hours. And because our program is done one day at a time, the newcomer is as much an old-timer as I. The fall from a pedestal on which I might put myself or let anyone put me can be fatal. In AA, the field truly is level, and I can’t afford to lose sight of that reality. And our common journey continues. Step by step. – Chris M.

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

THE FIRST PROMISE

We will know a new freedom and happiness.

~ Big Book ~

A new freedom and happiness for us is an almost unbelievable Promise. Before recovery, we had little choice and less freedom. Everything we did had to be set up to meet the demands of our compulsion. Try as hard as we possibly could, we could never prevent the consuming urge of our addiction. A powerful compulsion took over all our waking hours.

Our lives were controlled by our desires. There was a constant need to bow to the demands of our addiction. It made all our decisions for us. There was no freedom and only a small bit of happiness at the very best. We always had to “pay the piper,” and we knew it. We were slaves, like it or not. When freedom came from abstinence, so came joy, gratitude, and love for others and ourselves.

I once believed that I could control my addiction. When I found it wasn’t possible, I felt deep depression, guilt, shame, and remorse. I felt I no longer had freedom. Recovery finally gave me a choice. Promises do come true.

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

All life is an experiment

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

When we take a trip, we make many plans and reservations. We have expectations for what we will see, whom we will visit, and what we will do. But the real purpose of a trip is to experience what happens while we follow our plans. We leave our routine of controlled and predictable days to enter another space where we will find novelty and the unpredictable. In fact, our whole life, from beginning to end, is a trip.

Once we accept that much of life is outside of our control, we can step aside. We make plans and work toward our highest goals. We take great pleasure in working toward our achievements. At the same time, the substance of life is not in controlling the outcomes but in responding to what happens along the way.

Today I will be open and respond to what happens while I follow my plans.

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

No one can make you mad, sad, or glad but yourself.

~ Anonymous ~

Blaming someone else for who we are reflects our immaturity. If we are surrounded by people who don’t take care of themselves, we continue to blame others, quite successfully. We’ll never grow into the women we are capable of becoming until we accept full responsibility for our actions, thoughts, aspirations, defeats, and successes.

It’s not as hard to be responsible for ourselves as we might imagine. When we make the first move to be fully accountable, the feeling of being overwhelmed passes. Knowing that no one can ever make us feel uncomfortable, in any situation or circumstance, gives us immense relief. It’s akin to being given a new life, a new personality, a new future.

Knowing I will feel however I decide to feel today fills me with hope and enthusiasm.

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

I now know I need people

I’ve been thinking about how nervous I feel around people. I have a dual disorder and I feel different from them. In part, I’m afraid of having symptoms when others are present. Sometimes I feel embarrassed. Sometimes I’m too afraid to talk.

And then it dawned on me that, nowadays, even though my dual disorder makes it harder for me to be with people, I’m not willing to feel alone anymore. Deep down I crave companionship, friendship. I need people. These days in particular, I need the experience, strength, and hope of my fellow Twelve Steppers.

At my recovery meeting I will arrive early to help set up (or take a turn at being a greeter).

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

Loneliness is the most terrible poverty.

~ Mother Teresa ~

We are so grateful that we’re no longer alone. For years we have hidden within ourselves and were alone with our secrets, shame, and fears. Now others in recovery will be with us, as much or as little as we need or want. We don’t have to hide anything from them. Their attitude of acceptance, encouragement, and good humor support us in ways we have never known. When we allow ourselves the luxury of that support, we are not only meeting our needs, we are letting the light of honesty and friendship into our lives.

It feels good not to hide anymore. And now it feels right, more natural. We are coming to accept and love our real selves as never before.

Today help me to be grateful for others’ support, and in turn to help someone else.

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

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d druther not.

~ Mark Twain ~

While abstinence is an addict’s best choice to better health, it does not magically take away the harmful, and sometimes lasting, physical effects of addiction.

No matter what stage of recovery you are in, it is important to get a medical checkup each year. Be honest with your doctor about your past lifestyle so you can receive appropriate attention and treatment. Make it your daily effort to strictly adhere to your physician’s advice.

There are other things you can do to build and maintain better health. In times of stress, take a mental time-out by using prayer and meditation to calm your mind and relax your body. Get plenty of rest through a good night’s sleep. If you have insomnia or sleep apnea, use meditation techniques to ease your way into sleep or seek treatment from a clinic that specializes in such issues. Each day, eat with good nutrition in mind, even when pressed for time. Finally, incorporate some form of physical exercise into your daily routine—preferably outdoors—so you can circulate fresh air through your lungs and body

Today I will live by this affirmation: My body is a temple. I will keep the spirits outside.

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

Tis the human touch in this world that counts, the touch of your hand and mine.

~ Spencer Michael Free ~

There once was a girl so afraid of people seeing her sad and lonely that she learned to excel at everything she did. She studied when others were playing so she could get good marks. She practiced sports alone trying to become the best. With all her diligent training, she earned excellent marks and made first-string soft- ball. Her parents thought she was happy and well- adjusted. Yet she was miserable and didn’t know how to say it.

How many of us relate to that girl’s story? We may have learned at an early age not to share our feelings. Some of us became super achievers; some of us became addicted to alcohol or other drugs, food, or sex; some of us became rescuers for addicts. Yet whatever we became, we always made certain no one touched us or came too close.

We may now accept our feelings, acknowledge them, and share them. We may now be able to let another hold our hands or hug us. We know it’s okay to need the human touch.

I can let myself touch and be touched by someone who understands.

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

Being kind

Saying an unkind word to another may not hurt that person the rest of his or her life, but what does it do to us? It separates us from our spiritual fellowship, which we cannot afford.

It is when we are out of step, out of harmony, that we are vulnerable to taking that first fix, drink, or pill. So it will help us all to be kind to others (even to those who don’t seem to appreciate it).

Am I kind to others?

Higher Power, help me show kindness to all my brothers and sisters, even when it is difficult, as you have shown kindness to me.

I will show kindness today by

God help me to stay clean and sober today!

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

One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.

~ FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE ~

Newcomer

What’s the point of pretending that I’m giving up my drug of choice one day at a time, when I know I have to quit for the rest of my life? Isn’t it hypocritical?

Sponsor

There’s nothing hypocritical about living in the present moment. It’s an old and honored spiritual path. To be fully awake and alive in this day, using our senses to experience what’s going on right now, not avoiding our feelings, not playing games with our minds, is a profound achievement. Living in the future isn’t living; it’s keeping our minds so busy that we can’t be here. The role of our addictions is escape; its opposite is living in the here and now.

At some time, we’ve probably promised ourselves or others that we were never again going to act out our addictions. We weren’t able to keep these promises; in the past, we didn’t know how not to use.

Limiting our focus in recovery to a twenty-four-hour period makes the challenges we face seem more manageable. We can get through twenty-four hours, no matter what. At the end of it, we can rest. It doesn’t mean that we’ll forget all about recovery tomorrow—only that we are willing to live in recovery now.

Today, I commit myself to living this one day of recovery fully.

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~ THE EYE OPENER ~

Remember in Step Nine we were told to make direct amends wherever possible but this generous principle should extend further. We should endeavor to regulate our conduct so as never to intentionally hurt anyone.

Because we don’t drink gives us no license to embarrass our host by telling the other guests what fools they are or what a great guy we are because we quit.

It gives us no right to hold our sobriety as a club over the head of friend wife and make her accede to our every whim on the threat that we will go out and hang one on.

AA gives no new liberties, only new responsibilities.

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

1) Thank God for what you have. TRUST GOD for what you need.

2) GIFTS: Getting It From The Steps

3) Formula for failure: try to please everyone.

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

As I Think

Higher Power, today with Your help I’ll remember:
As I think, I travel; and as I love, I attract. I am today where my thoughts have brought me, I will be tomorrow where my thoughts take me. I cannot escape the result of my thoughts, but I can endure and learn, I can accept and be glad. I will realize the vision (not the idle wish) of my heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both; for I will always gravitate toward that which I, secretly, most love. Into my hands will be placed the exact result of my thoughts; I will receive that which I earn, no more, no less. Whatever my present environment may be, I will fall, remain, or rise with my thoughts, my vision, my attitudes. I will become as small as my controlling desire, as great as my dominant aspiration.

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

FREEDOM IN FORGIVENESS

If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you (Matthew 6:14).

Setting others free means setting yourself free, because resentment is really a form of attachment. It is a cosmic truth that it takes two to make a prisoner; a prisoner and a jailer. There is no such thing as being a prisoner on one’s own account. Moreover, the jailer is as much a prisoner as his charge. When you hold resentment against anyone, you are bound to that person by a mental chain. You are tied by a cosmic tie to the thing that you hate. The one person perhaps in the whole world whom you most dislike is the very one whom you are attaching yourself by a hook that is stronger than steel.

Is this what you wish? Is this the condition in which you desire to go on living? Remember, you belong to the thing which you are linked in thought, and at some time or another, if that tie endures, the object of your resentment will be drawn again into your life, perhaps to work further havoc. No one can afford such a thing; and so you must cut all such ties by a clear act of forgiveness. You must lose him and let him go.

By forgiveness you set yourself free; you save your soul. And because the law of love works alike for one and all, you help to save his soul too.

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

Don’t Stop Now

Before you die, you must allow your genius to walk the wildest unknown way.

~ Bryce Courtenay, author of The Power of One ~

“You will be sleeping in the Ernest Hemingway room,” the desk clerk told me. I cast open the wooden door and found a bedroom decorated exactly as Ernest Hemingway’s might have been. The wrought-iron bed, hurricane lamp, and wooden treasure chest were accented by several of Hemingway’s hardcover texts and some of his actual handwritten correspondence. I peered down the hall to catch glimpses of rooms decorated a la Robert Louis Stephenson, Louisa May Alcott, and my favorite, Dr. Seuss. The Sylvia Beach Hotel3, perched over the rugged beach of Newport, Oregon, is the fruition of a long-time dream by owner Gudrun Cable.

“I yearned to create a space that would honor the great writers and nourish lovers of inspiring words,” Gudi told me over tea in the library late one night. “When this old hotel came up for sale, I went through two years and forty rejected loans before I got funding. I told my friends that if they each decorated a room according to the style of their favorite author, I would trade them a week’s vacation here for five years. When we were ready to open, I put the tiniest ad in the local classifieds, and I expected a few dozen people for the grand opening. Fourteen hundred people showed up that day, along with a triple rainbow. Since that time, business has been amazing, and I have sat in our library and sipped tea and rich conversation with some of the great authors of our time. ”

What dream is calling you? Do you believe in your idea enough to let it come true? In retrospect, Gudi’s rejections seem like a wispy dream in comparison to the joy and success she has found. I can’t wait to get back to Sylvia Beach; perhaps, if my dreams come true, this time I can get the Dr. Seuss room.

Give me the faith to persevere to make my dreams a reality.

I will realize my goals because I believe in myself.