today's readings

August 11

Daily Reflections

REMOVING "THE GROUND GLASS"

The moral inventory is a cool examination of the damages that occurred to us during life and a sincere effort to look at them in a true perspective. This has the effect of taking the ground glass out of us, the emotional substance that still cuts and inhibits. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 140

My Eighth Step list used to drag me into a whirlpool of resentment. After four years of sobriety, I was blocked by denial connected with an ongoing abusive relationship. The argument between fear and pride eased as the words of the Step moved from my head to my heart. For the first time in years I opened my box of paints and poured out an honest rage, an explosion of reds and blacks and yellows. As I looked at the drawing, tears of joy and relief flowed down my cheeks. In my disease, I had given up my art, a self-inflicted punishment far greater than any imposed from outside. In my recovery, I learned that the pain of my defects is the very substance God uses to cleanse my character and to set me free.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

"While alcoholics keep strictly away from drink, they react to life much like other people. But the first drink sets the terrible cycle in motion. Alcoholics usually have no idea why they take the first drink. Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied, but in their hearts they really do not know why they do it. The truth is that at some point in their drinking they have passed into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of no avail." Am I satisfied that I have passed my tolerance point for alcohol?

Meditation For The Day

He who made the ordered world out of chaos and set the stars in their courses and made each plant to know its season, He can bring peace and order out of your private chaos if you will let Him. God is watching over you, too, to bless you and care for you. Out of the darkness He is leading you to light, out of unrest to rest, out of disorder to order, out of faults and failure to success. You belong to God and your affairs are His affairs and can be ordered by Him if you are willing.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may be led out of disorder into order. I pray that I may be led out of failure into success.

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As Bill Sees It

One Fellowship--Many Faiths, p.223

As a society we must never become so vain as to suppose that we are authors and inventors of a new religion. We will humbly reflect that every one of A.A.'s principles has been borrowed from ancient sources.

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A minister in Thailand wrote, "We took A.A.'s Twelve Steps to the largest Buddhist monastery in this province, and the head priest said, "Why, these Steps are fine! For us as Buddhists, it might be slightly more acceptable if you had inserted the word 'good' in your Steps instead of 'God.' Nevertheless, you say that it is God as you understand Him, and that must certainly include the good. Yes, A.A.'s Twelve Steps will surely be accepted by the Buddhists around here.'"

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St. Louis oldtimers recall how Father Edward Dowling helped start their group; it turned out to be largely Protestant, but this fazed him not a bit.

A.A. Comes Of Age 1. p. 231 2. p. 81 3. p. 37

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Walk In Dry Places

What is real Open-mindedness? New Ideas When we're urged to be open-minded, what's really involved? Open-mindedness certainly can't mean accepting every idea that comes down the road, because some of them are worthless or harmful. Open-mindedness really means a readiness to put our deeply held opinions aside long enough to consider new ideas. If we simply refuse to listen to anything new, we'll avoid the bad ideas, but we'll also miss out on the ideas that can help us. If we're really honest, we can look back to see many ideas that helped us after we reluctantly agreed to consider them. It's important to screen ideas as they come to us, but we can't block them out completely. All a good idea needs to help us is a fair chance. I'll work at being more open-minded today. It's possible I've been blocking out ideas that could help me.

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Keep It Simple

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you're still a rat.--- Lily Tomlin Alcoholism is rat race. Drug addiction is a rat race. We were always trying to keep one or two steps ahead of the cat. We were always sneaking around, and everyone was disgusted with us. Our goal in recovery is stop acting like a rat and join the human race again. Recovery teaches us sayings like Easy Does It and One Day At a Time. Our sayings remind us to pace ourselves. Our sayings remind us that healing takes time. We live by human values: honesty, respect from others, fairness, openness, self-respect. We work at just being ourselves. We learn that this is enough. We are enough. Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me accept my humanness. I am part of the human race, not the rat race. Action for the Day: Just for today, I'll pace myself. I'll list ways I often go to fast for my own good. I'll ask friends how they pace themselves.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

The Man Who Mastered Fear

He spent eighteen years in running away, and then found he didn't have to run. So he started A.A. in Detroit.

I came from a good family. I believe the sociologists would call it upper middle class. By the time I was twenty-one, I had had six years of life in foreign countries, spoke three languages fluently, and had attended college for two years. A low ebb in the family fortunes necessitated my going to work when I was twenty. I entered the business world with every confidence that success lay ahead of me. I had been brought up to believe this, and I had shown during my teens considerable enterprise and imagination about earning money. To the best of my recollection, I was completely free from my abnormal fears. Vacations from school and from work spelled "travel" to me---and I traveled with gusto. During my first year out of college, I had endless dates and went to countless dances, balls, and dinner parties.

p. 246

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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."

When we developed still more, we discovered the best possible source of emotional stability to be God Himself. We found that dependence upon His perfect justice, forgiveness, and love was healthy, and that it would work where nothing else would. If we really depended upon God, we couldn't very well play God to our fellows nor would we feel the urge wholly to rely on human protection and care. These were the new attitudes that finally brought many of us an inner strength and peace that could not be deeply shaken by the shortcomings of others or by any calamity not of our own making.

p. 116

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If what you are doing is not working, take a moment to stop and take a look at what you are doing and, if necessary, take another path. --Jan Ruhe

"Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

When it is time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived. --Henry David Thoreau

I can get more out of God by believing Him for one minute than by shouting at Him all night. --Smith Wigglesworth

"I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself." --Walter Anderson

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

INDIVIDUALITY

"The race advances only by the extra achievements of the individual. You are the individual." -- Charles Towne

The spiritual program that involves a "love of self" has made me get in touch with my individuality. Although we can identify with other people's feelings and situations, we are also not exactly the same. Our dreams and aspirations are different, our gifts and achievements vary, our personal individuality adds to the variety of life.

My "difference" needs to be nurtured alongside my spiritual growth, especially since being a recovering alcoholic I am tempted to "please" the crowd. Today my personal inventory revolves around my needs, hopes and dreams that are realistic. Spirituality is reality.

In helping myself to the abundant richness that is within me, I am contributing to society and the world.

Thank You for making the world with such creative difference; may I continue to risk in this knowledge.

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"Even if you had faith as small as a mustard seed, the Lord answered, you could say to this mulberry tree, May God uproot you and throw you into the sea, and it would obey you!" Luke 17:6

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

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Daily Inspiration

Thoughts of the past can not hurt you without your consent. Lord, help me to learn from my past, not live there by continually bringing it into the present.

The heart cannot both doubt and have faith, hate and give love, worry and trust in God for one will soon crowd out the other. Lord, I commit myself to Your way and Your will and open my heart to Your peace