Essentials Of Recovery

Created to carry the message of recovery to all addicts. Whether the addiction is alcohol, drugs, food or any other addiction the program of recovery is the same. I am a recovering alcoholic of over twenty-seven years, a day at a time of course and I believe my primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve recovery. Remember seven days without a meeting makes one weak. Sign up to get emails.This Blog is NOT IN ANY WAY affiliated to either A.A. or N.A. Help to stop drinking.

Saturday, 16 October 2021

Daily Dose OF Emmet Fox #essentialsofrecovery

“What you think upon grows. Whatever you allow to occupy your mind you magnify in your life. Whether the subject of your thought be good or bad, the law works and the condition grows. Any subject that you keep out of your mind tends to diminish in your life, because what you do not use atrophies. The more you think of grievances, the more such trials you will continue to receive; the more you think of the good fortune you have had, the more good fortune will come to you.”

~ Emmet Fox

Just For Today #essentialsofrecovery

The Simplest Prayer

“…praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” Step Eleven

How do we pray? With little experience, many of us don’t even know how to begin. The process, however, is neither difficult nor complicated.

We came to Narcotics Anonymous because of our drug addiction. But underlying that, many of us felt a deep sense of bewilderment with life itself. We seemed to be lost, wandering a trackless waste with no one to guide us. Prayer is a way to gain direction in life and the power to follow that direction.

Because prayer plays such a central part in NA recovery, many of us set aside a particular time each day to pray, establishing a pattern. In this quiet time, we “talk” to our Higher Power, either silently or aloud. We share our thoughts, our feelings, our day. We ask, “What would you have me do?” At the same time we ask, “Please give me the power to carry out your will.”

Learning to pray is simple. We ask for “knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” By doing that, we find the direction we lacked and the strength we need to fulfill our God’s will.

Just for today: I will set aside some quiet time to “talk” with my Higher Power. I will ask for that Power’s direction and the ability to act on it.

Twenty-Four Hours A Day #essentialsofrecovery

A.A. Thought For The Day

How seriously do I take my obligations to A.A.? Have I taken all the good I can get out of it and then let my obligations slide? Or do I constantly feel a deep debt of gratitude and a deep sense of loyalty to the whole A.A. movement? Am I not only grateful but also proud to be a part of such a wonderful fellowship, which is doing such marvelous work among alcoholics? Am I glad to be a part of the great work that A.A. is doing and do I feel a deep obligation to carry on that work at every opportunity? Do I feel that I owe A.A. my loyalty and devotion?

Meditation For The Day

If your heart is right, your world will be right. The beginning of all reform must be in yourself. It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you take it. However restricted your circumstances, however little you may be able to remedy financial affairs, you can always turn to your inward self and, seeing something not in order there, seek to right it. And as all reform is from within outward, you will always find that the outward is improved as the inward is improved. As you improve yourself, your outward circumstances will change for the better. The power released from within yourself will change your outward life.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that the hidden power within me may be released. I pray that I may not imprison the spirit that is within me.

As Bill Sees It #essentialsofrecovery

Mastering Resentments

We began to see that the world and its people had really dominated us. Under that unhappy condition, the wrongdoing of others, fancied or real, had the power to actually kill us, because we could be driven back to drink through resentment. We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? We could not wish them away.

This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. So we asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend.

Today, we avoid retaliation or argument. We cannot treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, PP. 66-67

Keep It Simple

To err is human, but when the eraser wears out ahead of the pencil, you’re overdoing it.

–Josh Jenkins

It’s okay to make mistakes. But we shouldn’t live a life of excuses. We shouldn’t slide over our mistakes; we should learn from them.

Excuses keep us part from ourselves and others. People don’t trust us if we won’t admit and accept our mistakes. Relying on excuses dooms us to repeat the same mistakes.

In recovery, we admit and accept our behavior. We do this by continuing to take an inventory of our lives. We do this so we can learn from our mistakes. “Owning” our mistakes helps us grow.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me own my mistakes. Thank-you for Step Ten and the growth it holds for me.

Action for the Day: Today, I’ll list my five favorite excuses. I’ll think of the last time I used each of these. What was I trying to avoid.
To err is human, but when the eraser wears out ahead of the pencil, you’re overdoing it.

Action for the Day: Today, I’ll list my five favorite excuses. I’ll think of the last time I used each of these. What was I trying to avoid.

Father Leo’s Daily Meditation

CULTURE

“The great law of culture: let each become all that he was created capable of being.”

– Thomas Carlyle

We are capable of great things. This history of man, although surrounded by wars and unspeakable acts of violence, is also the history of art, music, poetry and romance. Each person is capable of great and noble acts — but do we want to do them? We can be honest, loving and caring people only if we choose to be that. The power of freedom and choice is the determining factor in all our lives. Each culture has imaginative and creative features, but it is the people that make them happen. Nothing will happen unless people decide to make it happen.

So it is with the culture of recovery. The people who make up the recovering community in all the addictions are the people who make a decision and acted upon it. Talk is cheap and cruel unless it is followed by an event. Decisions must be made real. We all have the capacity to be honest and kind.

May I not only be grateful for my culture but may I live to add something to it

A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

Someone once said that the mind’s direction is more important than its progress. If my direction is correct, then progress is sure to follow. We first come to The Program to receive something for ourselves, but soon learn that we receive most bountifully when we give to others. If the direction of my mind is to give rather than to receive, then I’ll benefit beyond my greatest expectations. The more I give of myself and the more generously I open my heart and mind to others, the more growth and progress I’ll achieve. Am I learning not to measure my giving against my getting, accepting that the act of giving is its own reward?

Today I Pray

May I not lose sight of that pillar of The Program — helping myself through helping others in our purpose of achieving comfortable sobriety. May I feel that marvel of giving and taking and giving back again from the moment I take the First Step. May I care deeply about others’ maintaining their freedom from chemicals, and may I know that they care about me. It is a simple — and beautiful — exchange.

Today I Will Remember

Give and take and give back again

One Day At A Time #essentialsofrecovery

Fellowship

“When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude

When I first came into The Recovery Group’s online meeting room nearly a year ago, I was bankrupt of mind, body and soul. I felt so unlovable that even I couldn’t stand myself! I casually observed at the first few meetings and I was intrigued by the warmth of the fellowship there. After a few meetings I finally opened up and shared, “spilling my guts” about what it was like to reach bottom and to desperately need a hand to lift me up. After they heard my share, they told me they would love me until I could learn to love myself. That really blew me away! They told me they had been where I was and that they had found a means to recover. They assured me this program would work for me, if I really wanted it, and to follow their steps ~ their beloved Twelve Steps.

Shortly after joining, I got an online sponsor with whom I have been walking the path of recovery ever since. I eventually shared with her things I had spent a lifetime desperately longing to be able to tell another person, but had needed to keep shrouded in secrecy. Being heard and understood was the gift of a lifetime. The weight has been falling off, I have experienced a lot of emotional healing, and I am in a much better place spiritually. This fellowship, their steps and meetings, and my Higher Power have brought me a long way in a year’s time!

One day at a time…
I will emulate those warm, wonderful people by welcoming newcomers with love and by helping them get started on the road to recovery. I will sponsor with the love and dedication that my sponsor has shown me.

~ Karen A.

Elder’s Meditation of the Day #essentialsofrecovery

“Many religions have been brought to this land. And the way my religion is, they teach me, and they taught me, and told me to respect all religions. And I still do that.”

–Horace Axtell, NEZ PERCE

The Creator put on this Earth many different religions which represent different roads to walk to God. All religions are right and good if the path is the path to God. Should we be judging which road is better or worse than the other? When we accept each other’s way we can stand in a circle, hold hands and listen to each other as we pray to God. Let us be more accepting of the religions of others.

Great Spirit – God, Grandfather, Grandmother, Lord – let me know peace.

Today's GIft

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.

—Matthew 6:34

To worry about something ahead of time is a waste of time and energy that could be better spent on living a full life today.

For instance, if we spend hours today worrying about an important test at school tomorrow, we can’t very well concentrate on studying. And if we lie awake tonight agonizing over what we don’t know or haven’t studied, we’re going to be exhausted tomorrow when we take the test.

Wouldn't it be much better to focus on doing all we can today to prepare for the test, and then, knowing we’ve done our best, let go of it tonight and get a good night’s sleep? In fact, if we do that every day of the year, when a big test comes along, we’ll know we’re as ready as we can be, and won't have a thing to worry about. What a relief it is to know we've done our best today and every day.

What can I do well today so I won’t worry about it tomorrow?

Daily Tao / 289 – Merging #essentialsofrecovery

Take the sun. Put it in your heart.
Take the moon. Pull it to your belly.
Draw down the Big Dipper.
Merge with the Northern Star.

We have gone from distant views of gods to a more inner-oriented one. In the past, our relationship was viewed vertically : People were in a subordinate position and the gods were supreme. Without much effort, we can see that this point of view was a reflection of feudalistic definitions and childlike emotions.

By contrast, those who follow Tao declare that gods do not exist.

To think this blasphemous is to miss the point. Rather, those who follow Tao seek a relationship with the divine in which there is no division. They are seeking a state of oneness.

If people are one with their god, then it stands to reason that there is no division between them. If there is no division between them, then they are god and god is them. This doesn’t mean that a person can do all the things that gods are supposedly able to do. Instead, they attain a state of being and understanding where there are no distinctions, fears, or uncertainties about what is divine.
That is why we sometimes contemplate bringing the stars into our very being. We want to merge with Tao. In essence, we become Tao and Tao becomes us.

The Eye Opener #essentialsofrecovery

By the very nature of our AA work, we often are exposed to the worst in the new man on our first contact with him. Too frequently, we pronounce judgment at once, and all our future work is prejudiced by that first impression.

Think back a little – you weren’t a lily yourself when you sought AA.

Hazelden Foundation

Daily Zen #essentialsofrecovery

I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust mites. I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake on Earth as a drop of oil on my foot.

~Buddah

Walk In Dry Places

Saturday, 16 October 2021