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-five 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, 24 October 2020

Dr. Harry T. - Anonomity is the Ego Reducer

Daily Dose Of Emmet Fox #essentialsofrecovery

“Attention is the key to life. Whatever you really give your attention to, you become. Whatever you really concentrate upon will come into your life. We grow into the thing that fills our thoughts as inevitably as the stream merges into the ocean at last.”

~ Emmet Fox

Daily Reflections #essentialsofrecovery

“BY FAITH AND BY WORKS”

On anvils of experience, the structure of our Society was hammered out. . . . Thus has it been with A.A. By faith and by works we have been able to build upon the lessons of an incredible experience. They live today in the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, which – God willing – shall sustain us in unity for so long as He may need us.

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 131

God has allowed me the right to be wrong in order for our Fellowship to exist as it does today. If I place God’s will first in my life, it is very likely that A.A. as I know it today will remain as it is.

Just For Today #essentialsofrecoery

Responsibility

“We are not responsible for our disease, only for our recovery. As we begin to apply what we have learned, our lives begin to change for the better.”

Basic Text, p.88

The further we go in recovery, the less we avoid responsibility for ourselves and our actions. By applying the principles of the Narcotics Anonymous program, we are able to change our lives. Our existence takes on new meaning as we accept responsibility and the freedom of choice responsibility implies. We do not take recovery for granted.

We take responsibility for our recovery by working the Twelve Steps with a sponsor. We go to meetings regularly and share with the newcomer what was freely given to us: the gift of recovery. We become involved with our home group and accept responsibility for our part in sharing recovery with the still-suffering addict. As we learn how to effectively practice spiritual principles in all areas of our lives, the quality of our lives improves.

Just for today: Using the spiritual tools I've gained in recovery, I am willing and able to make responsible choices.

Twenty-Four Hours A Day #essentialsofrecovery

A.A. Thought For The Day

I have turned to a Power greater than myself. Thank God, I am no longer at the center of the universe. All the world does not revolve around me any longer. I am only one among many. I have a Father in Heaven and I am only one of His children and a small one at that. But I can depend on Him to show me what to do and to give me the strength to do it. I am on the Way and the whole power of the universe is behind me when I do the right thing. I do not have to depend entirely on myself any longer. With God, I can face anything. Is my life in the hands of God?

Meditation For The Day

The grace of God is an assurance against all evil. It holds out security to the believing soul. The grace of God means safety in the midst of evil. You can be kept unspotted by the world through the power of His grace. You can have a new life of power. But only in close contact with the grace of God is its power realized. In order to realize it and benefit from it, you must have daily quiet communion with God, so that the power of His grace will come unhindered into your soul.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may be kept from evil by the grace of God. I pray that henceforth I will try to keep myself more unspotted by the world.

As Bill Sees It #essentialsofrecovery

Praying Rightly, p.295

We thought we had been deeply serious about religious practices. However, upon honest appraisal we found that we had been most superficial. Or sometimes, going to extremes, we had wallowed in emotionalism and had also mistaken this for true religious feeling. In both cases, we had been asking something for nothing.

We had not prayed rightly. We had always said, “Grant me my wishes,” instead of “Thy will be done.” The love of God and man we understood not at all. Therefore, we remained self-deceived, and so incapable of receiving enough grace to restore us to sanity.
12 & 12, p. 32

Walk In Dry Places #essentialsofrecovery

Light for Dark corners
Honesty

Newspaper writers know that there’s usually a future story in the “dark side” of any person who is being lavishly praised in the media. That’s because almost every person has a “dark side” or secrets that are carefully guarded.

We should look for such dark corners in our own lives. Most of us are not public figures fearing exposure, but recovering people seeking to stay sober and healthy.

We can begin to illuminate our dark corners by discussing our secrets with others. This does not necessarily eliminate whatever shortcoming is involved, but our honesty is a step in the right direction.

False pride may also play a part in keeping dark secrets from others, causing fear that others might see us as we really are. Thus, learning to confront and confess our dark sides can lead to victory over both fear and pride.
I’ll strive today to be honest about any weaknesses or wrongs that I’ve been concealing. Under the light of such honesty, my dark secrets can be transformed

Keep It Simple #essentialsofrecovery

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all.

—Oliver Wendell Homes

Lying, above anything else, brings us close to getting crazy again. Lying is what addicts do. In our addiction, our whole life was a lie.

Lying creates danger because it creates secrets. Secrets keep us from others. To stay sober, we need to stay close to people. We can’t make it on our own.

Lying creates danger because it creates shame. A lie, like a drink, may make us feel good for the moment. But in the long run, it creates shame.

Do we still lie to deal with the world? Lies are like drinks—one leads to another.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to live today free of lies.

Action for the Day: For the next twenty-four hours, I will tell no lies. If I do I’ll go back and do Step Ten. I will remember that lies can lead to relapse.

Father Leo’s Daily Meditation #essentialsofrecovery

CYNICS

“A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.”

— H. L. Mencken

There was a time when I always felt that life was out to get me. I always looked on the “black” side of life. I was forever being negative and pessimistic I would always be surrounded by sick and destructive human beings. Whenever people offered hope or tried to help me, I turned away and rejected them. For years I created the pain and misery in my life.

Then a close friend forced himself into my life and gave me a dose of “tough love”. He made me see that I was wallowing in self-pity. He cared enough to intervene and tell me what I did not want to hear.

Today I have some years of recovery from alcoholism and I carry the message.

I pray that I may always love myself and others enough to take a risk.

A Day At A Time #essentialsofrecovery

Reflection For The Day

So many of us in The Program went through childhood — as well as part of our adult lives — emotionally shackled with the terrible burden called shyness. We found it difficult to walk into crowded rooms, to converse with even our friends, to make eye contact with anyone. The agonies we suffered! We learn in The Program that shyness is just another manifestation of self-centered fear, which is the root of all our character defects. Shyness, specifically, is fear of what others think or might think about us. To our enormous relief, our shyness gradually leaves us as we work The Program and interact with others. Am I aware that I’m okay as long as I don’t concentrate on me?

Today I Pray

God, may I be grateful that I am getting over my shyness, after years of pulling back from people, squirming, blushing, blurting out all the “wrong things” or blurting out all the sayings nothing at all — then reliving the agonies and imagining what I should have said and done. May I know that it has taken a full-blown addiction and a lot of caring people to convince me that I’m Okay — and you’re Okay, he’s Okay, and so is she.

Today I Will Remember

A cure for shyness is caring about someone else.

ONE DAY AT A TIME #essentialsofrecovery

FEAR

“Fear is not created by the world around us,
but in the mind, by what we think is going to happen.”

~ Elizabeth Gawain ~

There are different kinds of fear. Certain fears are good, because they help preserve our lives. Babies, for example, have a fear of falling. It just seems to be a natural instinct. Any fear that protects us from harming ourselves is a good fear.

However, when fear becomes an obsession, it is getting out of hand. Why do we go looking for trouble? There is a saying, “Don’t let clouds of fear of the morrow hide today’s sunshine.” We can get so anxious about what’s going to happen in the future that we don’t enjoy living today.

Life is a precious gift to be lived one day at a time, and is to be shared with others.

One Day at a Time . . .

This is how I will live my life: One day at a time, one moment at a time, sharing my precious gift with another through Twelve Step giving.

~ Lizzie ~

Elder’s Meditation of the Day #essentialsofrecovery

“We create that bad among ourselves.
We create it; then we try to call it devil, satan, or evil.
But man creates it. There is no devil. Man creates the devil.”

–Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA

Inside every human being are the laws and codes by which we should live. These laws and codes are communicated to us through a little voice. When we are still, this voice guides us.

If we choose to live out of harmony, our lives become filled with anger, hate, selfishness, dishonesty, etc… When these things appear in our lives, we give up accountability and blame it on something or someone else.

If we want to live in harmony, we need to pray our way back to living the principles the Creator gave us.

Grandfather, today let me walk with the principles.

Today’s Gift #essentialsofrecovery

The evolution of human growth is an evolution from an absolute need to be loved towards a full readiness to give love.

— Dr. Karl Stern

As children, we looked to our parents for love, for clothes and food, for an indication of who we were. If our needs were met, we felt secure. As developing adults, we still seek love. We continue yearning for security and all too often our self-definition comes through someone else. But a healthy sign of our growth is revealed each time we extend love to another with no thought that love is owed us in return.

We can show our love in myriad ways – a genuine smile, a note of appreciation, an unexpected favor, perhaps flowers, or a phone call. Warmly giving another attention in any form is an act of love, one that will be repaid in full by someone, at some time.

The ease with which we genuinely love others is directly proportional to our commitment to loving as a priority in our lives. To love is a decision first, an action second, a value next.

From the book:

Worthy of Love by Karen Casey

The Eye Opener #essentialsofrecovery

Resolutions, like clay pigeons, are made to be broken. They are nearly always made in sincerity, but the very act of making a resolution is a confession on the part of the maker of his inability to keep it otherwise. As resolutions are contrary to the subconscious wishes of the maker, they are almost surely doomed from the start.

If a person really wanted what he resolved, he would do it without the resolution, for we are prone to do those things that we really want to do.

Copy Hazelden Foundation

Daily Tao / 297 – Core #essentialsofrecovery

What is the difference between a monk and a husband?
What is the difference between a priest and layperson?
I accept that this world is terrible and full of suffering.
And I also enjoy happiness when it comes to me.
As long as I am with Tao, distinctions are superfluous.

A spiritual initiate should not feel smug. They have no greater chance of enlightenment than ordinary people. An ordinary person shouldn’t look down on the holy aspirant; everyday life is so full of distractions that finding spirituality is not easy. Frankly, neither being a religious initiate nor being a layperson is the deciding factor in whether a person finds Tao or not. Identities only get in the way.

I do not need to pretend that I am anyone other than myself. I do not need to feel insecure about my perceptions. The self-cultivation that I undertake is to perfect who I am, not to become someone other than who I am.

I pursue the spiritual because it gives me tremendous satisfaction. I do not pursue it because of threats of hell, ignorance, or suffering.

Life has its sad and happy moments. I accept them all. Life has its times of dispassion and utter serenity. Those are the moments that I seek. They give me my path through the myriad phenomena of this existence. I do not compare myself to ascetics and priests. Let them have their lives. I enjoy mine.

Daily Zen

Enlightenment is a way of saying that all things are seen in their intrinsic empty nature, their Suchness, their ungraspable wonder. Names or words are merely incidental, but that state which sees no division, no duality, is enlightenment.

-Prajnaparamita