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.

Sunday, 20 June 2021

Pearl N - Recovery Speaker

Daily Dose OF Emmet Fox

‘Your destiny depends entirely upon your own mental conduct.

It is the thoughts that you allow yourself to

dwell upon all day long that make your mentality what it is, and your circumstances are made by your mentality’ . ~ Emmet Fox

Daily Reflections

RELEASE FROM FEAR

The problem of resolving fear has two aspects. We shall have to try for all the freedom from fear that is possible for us to attain. Then we shall need to find both the courage and grace to deal constructively with whatever fears remain.

-AS BILL SEES IT, p. 61

Most of my decisions were based on fear. Alcohol made life easier to face, but the time came when alcohol was no longer an alternative to fear. One of the greatest gifts in A.A. for me has been the courage to take action, which I can do with God’s help. After five years of sobriety I had to deal with a heavy dose of fear. God put the people in my life to help me do that and, through my working the Twelve Steps, I am becoming the whole person I wish to be and, for that, I am deeply grateful.

Just for today

Meditation for beginners

“For some, prayer is asking for God’s help; meditation is listening for God’s answer.... Quieting the mind through meditation brings an inner peace that brings us into contact with the God within us.

Basic Text, pp. 46-47

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“Be patient when you’re learning to meditate,” many of us were told. “It takes practice to know what to ‘listen’ for.”

We’re glad someone told us that, or many of us would have quit after a week or two of meditating. For the first few weeks, we may have sat each morning, stilled our thoughts, and “listened,” just as the Basic Text said—but “heard” nothing. It may have taken a few more weeks before anything really happened. Even then, what happened was often barely noticeable. We were rising from our morning meditations feeling just a little better about our lives, a little more empathy for those we encountered during the day, and a little more in touch with our Higher Power.

For most of us, there was nothing dramatic in that awareness—no bolts of lightning or claps of thunder. Instead, it was something quietly powerful. We were taking time to get our egos and our ideas out of the way. In that clear space, we were improving our conscious contact with the source of our daily recovery, the God of our understanding. Meditation was new, and it took time and practice. But, like all the steps, it worked—when we worked it.

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Just for today: I will practice “listening” for knowledge of God’s will for me, even if I don’t know what to “listen” for yet.

Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

You should be ready and willing to carry the A.A. message when called upon to do so. Live for some purpose greater than yourself. Each day you will have something to work for. You have received so much from this program that you should have a vision that gives your life a direction and a purpose that gives meaning to each new day. Let us not slide along through life. Let us have a purpose for each day and let us make that purpose for something greater than just ourselves. What is my purpose for today?

Meditation For The Day

To see God with eyes of faith is to cause God’s power to manifest itself in the material world. God cannot do His work because of unbelief. In response to your belief, God can work a miracle in your personality. All miracles happen in the realm of personality and all are caused by and based on belief in God’s never-failing power. But God’s power cannot manifest itself in personalities unless those personalities make His power available by their faith. We can only see God with the eyes of faith, but this kind of seeing produces a great change in our way of living.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may see God with the eyes of faith. I pray that this seeing will produce a change in my personality.

As Bill Sees It

Dividends and Mysteries, p. 171

“The A.A. preoccupation with sobriety is sometimes misunderstood. To some, this single virtue appears to be the sole dividend of our Fellowship. We are thought to be dried-up drunks who otherwise have changed little, or not at all, for the better. Such a surmise widely misses the truth. We know that permanent sobriety can be attained only by a most revolutionary change in the life and outlook of the individual–by a spiritual awakening that can banish the desire to drink.”

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“You are asking yourself, as all of us must: ‘Who am I?’ ‘Where am I?’ ‘Whence do I go?’ The process of enlightenment is usually slow. But, in the end, our seeking always brings a finding. These great mysteries are, after all, enshrined in complete simplicity. The willingness to grow is the essence of all spiritual development.”

1. Letter, 1966
2. Letter, 1955

Keep It Simple

Order is heaven’s first law. -Alexander Pope

We need order in our lives. It makes life simpler for us. Life without order would be like driving in a large city without traffic signals. Our lives as addicts were like this. We lived with no plan, no order.

Now that we’re sober, we can put some order in our lives. We can get up every morning. We can make our beds and be on time for work. These things make life so much easier and nicer. we need this order. It allows us to depend on ourselves.

We now look at the Twelve Steps to bring order to our lives. The Steps follow each other as summer follows spring. Do I allow myself to follow the natural order or do I fight it?

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, You’ve put order in this world. Please put order in my life. Let me flow within this order instead of being on my own.

Action for the Day: The Twelve Steps have a natural order. Today I’ll take time to read each Step and think about the order found in them.

Father Leo’s Daily Meditation

THOUGHT

“Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought are commonly the most valuable.”

–Francis Bacon

My mind sometimes races with ideas: What should I do? What should I write? Where should I go? Phrases that could prove useful in an article. People I need to get in contact with, etc., etc. Many of these ideas come late at night and so today I have a note pad and a pencil at the side of my bed so that I can write down the thought and then go back to sleep.

I am not God. I know that if I say I will remember the thought tomorrow, it would be unrealistic. As an imperfect human being I take any help I can get. The pad at the side of the bed is invaluable!

Let me employ discipline as an aid to joyful and creative living.

A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

When we take the Ninth Step, we must be willing to be absolutely honest. Obviously, though, indiscriminate “absolute honesty” would blow the roof off many a house and entirely destroy some relationships. We must hold nothing back through deceit and pride; we may need to hold something back by discretion and consideration of others. Just when and how we tell the truth — or keep silent — can often reveal the difference between genuine integrity and none at all. Am I grateful for the products of truth which, through the grace of God, I have been privileged to receive?

Today I Pray

May I have the wisdom to know the fine-line difference between tact and dishonesty. In my eagerness to make restitution, may I not be the charmer, the flatterer or the crawler who insists, “You’re so good, and I’m so bad.” All are forms of dishonesty and hark back to the role-playing days of my active addiction. May I recognize them.

Today I Will Remember

Tact is honest selectivity.

One Day At A Time

STRUGGLE

“Our way is not soft grass, it’s a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upward, forward,toward the sun.”

–Ruth Westheimer

I’ve been in a Twelve Step program for a while now. When I look back, I sometimes think how easy the journey has been to find the peace, serenity and love I’ve been given — thanks to the program. I brought a lot of denial with me when I joined the program, and apparently I’m still in some denial. I’m so grateful to be where I am today that I have forgotten the struggles I’ve faced to get here.

No wonder some newcomers look at longtimers and think they’ll never be able to get there! When I stretch my memory, I remember running headlong into the Fourth Step and thinking it the scariest thing I’d ever faced in my life. I know that first one was traumatic–holding my pencil to do it, getting the first page down, and admitting so many things that had been shaming me for decades. I usually don’t think about that today. Now I know firsthand the cleansing of a good Fourth Step and I look forward to them as I peel the onion and find more defects.

When I look back over my journey, I can remember sitting in an emergency room using the slogan “One Day at a Time” for the first time. I changed “one day” to “five minutes” because it was all I could handle. But it got me through that day and the next two days. A few years ago I read that the slogans are the handrails to the Steps. I wish I’d known that before. For me to use that slogan when I did was an act of faith ~ and at the time my faith was shaky. After having proved to my satisfaction that there is a Higher Power out there who wants the best for me, I have faith now. Maybe this is why I look back on my journey and have a hard time finding the struggles. Maybe it’s my new attitude of gratitude that keeps me looking to the positive rather than the negative. Whatever the reason, I’d like to say that
I struggled in the program, but it was worth it.

One day at a time …

I will remember to turn to the program to help maintain my peace and serenity,especially through the bad times.

~ Rhonda

Elder’s Meditation of the Day

“But in the Indian Spirit the land is still vested; it will be until other men are able to divine and meet its rhythm. Men must be born and reborn to belong. Their bodies must be formed of the dust of their forefathers’ bones.”

–Luther Standing Bear, OGLALA SIOUX

It is said when we walk on the Earth, we are walking on our ancestors and our unborn children. This is the relationship Native People have with the Earth. It is this relationship which gives insight into the Earth’s rhythm and heartbeat and creates the feeling of belonging. If you feel you belong to something, you’ll treat it with respect. If you feel you are above something, you’ll treat it with disrespect. Indian Spirituality is tied to the Earth. We belong to the Earth along with all other creatures on the Earth. We must align to this realization.

Great Spirit, today, teach me to respect the Earth Mother.

Today’s Gift

The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not to try to do or be anything whatsoever.

—May Sarton

A whole world can be seen through even the smallest window. Knowing this can help us slow down and enjoy everyday events. We can listen to the regular rhythms of letter carriers and school children, dogs and delivery trucks, city buses and song birds playing out a piece of their daily lives outside the window.

We can greet the letter carrier who comes up the walk, feed the robin who lands on the sill, wave to the kids who’ve found a shortcut through our backyards on their way home from school.

It is not necessary, today, for us to fill our lives with important meetings, gala parties, expensive treats, toys, or outings to be happy. There is a whole world to be discovered just outside the nearest window.

What worlds lie on the other side of my window today?

The Eye Opener

Centuries ago a man learned to ignite wood artificially. No one in the world today knows his name, but all modern inventions are directly or indirectly traceable to his act. What his name is doesn’t matter, but every skyscraper in the world is his monument. His name perished as all names are apt to do, but his almost juvenile act of starting fire by friction will live as long as civilization does.

A single word you utter might kindle a fire that would burn through the ages.

Hazelden Foundation

Daily Tao / 171 -ALTAR

Each day I forge my body into steel

And fold in bright strands of consciousness.

Piling up ripe fruit and fragrant flowers,

Lighting red candles and incense,

Serving tea, rice, and wine.

Anointing with aromatic oils,

Offering heart and bones,

The altar is my anvil, sun and moon the coals,

Discipline the hammer, lungs the bellows.

Followers of Tao have private altars in their homes. The pious see an altar only for supplication; the skeptical see the altar as false and insincere. Actually, devotional effort is absolutely necessary for those beginning on the path.

True spiritual cultivation begins with the premise that you already have a pure spirit and only need to clear away obfuscations. Thus one must work on both the physical and mental levels in order to achieve the quickest results. Such varied efforts need a strong center. By focusing on the altar as the platform for all practices, you will keep yourself strongly on your path. The outward acts then pile up like offerings after offerings, and the outward votive furniture becomes your means of memorializing your efforts. Then your body itself becomes a steel altar, an unshakable monument to spiritual devotion.

Daily Zen

Bad Habits

In the root and stem of your own psyche there is an accumulation of bad habits, If you cannot see through them and act independently of them, you will unavoidably get bogged down along the way.

Zen Master Yuansou

Walk In Dry Places

Sunday, 20 June 2021