Essentials Of Recovery : June 2025

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.

Wednesday, 4 June 2025

Big Book -Alcoholics Anonymous- ON THE MOVE - p. 488

– Working the A.A. program showed this alcoholic how to get from geographics to gratitude. I began the process of speeding up the day when life would end. My doctor has six or seven suicide attempts on my medical records. Most were pitiful efforts to reach out for help, although I didn’t see it at the time. My last such attempt was very public and demonstrated that I had lost touch with reality and with any sense of what my actions could do to others. Big Book -Alcoholics Anonymous- ON THE MOVE - p. 488

Daily Dose OF Emmet Fox

As for the actual method of working, like all fundamental things, it is simplicity itself. All you have to do is this: Stop thinking about the difficulty, whatever it is, and think about God instead. This is the complete rule, and if only you will do this, the trouble, whatever it is, will disappear. It makes no difference what kind of trouble it is. It may be a big thing or a little thing: it may concern health, finance, a lawsuit, a quarrel, an accident, or anything else conceivable: but whatever it is, stop thinking about it and think of God instead -- that is all you have to do.

Daily Reflections

LETTING GO OF OUR OLD SELVES

Carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last. . . . Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable?

-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pp. 75, 76

The Sixth Step is the last “preparation” Step. Although I have already used prayer extensively, I have made no formal request of my Higher Power in the first Six Steps. I have identified my problem, come to believe that there is a solution, made a decision to seek this solution, and have “cleaned house.” I now ask: Am I willing to live a life of sobriety, of change, to let go of my old self? I must determine if I am truly ready to change. I review what I have done and become willing for God to remove all my defects of character; for in the next Step, I will tell my Creator I am willing and will ask for help. If I have been thorough in the preparation of my foundation and feel that I am willing to change, I am then ready to continue with the next Step. “If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing.”

(Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 76)

Just For Today

Build, don’t destroy

“Our negative sense of self has been replaced by a positive concern for others.”
Basic Text, p. 16

––––=––––

Spreading gossip feeds a dark hunger in us. Sometimes we think the only way we can feel good about ourselves is to make someone else look bad by comparison. But the kind of self-esteem that can be purchased at another’s expense is hollow and not worth the price.

How, then, do we deal with our negative sense of self? Simple. We replace it with a positive concern for others. Rather than dwell on our low self-esteem, we turn to those around us and seek to be of service to them.

This may seem to be a way of avoiding the issue, but it’s not. There’s nothing we can do by dwelling on our low sense of self except work ourselves into a stew of self-pity. But by replacing our self-pity with active, loving concern for others, we become the kind of people we can respect.

The way to build our self-esteem is not to tear others down, but to build them up through love and positive concern. To help us with this, we can ask ourselves if we are contributing to the problem or to the solution. Today, we can choose to build instead of destroy.

––––=––––

Just for today: Though I may be feeling low, I don’t need to tear someone down to build myself up. Today, I will replace my negative sense of self with a positive concern for others. I will build, not destroy.

Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

Some things I like since becoming dry: feeling good in the morning; full use of my intelligence; joy in my work; the love and trust of my children; lack of remorse; the confidence of my friends; the prospect of a happy future; the appreciation of the beauties of nature; knowing what it is all about. I’m sure that I like these things, am I not?

Meditation For The Day

Molding your life means cutting and shaping your material into something good, something that can express the spiritual. All material things are the clay out of which we mold something spiritual. You must first recognize the selfishness in your desires and motives, actions and words, and then mold that selfishness until it is sublimated into a spiritual weapon for good. As the work of molding proceeds, you see more and more clearly what must be done to mold your life into something better.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may mold my life into something useful and good. I pray that I may not be discouraged by the slow progress that I make.

As Bill Sees It

Boomerang, p. 185

When I was ten, I was tall and gawky, and smaller kids could push me around in quarrels. I remember being very depressed for a year or more, and then I began to develop fierce resolve to win.

One day, my grandfather came along with a book about Australia and told me, “This books says that nobody but an Australian bushman knows how to make and throw a boomerang.”

“Here’s my chance,” I thought. “I will be the first man in America to make and throw a boomerang.” Well, any kid could have a notion like that. It might have lasted two days or two weeks. But mine was a power drive that kept on for six months, till I made a boomerang that swung around the church yard in front of the house and almost hit my grandfather in the head when it came back.

Emotionally, I had begun the fashioning of another sort of boomerang, one that almost killed me later on.

Walk in Dry Places

Needing to receive credit

Humility

“Is it wrong to want credit for the good things I do?” a person asked at a 12 Step meeting.

“Why do people say my ego is showing just because I feel I should get proper credit?”

We should, indeed, receive the right amount of praise and recognition for the good things we do. We have to remember, however, that we’re trying to get this from human beings… many of whom are poorly informed or indifferent. Whatever credit we receive will be influenced by others perceptions. Sometimes we will be praised too lavishly: at other times, insufficiently.

But the real question is not whether others give us the right amount of praise or credit. The question we should really ask is why we need such recognition. If we are doing a good thing or have made progress, isn’t that sufficient reward? What can receiving credit do for us that we do not already have?

I’ll take as my guide today the belief that right action is its own reward. I do not need credit or recognition from others, although I’ll appreciate it if it comes.

Keep It Simple

We cannot solve life’s problems except by solving them.
-M. Scott Peck

Before getting into the program, we ran from problems at all costs. As time went on, we had more problems. As our problems grew, we became afraid of life.

The program–the Twelve Steps–teaches us how to face and solve our problem. We stop running and stand up to problems. That way, life’s problems scare us less and less over time.

In fact, life’s problems help us better know our Higher Power and ourselves. We now know our Higher Power is with us every step of the way.

Prayer for the Day: I pray for the courage to stand and face life’s problems. I pray for the wisdom to ask my Higher Power for help.

Action for the Day: Today, I’ll list all problems I now have. I will talk about them with friends and with my Higher Power. I will make plans to solve them (sometimes solving problems means accepting them).

Father Leo’s Daily Meditation

PROFIT

“What is a man to profit if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
–Jesus (Mt. 16:26)

Spirituality brings with it a sense of priority in my life: first things first. Unless I discover me and have a love and respect for me, I have nothing to offer in this world. I am the center of my universe and through my life God is radiated. I am a part of God’s creative plan and the pleasures of this world must be seen as secondary to my developing a right relationship with God.

My disease of obsession and compulsion wants me to place other things at the center of my life: food, alcohol, drugs, people, money, success, achievement and ego.

My spiritual program reminds me that my love of self is shown in my refusal of the first drink. If I am healthy, I can have the world; without me, I can have nothing!

Let me find Your Kingdom that is within.

A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

It’s time for me to start being responsible for my own actions. It’s time for me to be willing to take some chances. If my new life in The Program is valid and right, as I truly believe, then surely it can stand the test of exposure to real-life situations and problems. So I won’t be afraid to be human and, if necessary, to sometimes fall on my face in the process of living. Living is what The Program is all about. And living entails sharing, accepting, giving — interacting with other people. Now is the time for me to put my faith into action. Have I begun to practice what I preach by putting my new thoughts and ideas into action?

Today I Pray

May The Program, with God’s help, give me a chance to live a steady, creative, outreaching life, so that I may share with others what has been given to me. May I realize on this Declaration of Independence Day that I, too, have a celebration of freedom — freedom from my addiction.

Today I Will Remember

To celebrate my personal freedom.

One Day At A Time

FOURTH STEP SECRETS

“These are weighty secrets and we must whisper them.”

–Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (Susan Coolidge)

When I came to the Recovery Group, I was wearing the pain of a lifetime of well-kept secrets – secrets about a childhood of poverty and secrets about a difficult marriage. No one ever saw my secret pain; I never shared it with anyone. But all could see the effects of the food I used as a coping mechanism.

Because of my willingness “to do whatever it takes,” I shared these secrets with the person who took my 5th step. I later shared it with my sponsor and some of them later with a sponsee during her 5th step. Sharing this pain the first two times was like the bursting of a painful abscess, with poison being released. The poison that kept me living in resentful, negative thinking has been gradually replaced with gratitude for what I had and now have, and with the ability to experience joy in my many, many blessings.

One day at a time …

I will experience gratitude for the gifts I was given in my 4th and 5th steps and for the gifts of this program.

~ Karen A.

Elder’s Meditation of the Day

“Wakan Tanka never stops creating.”

–Archie Fire Lame Deer, LAKOTA

The Medicine Wheel teaches about change. It says that which is created will fall apart; that which is loose, will be used to create new. In other words, everything on Earth is participating in a constant change that is being directed by an order of laws and principles which were originated by the Great Spirit. We humans are equipped with natural change abilities. We have the ability to vision; we can use imagination and imagery; we can change belief, attitude, habits, and expectations. We need to know ourselves and we need to know how we work inside to enable us to change naturally.

Great Spirit, teach me to change in harmony.

Today’s Gift

“Oh, ’tis love, ’tis love, that makes the world go round! Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “that it’s done by everybody minding their own business. Ah well! It means much the same thing.”

—Lewis Carroll

No one helps a caterpillar become a butterfly. First it must crawl through the leaves as a many-legged creature, and then it weaves its own cocoon. Nature does its slow, daily work inside the cocoon and one day a butterfly emerges – and each butterfly is a different shape and color. No other creature can step in and speed up this process without hurting the butterfly.

Sometimes we humans confuse love with playing the part of God. We think we can speed up the natural growth of people around us. We interfere by telling them to do what we think best.

Sometimes the greatest love we can offer is to accept our loved ones the way they are. We need to remember that each caterpillar weaves a cocoon in its own time and becomes a butterfly in its own way. The wisdom of the universe is greater than our own.

How will I show my acceptance of others today?

The Eye Opener

A split second separates the past, the present and the future. The course of history has been altered in a moment of decision on the part of one man. Inventions that have revolutionized our mode of living may have taken years to perfect, but the idea behind them was born in a flash of thought between the ticks of a clock.

In that great day when you determined that you had had enough, that you were whipped, the resolve took but a fraction of a second. But in that instant, you closed your past and opened your future.

A moment of thoughtlessness can put you back in the past again.

Hazelden Foundation

Daily Tao /155 - ENJOYMENT

Sleek sky of cobalt blue;
Water like nectar satisfies deeply.
Air sweeter than the best perfume;
Sunlight warms a grateful cat.

It is hard to believe life is all for naught. Can't we take happiness when it comes?
There is admittedly a great deal of suffering and horror in this world. But if we are to accept life's sad parts, we must also embrace its good parts. As long as we are in this world, we must accept it all. If what comes our way is occasionally wonderful, no one should deny our enjoyment. We all know that every rise is followed by a fall. Why dwell only on dread of the future? As long as we have behaved responsibly, there is nothing wrong with enjoying the best of what life has to offer.

Look at a cat as she stretches out contentedly in the sun. There is no thought of the next moment, only the sheer enjoyment of the present. Rest assured that she will still be able to clean herself, still be able to catch mice, and still be able to do all the things that a cat must do. But she is without anxieties, and so she is purely and totally who she should be. She acts as if she were nature's favorite. And who is to say otherwise?

Daily Zen

Anger is the real destroyer of our good human qualities; an enemy with a weapon cannot destroy these qualities, but anger can.

Anger is our real enemy.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Tuesday, 3 June 2025

- June 03 Big Book -The Vicious Cycle - pages. 225-226

How it finally broke a Southerner’s obstinacy and destined this salesman to start A.A. at Philadelphia. The mental state of the sick alcoholic is beyond description. I had no resentments against individuals–the whole world was all wrong. My thoughts went round and round with, What’s it all about anyhow? People have wars and kill each other; they struggle and cut each other’s throats for success, and what does anyone get out of it? Haven’t I been successful, haven’t I accomplished extraordinary things in business? What do I get out of it? Everything’s all wrong and the hell with it. For the last two years of my drinking, I prayed during every drunk that I wouldn’t wake up again. Three months before I met Jackie, I had made my second feeble try at suicide. Alcoholics Anonymous - Big Book -The Vicious Cycle - pages. 225-226

Seven Laws By Emmet Fox - June 03

7. The Law of Forgiveness

It is an unbreakable mental law that you have to forgive others if you want to demonstrate over your difficulties and to make any real spiritual progress. The vital importance of forgiveness may not be obvious at first sight, but you may be sure that it is not by mere chance that every spiritual teacher from Jesus Christ downward has insisted so strongly upon it. You must forgive injuries, not just in words, or as a matter of form; but sincerely, in your heart -- and that is the long and the short of it. You do this, not for the other person's sake, but for your own sake. It will make no difference to him (unless he happens to set a value upon your forgiveness), but it will make a tremendous difference to you. Resentment, condemnation, anger, desire to see someone punished are things that rot your soul, no matter how cleverly you may be disguising them. Such things, because they have a much stronger emotional content than anyone suspects, fasten your troubles to you with rivets. They fetter you to many other problems which actually have nothing whatever to do with the original grievances themselves.

Daily Reflections - June 03

ON A WING AND A PRAYER

… we then look at Step Six. We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable.

-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 76

Steps Four and Five were difficult, but worthwhile. Now I was stuck on Step Six and, in despair, I picked up the Big Book and read this passage. I was outside, praying for willingness, when I raised my eyes and saw a huge bird rising in the sky. I watched it suddenly give itself up to the powerful air currents of the mountains. Swept along, swooping and soaring, the bird did things seemingly impossible for mortal birds to do. It was an inspiring example of a fellow creature “letting go” to a power greater than itself. I realized that if the bird “took back his will” and tried to fly with less trust, on its power alone, it would spoil its apparent free flight. That insight granted me the willingness to pray the Seventh Step prayer.

It’s not easy to know God’s will in each circumstance. I must search out and be ready for the currents, and that’s where prayer and meditation help! Because I am, of myself, nothing, I ask God to grant me the knowledge of His will and the power and courage to carry it out – today.

Just For Today - June 03

Direct and indirect amends

“We make our amends to the best of our ability.”

Basic Text, p. 40

––––=––––

The Ninth Step tells us to make direct amends wherever possible. Our experience tells us to follow up those direct amends with long-lasting changes in our attitudes and our behavior—that is, with indirect amends.

For example, say we’ve broken someone’s window because we were angry. Looking soulfully into the eyes of the person whose window we’ve broken and apologizing would not be sufficient. We directly amend the wrong we’ve done by admitting it and replacing the window—we mend what we have damaged.

Then, we follow up our direct amends with indirect amends. If we’ve acted out on our anger, breaking someone’s window, we examine the patterns of our behavior and our attitudes. After we repair the broken window, we seek to repair our broken attitudes as well—we try to “mend our ways.” We modify our behavior, and make a daily effort not to act out on our anger.

We make direct amends by repairing the damage we do. We make indirect amends by repairing the attitudes that cause us to do damage in the first place, helping insure we won’t cause further damage in the future.

––––=––––

Just for today: I will make direct amends, wherever possible. I will also make indirect amends, “mending my ways,” changing my attitudes, and altering my behavior.

Twenty-Four Hours A Day - June 03

A.A. Thought For The Day

Some more things I do not miss since becoming dry: running all over town to find a bar open to get that “pick-me-up”; meeting my friends and trying to cover up that I feel awful; looking at myself in a mirror and calling myself a dam* fool; struggling with myself to snap out of it for two or three days; wondering what it is all about. I’m positive I don’t miss these things, am I not?

Meditation For The Day

Love is the power that transforms your life. Try to love your family and your friends and then try to love everybody that you possibly can, even the “sinners and publicans” everybody. Love for God is an even greater thing. it is the result of gratitude to God and it is the acknowledgment of the blessing that God has sent you. Love for God acknowledges His gifts and leaves the way open for God to shower yet more blessings on your thankful heart. Say “Thank you, God,” until it becomes a habit.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may try to love God and all people. I pray that I may continually thank God for all His blessings.

As Bill Sees It - June 03

Relapses–and the Group, p. 154

An early fear was that of slips or relapses. At first nearly every alcoholic we approached began to slip, if indeed he sobered up at all. Others would stay dry six months or maybe a year and then take a skid. This was always a genuine catastrophe. We would all look at each other and say, “Who next?”

Today, though slips are a very serious difficulty, as a group we take them in stride. Fear has evaporated. Alcohol always threatens the individual, but we know that it cannot destroy the common welfare.

**************************************

“It does not seem to pay to argue with ‘slippers’ about the proper method of getting dry. After all, why should people who are drinking tell people who are dry how it should be done?

“Just kid the boys along–ask them if they are having fun. If they are too noisy or troublesome, amiably keep out of their way.”

1. A.A. Comes Of Age, p. 97

2. Letter, 1942

Walk in Dry Places - June 03

Self-help or Mutual Aid?

Assisting others.

The Twelve step movement is sometimes called a self-help program. This falls short of describing what it really is. Mutual Aid might be a better term.

Self-help implies that an individual will help himself or herself. Mutual aid is a much different sort of thing. With mutual aid, we do help ourselves, but we hve found that the best way to do this is by helping each other. Self-help says, “I can do it,” where as mutual aid says… “WE can do it.”

We should not dismiss the idea of self-help or of doing one’s best in achieving self-improvement. We must know, however, that we need the assistance and loving help of others for our highest growth. There are times when we will feel helpless and alone. That’s when mutal aid will carry the day for us and perhaps even save our lives.

I’ll realize today that I have a bond with others and that I can achieve my highest good only in mutual service with them.

Keep It Simple - June 03

When I have listened to my mistakes, I have grown.

-Hugh Prather

Everyone makes mistakes. We all know that. So why is it so hard to admit out own? We seem to think we have to be prefect. We have a hard time looking at our mistakes. But our mistakes can be very good teachers. Our Twelve Step program helps us learn and grow from our mistakes. In Step Four, half of our work is to think of our mistakes. In step Five, we admit our mistakes to God, ourselves, and another person. We learn, we grow and become whole. All by coming to know our mistakes The gift of recovery is not being free from mistakes. Instead, we do the Steps to claim our mistakes and talk about them. We find the gift of recovery when we learn from our mistakes.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to see my mistakes as changes to get to know myself better.

Action for the Day: Today I’ll talk to a friend about what my mistakes taught me. Today I’ll feel less shame.

Father Leo’s Daily Meditation - June 03

DREAMS

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

–Thomas Jefferson

I am an optimist. I believe that things are getting better day by day. Today I believe that what happened yesterday need not happen today or tomorrow. Dreams can come true. I know this to be true. Today I have dreams. Today I have a hope for my life and on a daily basis it is coming true. My life is becoming more meaningful. Today my dreams have coincided with God’s dream for me.

Now I love myself enough to speak out for me – and it feels good. Now my decision to embrace the spiritual life is not dependent upon others. Today I can dream to be me.

Help me to dream with my feet firmly on the ground.

A Day At A Time - June 03

Reflection For The Day

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise, “wrote Thomas Merton, “we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” As I replace my self-destructive addictions, with a healthy dependence on The Program and its Twelve Steps, I’m finding that the barriers of silence and hatred are melting away. By accepting each other as we are, we have learned again to love. Do I care enough about others in The Program to continue working with them as long as necessary?

Today I Pray

May I be selfless enough to love people as they are, not as I want them to be, as they mirror my image or feed my ego. May I slow down in my eagerness to love — now that I am capable of feeling love again — and ask myself if I really love someone or only that someone’s idea of me. May I remove the “self” from my loving.

Today I Will Remember

Love is unconditional.

One Day At A Time - June 03

EXPERIENCE, STRENGTH AND HOPE

“Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.”

–Aldous Huxley

Every day is filled with experiences. I can choose to let them pass me by, or I can allow myself to learn lessons from them. It is easy to let the day pass by quickly and virtually unlived. If I refuse to stay in the present moment and choose rather to be filled with resentment, stuck in the past, filled with fear, or stuck in the future, life truly does pass me by. My experience truly has no value. But if I choose to learn lessons, stay in the present moment, and remain connected to my Higher Power, my day becomes experience, strength and hope.

Since coming to the program I have learned that I can share my experience, strength and hope in so many ways. A call to or from an OA friend gives me an opportunity to give and receive experience, strength and hope. I hear experience, strength and hope shared daily as I attend meetings. People share not only what has happened to them, but the great lessons that they have allowed their Higher Power to teach them. This is such an honor to be part of, an honor that I would not want to miss. I give and receive my experience, strength and hope on the loops where I share — and receive shares — on a daily basis. I am blessed to be a part of strong loops with great recovery and sharing. My sponsors frequently share their experience, strength and hope with me. I am privileged to have two sponsors with quality recovery who are members of The Recovery Group. I am so grateful for their input in my life and recovery. They have been such an important part of my life lessons. Every source of experience, stren th and hope in my life gives me more encouragement to learn new lessons with every experience I have every day.

One day at a time …

I will find every opportunity to share my experience, strength and hope.
~ Carolyn H.

Elder’s Meditation of the Day - June 03

“IN THE BEGINNING were the Instructions… The Instruction was to live in a good way and be respectful to everybody and everything.”

–Vickie Downey, TEWA / Tesuque Pueblo

A long time ago, in the beginning, the Creator gave to all people and to all things the Wisdom and the knowledge of how to live in harmony. Some tribes call these teachings the original Instructions, the original teachings, or the Great Laws. All of Nature still lives and survives according to these teachings. In modern times, human beings are searching for the Instructions. Many churches claim they have these Instructions. Where are these teachings? The Instructions are written in our hearts.

Great Spirit, today, whisper to me the secrets of the original Instructions.

Today’s Gift - June 03

Men will find that they can prepare with mutual aid far more easily what they need and avoid far more easily the perils which beset them on all sides, by united forces.

—Baruch Spinoza

Three travelers stopped in a small town on their way to the city. They had tents to sleep in, but no food or money. They knocked on doors asking for a little food, but the people were poor, with little to eat and nothing to spare.

Cheerfully, they returned to their camp and built a fire. “What are you doing?” asked a bystander, “Building a fire with nothing to cook?”

“But we do have something to cook!” they said. “Our favorite dish, stone soup. We only need a pot.”

“I think I can find one,” said one of the bystanders, and she ran home to fetch it.

When she returned, the travelers filled the pot with water and placed two large stones in it. “This will be the finest soup we’ve ever made!” said the first traveler. “I agree,” said the second, “but don’t you think it would taste better with a cabbage in it?”

“I think I can find one,” said another bystander. And so it went the whole afternoon until, by evening, the travelers had a hearty, fragrant feast, which they shared with the hungry townspeople.

What can I do with help today, that I couldn’t do alone?

The Eye Opener - June 03

The harvest is great and the laborers are too few. Too often we get a new man, we work diligently on him, get him to a meeting or two and then another new man appears and we drop the first one and frequently never see him again.

This is not to imply that we are to carry him on our backs indefinitely, but we can utilize an occasional spare 10 minutes to call him on the phone. We can keep our eyes open for him at the meetings and, if he misses several in succession, we can look him up.

Remember you were the midwife at his rebirth in this new life, and you should not neglect him in his AA infancy.

Hazelden Foundation

Daily Tao / 154 - SHEATHS - June 03

Outside is form,

Inside is thought.

Deepest is the soul.

Traditional sages describe a human being as having three sheaths. The outer one is the physical body and incorporates primitive drives and instincts. The inner one is the mind and includes discrimination, reasoning, and sense of individuality.

Both the body and the mind are enslaved to the outer world because they gain their knowledge from sensory input. They cannot know anything "intangible," anything without a form or a name.

At the core of every person is the soul. This is a pure, virgin self. It does not think in the ordinary sense of the word, has no egotism, and is not concerned with maintaining itself in the world. Although the body has a shape and the mind is multi-faceted, the soul is completely without form or features. No markings, profiles, names, formulas, numbers, ideas, or conceptions can be projected upon it. It is pure, shapeless, and empty.

Any person with training can reach this soul. Only then can you be convinced of its presence. When you reach it, your body and mind will become irrelevant, for you are now in a state beyond the senses and beyond thought. The soul is called absolute because it is beyond all relativity.

Daily Zen June 03

Those who have spent ten or twenty years brushing aside the weeds looking for the way and yet have not see the Buddha nature often say they are trapped by oblivion and excitement. What they don't realize is that the substance of this very oblivion and excitement is itself Buddha nature.

- Kao-feng

Monday, 2 June 2025

Faye & John

12 Steps in Backwards

Everyone is always talking about the 12 Steps in A. A. Another way of thinking about it are the 12 Mis-Steps of A. A. Here they are:

1. Start missing meetings for any reason, real or imaginary.

2. Become critical of the methods used by other members who may not agree with you in everything.

3. Nurse the idea that someday, somehow, you can drink again and become a controlled drinker.

4. Let the other fellow do the 12th Step work in your group. You are too busy.

5. Become conscious of your A. A. seniority and view every new member with a skeptical, jaundiced eye.

6. Become so pleased with your own views of the program that you consider yourself an "elder statesman."

7. Start a small clique within your own group, composed only of a few members who see eye-to-eye with

you.

8. Tell the new member in confidence that you yourself do not take certain of the 12 Steps seriously.

9. Let your mind dwell more and more on how much you are helping others rather than on how much the A. A. program is helping you.

10. If an unfortunate member has a slip, drop him at once.

11. Cultivate the habit of borrowing money from other members; then stay away from meetings to avoid embarrassment.

12. Look upon the 24-hour plan as vital to new members, but not for yourself. YOU have outgrown the need of that long, long ago.

C. L.

Chicago, Illinois

The Grapevine - Vol. 3 No. 10

Daily Dose OF Emmet Fox - 2nd June

You must pray for yourself constantly. How could it be otherwise? We worship God by believing in Him, trusting Him, and loving Him wholeheartedly - and we can attain to that only through prayer. The sole object of our being here is that we may grow like Him - and we can do that only through prayer. The more we pray for ourselves the more power will our prayers have for any other purpose whatever; so praying for ourselves is the reverse of selfishness - it is truly glorifying God.

Emmet Fox

Daily Reflections - 2nd June

THE UPWARD PATH

Here are the steps we took.

-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 59

These are the words that lead into the Twelve Steps. In their direct simplicity they sweep aside all psychological and philosophical considerations about the rightness of the Steps. They describe what I did: I took the Steps and sobriety was the result. These words do not imply that I should walk the well-trodden path of those who went before, but rather that there is a way for me to become sober and that it is a way I shall have to find. It is a new path, one that leads to infinite light at the top of the mountain. The Steps advise me about the footholds that are safe and about chasms to avoid. They provide me with the tools I need during the many parts of the solitary journey of my soul. When I speak of this journey, I share my experience, strength and hope with others.

Just For Today - 2nd June

Sick and tired

“We wanted an easy way out.... When we did seek help, we were only looking for the absence of pain.”

Basic Text, p. 5

––––=––––

Something’s not working. In fact, something’s been wrong for a long time, causing us pain and complicating our lives. The problem is that, at any given moment, it always appears easier to continue bearing the pain of our defects than to submit to the total upheaval involved in changing the way we live. We may long to be free of pain, but only rarely are we willing to do what’s truly necessary to remove the source of pain from our lives.

Most of us didn’t begin seeking recovery from addiction until we were “sick and tired of being tired and sick.” The same is true of the lingering character defects we’ve carried through our lives. Only when we can’t bear our shortcomings one moment longer, only when we know that the pain of change can’t be as bad as the pain we’re in today, are most of us willing to try something different.

Thankfully, the steps are always there, no matter what we’re sick and tired of. The irony is that, as soon as we make the decision to begin the Twelve Step process, we realize our fears of change were groundless. The steps offer a gentle program of change, one step at a time. No single step is so frightening that we can’t work it, by itself. As we apply the steps to our lives, we experience a change that frees us.

––––=––––

Just for today: No matter what prevents me from living a full, happy life, I know the program can help me change, a step at a time. I need not be afraid of the Twelve Steps.

Twenty-Four Hours A Day - 2nd June

A.A. Thought For The Day

Some more things I do not miss since becoming dry: wondering if the car is in the garage and how I got home; struggling to remember where I was and what I did since my last conscious moment; trying to delay getting off to work, and wondering how I will look when I get there; dreading the day ahead of me. I’m quite sure that I don’t miss these things, am I not?

Meditation For The Day

You cannot believe in God and keep your selfish ways. The old self shrivels up and dies, and upon the reborn soul God’s image becomes stamped. The gradual elimination of selfishness in the growth of love for God and your fellow human beings is the goal of life. At first, you have only a faint likeness to the Divine, but the picture grows and takes on more and more of the likeness of God until those who see you can see in you some of the power of God’s grace at work in a human life.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may develop that faint likeness I have to the Divine. I pray that others may see in me some of the power of God’s grace at work.

As Bill Sees It - 2nd June

Without Anger, p. 153

Suppose A.A. falls under sharp public attack or heavy ridicule, having little or no justification in fact. Our best defense in these situations would be no defense whatever–namely, complete silence at the public level. If in good humor we let unreasonable critics alone, they are apt to subside more quickly. If their attacks persist and it is plain that they are misinformed, it may be wise to communicate with them privately in a temperate and informative way.

If, however, a given criticism of A.A. is partly or wholly justified, it may well be to acknowledge this privately to the critics, together with our thanks.

But under no conditions should we exhibit anger or any punitive intent.

<< << << >> >> >>

What we must recognize is that we exult in some of our defects. Self-righteousness anger can be very enjoyable. In a perverse way we can actually take satisfaction from the fact that many people annoy us; it brings a comfortable feeling of superiority.

1. Twelve Concepts, p. 69
2. 12 & 12, pp. 66-67

Walk in Dry Places - 2nd June

Why admitting we’re wrong is right
Right action

Sometimes it’s painful or almost impossible to admit that we’ve been wrong. This means we’ll probably go on making the same mistakes until we’re forced to face the truth. Why does this happen?

The problem lies with what we call the EGO in our Twelve step program discussions. We commit ourselves in defending this ego at all times, especially around people who seem to put us down. Far from being a minor correction, any admissions of wrong feels like total defeat, at least in our warped way of looking at things.

We can release ourselves from this bondage simply by coming to see that admitting and facing our wrongs is essential to growth. A store manager who overstocks a certain item “admits” the mistake by putting the goods on a clearance sale and getting rid of them. We can cut any loss in the same way by admitting a mistake and going on to a better course of action.

I’ll not plan to make any mistakes today, but I’ll hold myself in readiness to admit them if they occur. This is no threat to my ego. I am much more than my mistakes.

Keep It Simple - 2nd June

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of us want to be happy. We just don’t know how. We aren’t sure what happiness is. We’ve learned the hard way that some things we wanted didn’t make us happy. We’re learning that happiness comes when we live the way our Higher Power wants us to live. That’s when we’re honest. When we do our best work. When we are a true friend. We make happiness; we don’t find it. Sometimes we don’t even know we’re happy. We’re too busy with our work, our recovery program, our friends and family. We need to slow down and know that when we do what we need to, happiness comes.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me know that I’m most happy when I listen to You and do Your will. You know better than I do what makes me happy.

Action for the Day: What parts of my program am I most happy about? Today I’ll think of these and enjoy myself

Father Leo’s Daily Meditation - 2nd June

TIME

“Everything one does enough of eventually generates its own interest and one then begins to believe in it. ”
–Alan Dunn

I never thought that I could stay sober. For years I tried to abstain with no success. It was not the act of stopping that was different ( I could stop three times in one week!). It was staying stopped.

Then a man said, “Try stopping for twenty-four hours. If that proves too long, try stopping until the morning or for one hour or even for one minute . . . If the cravings gets too severe, call me but don’t take that first drink!” My abstinence began in periods of twenty-four hours. Life is made up of days and we live in periods of twenty-four hours, so I live a day at a time. I was successful. I am successful. Today I have a number of years that are based on the simplicity of “don’t drink today “. I believe in it. I believe in me. And it gets better.

Lord of time, thank you for giving me the simplicity of days, hours and minutes.

A Day at a Time - 2nd June

Reflection for the Day

In the process of learning to love myself and, in turn, to love others freely with no strings attached, I’ve begun to understand these words of St. Augustine: “Love slays what we have been, that we may be what we were not.” More and more, I feel this enormous power of such love in The Program; for me, the words, “we care,” also mean, “we love.”

Just for today, will I try to be loving in every thought and action?

Today I Pray

I pray that I may feel the enormity and the power of the love I find in The Program. May my own caring be added to that great energy of love which belongs to all of us. May I care with my whole heart that my fellow members maintain their sobriety and are learning to live with it comfortably and creatively. May I never doubt that they care the same way about me.

Today I Will Remember

Caring makes it happen.

Hazelden Foundation

One Day At A Time - 2nd June

STEP ONE

“Well begun is half done.”

–Aristotle

The first time I took step one I knew that I was beat. Because I knew that I was beat, I knew I had to have help to survive. I sought and accepted that help in OA. I put the program into action. I completed the twelve steps and tasted recovery.

Over the years I have had to renew my step one, and each time I was convinced that I was not going to make it without the help in program. That spurred me on to complete the 12 steps many times. Step one is essentially what made me complete all twelve steps and go on to a fuller and fuller life in recovery. Without step one, there really was no need or motivation for steps two through twelve.

Recently I realized that step one is particularly necessary to do step twelve. I cannot help anyone without my Higher Power. I cannot control another’s program. I cannot carry the message on my own, nor can I practice the principles in all my affairs by myself. Step one — my powerlessness and my inability to manage — is a great blessing. It is what spurs me on to turn to my Higher Power in all tasks great and small; it is what helps me to gain more and more ground in recovery.

One day at a time …

I will admit my powerlessness and my inability to manage, then I will turn to God Who will take me through my program and my life – with His power and His ability to manage.

~ Q

Elder’s Meditation - 2nd June

“The Natural Law is the final and absolute authority governing E Te No Ha, the earth we call our Mother.”

–Traditional Circle of Elders

There is no power greater than the Natural Laws. These powers were set up by the Great Spirit in such a way that the human being has no access to it, except by obeying. If we choose not to follow the Natural Laws, our live will be filled with confusion, tension, anxiety and stress. If we poison the Earth, we poison ourselves. If we poison the Water of the Earth, we poison ourselves. As we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves and our children, even the children unborn. May we think about this today and ask ourselves, “Are we holding and acting toward the Mother Earth in a good way?”

Great Spirit, teach me the Natural Laws that govern the Earth.

Today’s Gift - 2nd June

Thoughts, rest your wings. Here is a hollow of silence, a nest of stillness, in which to hatch your dreams.
—Joan Walsh Anglund

There is silence in the nest before an egg is hatched. The mother robin must sit quietly and warm them enough to be hatched. During this time, the mother concentrates only on her eggs. She does not let herself be distracted.

There is a time of silence before anything creative is born. And there is silence in the mind before an idea is discovered. A nest is a safe place birds can always return to and be at home. We all need such a nest of silence – a place where we can be quiet and safe, where we can let ourselves be held, and rest.

Often, our best ideas come out of these quiet moments. Times of silence are good for our souls. Just like the robin eggs hatching, so will dreams and solutions grow out of our own nest of stillness.

How well will I use my quiet time today?

The Eye Opener - 2nd June

We come into AA and are told that we should endeavor to establish a conscious contact with our God as we understand Him; that we should, through prayer and meditation, get on speaking terms with Him. We brushed up on our rusty salutations of “Almighty” and practiced on our Thee’s and Thou’s only to learn that there was a simpler and more direct approach.

We found that we could “tune God in” to our hearts and consciences and that no other method was needed to send and receive messages. We learned that what we said was of no great consequence anyway, as our prayers were for His will, not ours, and we also learned that we had to make no direct request for those things that were for our good, as He knew our needs before we ever realized them ourselves.

Hazelden Foundation

Daily Tao / 153 - BLAME - 2nd June

Though others have faults,

Concentrate on your own.

Some people have the habit of blaming others. Perhaps all of us have this weakness. The list of scapegoats for our miseries is clever and endless. Parents, community, teachers, government, and even demons and gods are all invoked when we have problems. If difficulties truly come from the outside, the problem is not blame. For those cases, the course of action is very clear : Neutralize that influence. If the problem comes from within, the solution must come from within as well. Before you blame friends, relatives, or teachers for bad habits and shortsightedness, you should remember that no one is to blame but yourself.

It is an equal mistake to lose self-esteem simply because you have some flaws. Looking at your shortcomings and taking steps to eliminate them should be viewed as a dispassionate project. You are not worthless because you undertake to rise above your faults. That description is only for those who never attempt to perfect themselves. We all have a perfect core, a special self inside. That purity is perfect and holy; therefore, no one is worse than another.

We are all on this planet simply to reach back into that pure self. When we reach that spirit, there are no flaws and there is no blame.

Daily Zen - 2nd June

Tennyson once said, "If I could understand a flower, root and all, I would have understood the whole existence."

Zen is an invitation to see into the nature of things directly, without any hindrances of conceptual thought.

In our normal state we are imprisoned in our minds, in thoughts that narrow our consciousness by judging: this is good, this is bad, this is so-so.

Zen is concerned with your inner world, with your subjectivity.

Sunday, 1 June 2025

12 STEPS IN 30 MINUTES by Bill W. - 1st June

Gary B. AA - 1st June

Big Book - - 1st June - The Vicious Cycle - pp. 224-225

How it finally broke a Southerner’s obstinacy and destined this salesman to start A.A. at Philadelphia. As long as things were tough and the job a challenge, I could always manage to hold on pretty well, but as soon as I learned the combination, got the puzzle under control, and the boss to pat me on the back, I was gone again. Routine jobs bored me, but I would take on the toughest one I could find and work day and night until I had it under control; then it would become tedious, and I’d lose all interest in it. I could never be bothered with the follow-through and would invariably reward myself for my efforts with that “first” drink.

Big Book - Alcoholics Anonymous - The Vicious Cycle - page. - 224-225

Daily Dose Of Emmet Fox - 1st June

Daily Reflections - 1st June

Just For Today - 1st June

Keep Coming Back

“We don’t have to be clean when we get here but, after the first meeting, we suggest that newcomers keep coming back and come back clean. We don’t have to wait for an overdose or a jail sentence to get help from Narcotics.”

Basic Text, p. 10

Very few of us arrive in NA brimming with willingness. Some of us are here because we are court-ordered to attend. Some have come to save our families. Some come in an effort to salvage a career teetering on the brink of ruin. It doesn’t matter why we are here. It only matters that we are.

We have heard it said that “if we bring the body, the mind will follow.” We may come to meetings with a chip on our shoulders. We may be one of those who sits in the back of the rooms with our arms folded across our chest, glaring threateningly at anyone who approaches us. Perhaps we leave before the final prayer.

But if we keep coming back, we find that our minds begin to open up. We start to drop our guard, and begin to really listen when others share. We may even hear someone talking with whom we can relate. We begin the process of change.

After some time in NA, we find that more than our minds have arrived in our meeting rooms. More importantly, our hearts have arrived, too. After that happens, the miracles really begin.

Just for today: I will strive to listen with an open mind to what I hear shared.

Twenty-Four Hours A Day - 1st June

A.A. Thought For The Day

On a dark night, the bright lights of the corner tavern look mighty inviting. Inside, there seems to be warmth and good cheer. But we don’t stop to think that if we go in there we’ll probably end up drunk, with our money spent and an awful hangover. A long mahogany bar in the tropical moonlight looks like a very gay place. But you should see the place the next morning. The chairs are piled on the tables and the place stinks of stale beer and cigarette stubs. And often we are there too, trying to cure the shakes by gulping down straight whiskey. Can I look straight through the night before and see the morning after?

Meditation For The Day

God finds, amid the crowd, a few people who follow Him, just to be near Him, just to dwell in His presence. A longing in the Eternal Heart may be satisfied by these few people. I will let God know that I seek just to dwell in His presence, to be near Him, not so much for teaching or a message, as just for Him. It may be that the longing of the human heart to be loved for itself is something caught from the Great Divine Heart.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may have a listening ear, so that God may speak to me. I pray that I may have a waiting heart, so that God may come to me.

As Bill Sees It - 1st June

Miraculous Power, p. 152

Deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that Power in human lives are facts as old as man himself.

************************************

“Faith may often be given through inspired teaching or a convincing personal example of its fruits. It may sometimes be had through reason. For instance, many clergymen believe that St. Thomas Aquinas actually proved God’s existence by sheer logic. But what can one do when all these channels fail? This was my own grievous dilemma.

“It was only when I came fully to believe I was powerless over alcohol, only when I appealed to God who just might exist, that I experienced a spiritual awakening. This freedom-giving experience came first, and then faith followed afterward–a gift indeed!”

1. Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 55
2. Letter, 1966

Walk In Dry Places

Wednesday, 4 June 2025

Tuesday, 3 June 2025

Monday, 2 June 2025

Sunday, 1 June 2025