Essentials Of Recovery : September 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.

Monday, 1 September 2025

Emmet Fox - 1 st September 2025

REINCARNATION

Have you ever asked yourself why there should be such a difference between one human lot and another? Have you ever wondered why some people seem to be so happy and fortunate in their lives, while others appear to undergo so much undeserved suffering? To the honest and fearless soul, the problem of the inequality of human lives is one that clamors for solution.

Men and women are not born free and equal. They are created free and equal, but they are not born free and equal. They start this life like horses in a handicap race—no two bearing an equal burden. Now, why should this be, if indeed God is Love, and if God is just, and if God is all-powerful?

The answer is that this life that you are living today is not the only life, and that it cannot be understood or judged by itself. You have lived before, in different ages and in different civilizations. Some of those who are at the bottom of the social ladder today have walked the earth as kings, and generals, and high priests; and some who now sit in the seats of the mighty have toiled as peasants, or worn the chains of the slave. And you, yourself, in future ages, will very likely return to this earth planet and live out another life. The conditions under which you start that life will be the outcome of the lives you have already lived; but most particularly will they be the outcome of the life that you are living at the present. What is customarily called a lifetime is really but a comparatively brief day in a long, long life, and the circumstances into which you were born are the natural outcome of the way in which you have lived and comported yourself in your former lives. You are reaping today the results of the seeds that you have sown during these many previous lives.

“He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully” 2 Corinthians 9:6

Daily Reflections - 1 st September 2025

If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go on.

As Bill Sees It, p.8

Sobriety fills the painful “hole in the soul” that my alcoholism created. Often I feel so physically well that I believe my work is done. However, joy is not just the absence of pain; it is the gift of continued spiritual awakening. Joy comes from ongoing and active study, as well as application of the principles of recovery in my everyday life, and from sharing that experience with others. My Higher Power presents many opportunities for deeper spiritual awakening. I need only to bring into my recovery the willingness to grow. Today I am ready to grow.

Just For Today - 1 st September 2025

Real Values

“We become able to make wise and loving decisions based on principles and ideals that have real value in our lives.”

Basic Text, pg. 101

Addiction gave us a certain set of values, principles we applied in our lives. “You pushed me” one of those values told us, “so I pushed back, hard.” “It’s mine” was another value generated by our disease. “Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t mine to start with, but I liked it, so I made it mine.” Those values were hardly values at all – more like rationalizations – and they certainly didn’t help us make wise and loving decisions. In fact, they served primarily to dig us deeper and deeper into the grave we’d already dug for ourselves.

The Twelve Steps give us a strong dose of real values, the kind that help us live in harmony with ourselves and those around us. We place our faith not in ourselves, our families, or our communities, but in a Higher Power – and in doing so, we grow secure enough to be able to trust our communities, our families, and even ourselves. We learn to be honest, no matter what-and we learn to refrain from doing things we might want to hide. We learn to accept responsibility for our actions. “It’s mine” is replaced with a spirit of selflessness. These are the kind of values that help us become a responsible, productive part of the life around us. Rather than digging us deeper into a grave, these values restore us to the world of the living.

Just for today: I am grateful for the values I've developed. I am thankful for the ability they give me to make wise, loving decisions as a responsible, productive member of my community.

Twenty-Four Hours A Day - 1 st September 2025

A.A. Thought For The Day

Be careful not to brand new prospects as alcoholics. Let them draw their own conclusion. But talk to them about the hopelessness of alcoholism. Tell them exactly what happened to you and how you recovered. Stress the spiritual feature freely. If they are agnostics or atheists, make it emphatic that they do not have to agree with your concept of God. They can choose any concept they like, provided it makes sense to them. The main thing is that they be willing to believe in a power greater than themselves and that they live by spiritual principles.” Do I hold back too much in speaking of the spiritual principles of the program?

Meditation For The Day

“I will never leave or forsake thee.” Down through the centuries, thousands have believed in God’s constancy, untiringness, and unfailing love. God has love. Then forever you are sure of His love. God has power. Then forever you are sure, in every difficulty and temptation, of His strength. God has patience. Then always there is One who can never tire. God has understanding. Then always you will understand and be understood. Unless you want Him to go, God will never leave you. He is always ready with power.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may feel that God’s love will never fail. I pray that I may have confidence in His unfailing power.

As Bill Sees It - 1 st September 2025

On awakening, let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity and from dishonest or self-seeking motives. Free of these, we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be on a higher plane when our thinking begins to be cleared of wrong motives.

If we have determined which of two courses to take, we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision. Then we relax and take it easy, and we are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.

We usually conclude our meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, asking especially for freedom from damaging self-will.

Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 86-87

Walk In Dry Places - 1 st September 2025

Are we victimizing ourselves?
Finding the New Happiness

Some believe that people create their own trouble by attracting the wrong conditions and people in their lives. This may not be entirely true, but we can find that some element of it was at work with us.

Time and time again during our drinking, we set ourselves up for abuse and rejection, though our motives seemed right. Why did we do this? Supposedly to punish ourselves, the theory has it.

If this is true, then we should now call a halt to the process immediately. If we've emerged from the terrors of alcoholism, we've had all the punishment anybody needs.

We can change our bad patterns by looking carefully at the people and situations we seem to attract. Without resentment or condemnation, we can part company with any problems these have been bringing us. We can start building new relationships and attracting better conditions that will be immensely successful in terms of happiness and well-being.

I’ll remember today that in the new life I'm seeking, there’s no need for punishment. I will not go out of my way to attract people or conditions that create problems in my life.

Keep It Simple - 1 st September 2025

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible . . .

—First half of Step Nine

In our illness, we harmed people. In Step Nine, we are to make amends. Making amends is about asking people we have harmed what we need to do to set things right. But making amends is more than saying, “I’m sorry.” If you ran a store and someone had stolen five dollars, you wouldn’t want them to just say, ”I’m sorry.” You’d want the person to pay back the money. The same is true with amends.

Many people we’ve harmed ask only that we don’t repeat our mistakes. Respect their wishes. Step Nine has healed many wounds. Step Nine allows us to grow up. Step Nine help us regain faith in ourselves. Remember, the best amend we make to all is to stay sober.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, give me courage. Help me face the trouble caused by my disease. Make me ready to help other heals from the harm I’ve caused.

Action for the Day: Today, I’ll pray that those I’ve harmed will heal. I will be responsible for my actions.

Father Leo’s - 1 st September 2025

OPTIMISM

“Optimism is a kind of heart stimulant — the digitalis of failure.”

– Elbert Hubbard

Today I am an optimist. I believe in life, and more importantly, I believe in me. I know that God cares and this brings me hope.

But when I was drinking I had a negative and destructive attitude in all areas of life; nothing pleased me, people were not to be trusted, everybody had a price, God seemed to be “out for lunch” and life had lost its meaning. I was a sad man. I was a lonely man. I was an angry man.

When I was told to put down the drink and follow some new directions, I halfheartedly agreed. I met people who laughed, shared their pain and lived in the realistic “now”. I began to listen. Slowly I changed. Peace was within my grasp.

Today I wonder at my halfhearted risk that started it all — and thank God.

A Day At A Time - 1 st September 2025

Reflection For The Day

Based on their collective experience, The Program’s founders suggested a prayer to be said when taking the #Third #Step – and making a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. “God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy power, Thy Love, and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always!” Have I abandoned myself to God as I understood Him?

Today I pray

I praise my Higher Power for my freedom to find my own understanding of God. May my life be God’s whether i think of Him as a Father whose hand and spirit I can touch with an upward reach of my own, or as a universal Spirit that I can merge with as the hard outlines of my “self”begin to melt, or as a core of Divine and absolute goodness inside myself. May I know Him well, whether I find Him within me, without me or in all things everywhere.

Today I Will Remember

I thank God, as I understand Him, for my understanding of Him.

One Day At A Time - 1 st September 2025

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

“The world we have created is a product of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

–Albert Einstein

The world I created before finding the Twelve Steps of recovery was a world in which I had no responsibility. Everything bad in my life was someone else’s fault: my parents’, my husband’s, society’s, and, when there was no one else to blame, it was God’s fault.

As I worked Step 4, I learned that I had been a part of all of these things for which I blamed others. I learned that I had defects of character that kept me from taking part in my life. As I recognized these defects, I asked my Higher Power to remove them, and that gradually happened.

One of the things I had tried to do for many years was bury my feelings of grief and pain. I seemed to have managed that fairly well, but in doing so, I had also buried all the other emotion. I no longer took enjoyment in anything. My child’s smile evoked no feeling and I felt no pride in anything I did. I felt none of the love that others gave to me. As I started dealing with the painful feelings, the positive emotions emerged as well.

The promise the Big Book speaks of became true for me: I no longer regretted the past nor wished to shut the door on it. I was able to feel my hurt and grief. Now I am also able to feel love and happiness. I have learned how to change my thinking through the process of working these wonderful Steps.

One Day at a Time . . .

I do a daily 10th, 11th and 12th Step and am reminded that it is my responsibility to listen to my Higher Power and do my part in creating the world around me.

~ Nancy

Elder’s Meditation - 1 st September 2025

“Everyone has a song. God gives us each a song. That’s how we know who we are. Our song tells us who we are.”

–Charlie Knight, UTE

As we start to walk the Red Road and as we develop ourselves as Warriors, a song will come to us. This song is given to each of us from the Great Spirit. Whenever we sing this song, we will receive courage and strength not only for ourselves but if we sing this song for others, it will also help them. The song will give us power and make us feel really good. The song will make us see life in a sacred way. If you don’t have your song yet, ask the Creator in prayer if He will give you your song. With the song comes a responsibility – the responsibility to act and conduct oneself as a Warrior according to your song.

Oh my Creator, let me live my song. Let my song honor Your way of life. Let me sing my song each day. At the end of today, let my song tell people who I am. I am a beautiful child of the Creator.

Today’s Gift - 1 st September 2025

A.A. Thought for the Day

Anyone can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burden of those two awful eternities, yesterday and tomorrow, that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives us mad. It is the remorse or bitterness from something that happened yesterday or the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Am I living one day at a time?

Meditation for the Day

I give God the gift of a thankful heart. When life seems hard, I look for some reasons for thankfulness. If I seek diligently for something to be glad and thankful about, I will acquire in time the habit of being constantly grateful for all God’s blessings.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may be constantly reminded of causes for sincere gratitude.

From the book:

Twenty-four Hours a Day for Teens by Anonymous

The Eye Opener - 1 st September 2025

The alcoholic is usually conscious of his shortcomings, but he resents any well-meant attempt to discuss the matter with him. He knows that he has no defense. Logic is against him; lying frequently backfires on him and is therefore unreliable. He has but one avenue of escape, and that is the bottle – the very thing the well-intentioned friend is trying to avoid.

Our only approach that makes sense to him is the visible evidence that we are doing it, and acquainting him with the fact that it can be done.

Hazelden Foundation

Daily Tao / 244 – Farmers - 1 st September 2025

Plain country folk with rounded bodies,

Skin turning to bronze in the valley heat.
Why talk to them about Tao?
They eat when they are hungry,
They sleep when they are sleepy.
Even a sage with infinite permutations
Could not match their simplicity.

Do you want to know about simplicity? Go live with farmers. Their daily activities are coordinated with the seasons, they are close to the earth, and they do not spend their time figuring out how to attain status. They are honest and plain. They make no distinction between who they are as individuals and who they are as farmers.

Those of us who live in cities would be hard pressed to equal the farmer in simplicity. Simplicity, after all, is what Tao most celebrates. Who needs to know all the digits of pi? Who needs to engineer a new monetary policy? Who needs to strive for political office? None of these things is necessary to be a human being.

Give up unnecessary things.

Daily Zen 1 st September 2025

According to his doctrine,
Non-doing is reality,
Emptiness is the truth,
And the ultimate meaning
Of things is vast and
Immovable.
He taught that human nature
In its beginning
As well as in the end
Is thoroughly good,
For it has its root
In that which is serene.

- Liu Tsung-yuan