FR. LEO'S DAILY MEDITATIONS #essentialsofrecovery

OPINIONS

“Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them.”

~ Thomas Mann ~

As a result of my sobriety, I have opinions on a great number of subjects. Drugs have a tendency to make insane remarks appear brilliant. Drunks often see them-selves as unsung poets or victimized geniuses when they are “in alcohol.” I did not have opinions when I was drinking but rather a series of chaotic and incoherent reactions.

Today I have considered opinions. I am able to think and make decisions. I make a contribution to life and the world in which I live. I am involved. More than this, I have the spiritual confidence to fight for what I believe and speak out my concerns in love. I am alive, and I love it!

Let me always hear the opinions of others but not fail to express my own. 

© 2008 Leo Booth 

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FR.LEO'S DAILY MEDITATION #essentialsofrec #opinions

OPINIONS

“Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them.”

~ Thomas Mann ~
As a result of my sobriety, I have opinions on a great number of subjects. Drugs have a tendency to make insane remarks appear brilliant. Drunks often see them-selves as unsung poets or victimized geniuses when they are “in alcohol.” I did not have opinions when I was drinking but rather a series of chaotic and incoherent reactions.

Today I have considered opinions. I am able to think and make decisions. I make a contribution to life and the world in which I live. I am involved. More than this, I have the spiritual confidence to fight for what I believe and speak out my concerns in love. I am alive, and I love it!

Let me always hear the opinions of others but not fail to express my own. 

© 2008 Leo Booth

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A DAY AT A TIME #essentialsofrec #Worry #Recovery

Reflection for the Day

I’ve begun to understand myself better since I’ve come to the Program. One of the most important things I’ve learned is that opinions aren’t facts. Just because I feel that a thing is so doesn’t necessarily make it so. “Men are not worried by things,” wrote the Greek philosopher Epictetus, “but by their ideas about things. When we meet with difficulties, become anxious or troubled, let us not blame others, but rather ourselves. That is: our ideas about things.” Do I believe that I can never entirely lose what I have learned during my recovery?

Today I Pray

May I learn to sort out realities from my ideas about those realities. May I understand that situations, things—even people—take on the colors and dimensions of my attitudes about them.

Today I Will Remember

To sort the real from the unreal.

© 1989 by Hazelden Foundation

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WALK IN DRY PLACES #essentialsofrecovery

IS YOUR OPINION OF ME IMPORTANT?

Inventory

A statement that is often quoted at AA meetings is Your opinion of me is not important. The purpose of this saying, apparently, is to wean us away from being people pleasers.

But the truth is that we all have legitimate interest in the opinions others hold of us. They may like or dislike us for the wrong reasons, but it is helpful for us to know this and accept it.

More important, the opinions of others can be useful in helping us take personal inventory and correct wrong behavior and attitudes. There may be a good reason why someone has a low opinion of us, and we should become aware of it.

It is true, however, that our opinions count the most in shaping our lives. If we’re thinking badly about others, that can be more damaging to us than to them. Surprisingly, they may think better of us as we change our opinions about them.

I doubt that I can go through the day without being affected by other people’s opinions of me. However, my main work will be in seeing that my own opinions aren’t being destructive in my life.


© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation 

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THE EYE OPENER #essentialsofrecovery

There will always be a difference of opinion as long as people have different interests, different prejudices and different mental capacities.To expect people to disagree with you is only sensible and reasonable. If everybody agreed with you, everybody would be as smart as you and you wouldn’t like that for a minute. The chances are you are both wrong anyhow, or you would not be required to defend your opinions. The right can defend itself without your help.

Published by Hazelden

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WALK IN DRY PLACES #essentialsofrecovery

IS YOUR OPINION OF ME IMPORTANT?

Inventory

A statement that is often quoted at AA meetings is Your opinion of me is not important. The purpose of this saying, apparently, is to wean us away from being people pleasers.

But the truth is that we all have legitimate interest in the opinions others hold of us. They may like or dislike us for the wrong reasons, but it is helpful for us to know this and accept it.

More important, the opinions of others can be useful in helping us take personal inventory and correct wrong behavior and attitudes. There may be a good reason why someone has a low opinion of us, and we should become aware of it.

It is true, however, that our opinions count the most in shaping our lives. If we’re thinking badly about others, that can be more damaging to us than to them. Surprisingly, they may think better of us as we change our opinions about them.

I doubt that I can go through the day without being affected by other people’s opinions of me. However, my main work will be in seeing that my own opinions aren’t being destructive in my life.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation

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Keep It Simple #essentialsofrecovery

A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.

—Carl Sandburg

Recovery, is also God’s opinion that the world should go on. But when we used alcohol and other drugs, there were days when even the sight of a newborn baby couldn’t bring hope into our hearts. We were spiritually dead. We didn’t care if the world went on. We didn’t care about anything but getting high.  Through recovery, our souls come alive.

The beauty of a fall day can reach our hearts. We can see the miracle found in a baby’s eyes. We can see the beauty of the world. We can feel how much we’re loved by our Higher Power and by others. This is how we know we’re alive. Hope fills our minds and love fill our hearts.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, now that I again believe the world should go on, have me work to improve it. Have me be a person who makes the world more beautiful.

Action for the Day: Today, I’ll notice the children and babies around me. I’ll notice how alive they are. I’ll try to be as alive as they are. 

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THE EYE OPENER #essentialsofrecovery

We are not in a position to give an opinion on leprosy, jungle fever, hoof-and-mouth disease or other minor ailments like that, but when it comes to the really “big sickness”—hang-overs—we can speak with some authority.

How any piece of mechanism could take the rough treatment we gave our human bodies would make it appear, on the surface, that Nature intended to make us live to punish ourselves in a manner that Nature itself could not duplicate. Outraged Nature could only confine its retribution to the body. The mental and spiritual beating we took was administered by ourselves. That was the most cruel of all.

Published by Hazelden

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KEEP IT SIMPLE #essentialsofrecovery

The foolish and the dead never change their opinions.

~ James Russell Lowell ~

We need to stay fresh in our program. We need to be open to new ideas. We need change. The ways we work the Steps should change for us as the years go by. And as we grow, more of the fog of our denial clears away. Then we see the world and our program in different ways.

We need to allow this to happen. At times, it’s scary to give up old ways and old opinions, but this is what allows new growth. Every day, we wake up to a new world. Being alive means change. Opinions and ideas are like a strong tree: the base is strong, but leaves change with the seasons.

Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, help me stay fresh and alive. Help me stay open to new ideas and attitudes. Help me to not become rigid.

Action for the Day

Today, I’ll ask two friends to tell me how I may be rigid. I will listen to what they say.

Copyright © 1988 by Hazelden Foundation 

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RANDOM BIG BOOK OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS #essentialsofrec #BigBook #Quotes

"We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of
alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy;
that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never
occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can
never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed
the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-
confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up
on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve."

~ The Doctor's Opinion, pg. xxviii~ 

FR. LEO'S DAILY MEDITATION #essentialsofrec #Recovery #Growth #Opinions

POPULARITY

“Few people are capable of expressing, with equanimity, opinions that differ from the prejudices of their social environment.”

~ Albert Einstein 

Part of my growth in sobriety is learning to say “No.”

For years, I tried to please everybody with the result that I pleased very few and became exhausted in the process! I have learned that sometimes I need to be unpopular to remain serene and practice my spiritual program.

To understand the gift of God’s creation requires the acceptance that we are not the same and, as people, we will have different opinions and attitudes. Truth has many shades. To be unpopular at times is reality; truth is always real.

May I always say and do what I believe is right, regardless of public opinion. 

© 2008 Leo Booth

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WALK IN DRY PLACES #essentialsofrec #Opinion #Inventory

27
October

IS YOUR OPINION OF ME IMPORTANT?

Inventory

A statement that is often quoted at AA meetings is Your opinion of me is not important. The purpose of this saying, apparently, is to wean us away from being people pleasers.

But the truth is that we all have legitimate interest in the opinions others hold of us. They may like or dislike us for the wrong reasons, but it is helpful for us to know this and accept it.

More important, the opinions of others can be useful in helping us take personal inventory and correct wrong behavior and attitudes. There may be a good reason why someone has a low opinion of us, and we should become aware of it.

It is true, however, that our opinions count the most in shaping our lives. If we’re thinking badly about others, that can be more damaging to us than to them. Surprisingly, they may think better of us as we change our opinions about them.

I doubt that I can go through the day without being affected by other people’s opinions of me. However, my main work will be in seeing that my own opinions aren’t being destructive in my life.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation

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Father Leo’s Daily Meditation #essentialsofrec #Recovery #Opinions #FrLeo

29
March 

OPINIONS

“Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them.”

— Thomas Mann

An opinion is worth fighting for, and I have opinions on a great number of subjects — as a result of sobriety.

Drugs have a tendency to make insane remarks appear brilliant; the drunk is always the unsung poet or victimized genius when he is “in alcohol”. I did not have opinions when I was drinking but rather a series of chaotic and incoherent reactions.

But today I have considered opinions. I am able to think and make decisions. I am able to make a contribution to life and the world in which I live. I am involved.

More than this, today I have the spiritual confidence to fight for what I believe and “speak out” my concerns in love. Today I am alive and I love it — also I love me.

Let me always hear the opinions of others but not fail to express my own.

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Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous #essentialsofrec #BigBook #AA

26
March

THE DOCTOR'S OPINION (pg. xxix)

What is the solution? Perhaps I can best answer this by relating one of my experiences. About one year prior to this experience a man was brought in to be treated for chronic alcoholism. He had but partially recovered from a gastric hemorrhage and seemed to a case of pathological mental deterioration. He has lost everything worthwhile in life and was only living, one might say, to drink. He frankly admitted and believed that for him there was no hope. Following the elimination of alcohol, there was found to be no permanent brain injury. He accepted the plan outlined in this book. One year later he called to see me, and I experienced a very strange sensation. I knew the man by name, and partly recognized his features, but there all resemblance ended. From a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck, had emerged a man brimming over with self-reliance and contentment. I talked with him for some time, but was not able to bring myself to feel that I had known him before. To me he was a stranger, and so he left me. A long time has passed with no return to alcohol. When I need a mental uplift, I often think of another case brought in by a physician prominent in New York. The patient had made his own diagnosis and deciding his situation hopeless, had hidden in a deserted barn determined to die. He was rescued by a searching party, and, in desperate condition, brought to me. Following his physical rehabilitation, he had a talk with me in which he frankly stated he thought the treatment a waste of effort, unless I could assure him, which no one ever had, that in the future he would have the "will power" to resist the impulse to drink. His alcoholic problem was so complex and his depression so great, that we felt his only hope would be through what we then called "moral psychology", and we doubted if even that would have any effect.

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