Daily Recovery Readings
August 29, 2021
Daily Reflection
I CHOOSE ANONYMITY
We are sure that humility, expressed by anonymity, is the greatest safeguard that Alcoholics Anonymous can ever have.
— TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 187
Since there are no rules in A.A. I place myself where I want to be, and so I choose anonymity. I want my God to use me, humbly, as one of His tools in this program. Sacrifice is the art of giving of myself freely, allowing humility to replace my ego. With sobriety, I suppress that urge to cry out to the world, “I am a member of A.A.” and I experience inner joy and peace. I let people see the changes in me and hope they will ask what happened to me. I place the principles of spirituality ahead of judging, fault-finding, and criticism. I want love and caring in my group, so I can grow.
From the book Daily Reflections
Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Big Book Quote
“It is plain that a life which includes deep resenGive your mind free rein for harnessing the thoughts and ideas that come rushing in. Express your opinions without worrying about being liked. You can’t fall in line with the pack; herd mentality doesn’t create leaders. Explore synergies with different types of folks today; be cognizant of your inclination to reflexively reject people or concepts that aren’t usually in your wheelhouse. You instinctively know what’s right, so speak with confidence and conviction. You earn more respect for keeping it real than you would for just being another follower.tment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while.”
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, How It Works, pg. 66~
24 Hours a Day – The Little Black Book
Thought for the Day
“We cannot get along without prayer and meditation. On awakening, let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when we start the day with prayer and meditation. We conclude this period of meditation with a prayer that we will be shown through the day what our next step is to be. The basis of all our prayers is: Thy will be done in me and through me today.” Am I sincere in my desire to do God’s will today?
Meditation for the Day
Breathe in the inspiration of goodness and truth. It is the spirit of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. It is readily available if we are willing to accept it wholeheartedly. God has given us two things – His spirit and the power of choice – to accept or not, as we will. We have the gift of free will. When we choose the path of selfishness and greed and pride, we are refusing to accept God’s spirit. When we choose the path of love and service, we accept God’s spirit and it flows into us and makes all things new.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may choose the right way. I pray that I may try to follow it to the end.
The Language of Letting Go – Codependency
Owning Our Energy
Learn to keep your energy inside.
—From Women, Sex, and Addiction, Charlotte Davis Kasl, Ph.D.
For many reasons, we may have mastered the art of giving away our energy. We may have learned it when we were young because the feelings we had were too overwhelming to feel, and we did not know how to process them.
Much of our obsessing, our intense focus on others, is done to facilitate this “out of body” experience we call codependency.
We obsess, we babble, we become anxious. We try to control, care take, and fuss over others. Our energy spills out of us on to whomever.
Our energy is our energy. Our feelings, thoughts, issues, love, sexuality; our mental, physical, spiritual, sexual, creative, and emotional energy is ours.
We can learn to have healthy boundaries – healthy parameters – around our energy and ourselves. We can learn to keep our energy within ourselves and deal with our issues.
If we are trying to escape from our body, if our energy is spilling out of us in unhealthy ways, we can ask ourselves what is going on, what is hurting us, what we are avoiding, what we need to face, what we need to deal with.
Then, we can do that. We can come back home to live – in ourselves.
Today, I will keep my energy in my body. I will stay focused and within my boundaries. God, help me let go of my need to escape myself. Help me face my issues so I am comfortable living in my body.
Touchstone – Men’s Meditation
To be a man means to be a fellow man. —Leo Baeck
Sometimes we become overburdened with frustration and disappointment in our lives. When we turn inward and focus only on our problems, we may be cutting ourselves off from the healing effect of contact with others. Today, there may be a new group member who would appreciate a phone call from us. Perhaps we could visit an aged person or someone who is sick. Help is always needed in providing food to the hungry. Perhaps a co-worker would welcome our assistance on a task or errand.
When we help others, we affirm our solidarity with them in their stress and suffering. We don’t give help because we are better or without problems of our own, but because we suffer too. When we act as fellowmen, the comradeship and human contact we get provide us with as much help as we give. They liberate us from our own oppressive egos and make us see we are worthwhile men.
I affirm myself as a man when I stand in solidarity with others and help them in their need.
Elder’s Meditation
“The devastated earth, the air, water, the extinct species of mankind, animalkind, and plantkind, the drugs, suicides, family separations – these are all the result of false ceremonies.”
–Barney Bush, SHAWNEE
All life is a ceremony. Every act is a ceremony creating a result in our lives. Every ceremony we do always brings results to our lives. If we do bad medicine to others, we do bad medicine to ourselves. If we keep on doing bad ceremonies, we will eventually destroy ourselves. Any time we live our lives out of harmony, we are doing bad ceremonies. Any time we treat anything with disrespect whether it is another human being or a plant or an animal, we are performing bad ceremonies. These ceremonies not only have an effect on ourselves but will simultaneously affect everything. We need to use our power well, only do good ceremonies.
My Creator, teach me only good ceremonies. Teach me ceremonies that accomplish good for all the people. Good ceremonies cause good results. Teach me ceremonies that are helpful.
Daily Horoscope – Cancer
Your social life is in for a big boost. You may receive lots of invitations to spend time with friends now, and you’ll have to decide where you devote your limited time. If you’re having trouble deciding where to go based off of a fear of missing out on the better option, it’s easy to make a decision by trusting your intuition. Wherever you feel you’ll have the most fun and fulfilling time, that’s where you should go.
The Wandering Enigma 