Daily Recovery Readings
June 24, 2022
Daily Reflection
A SPIRITUAL KINDERGARTEN
We are only operating a spiritual kindergarten in which people are enabled to get over drinking and find the grace to go on living to better effect.
— AS BILL SEES IT, p. 95
When I came to A.A., I was run down by the bottle and wanted to lose the obsession to drink, but I didn’t really know how to do that. I decided to stick around long enough to find out from the ones who went before me. All of a sudden I was thinking about God! I was told to get a Higher Power and I had no idea what one looked like. I found out there are many Higher Powers. I was told to find God, as I understand Him, that there was no doctrine of the Godhead in A.A. I found what worked for me and then asked that Power to restore me to sanity. The obsession to drink was removed and – one day at a time – my life went on, and I learned how to live sober.
From the book Daily Reflections
Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Big Book Quote
“To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action.”
Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Working With Others, pg. 93
24 Hours a Day – The Little Black Book
Thought for the Day
Alcohol is our weakness. We suffer from mental conflicts from which we look for escape by drowning our problems in drink. We try through drink to push away from the realities of life. But alcohol does not feed, alcohol does not build, it only borrows from the future and it ultimately destroys. We try to drown our feelings in order to escape life’s realities, little realizing or caring that in continued drinking we are only multiplying our problems. Have I got control over my unstable emotions?
Meditation for the Day
When I let personal piques and resentments interfere with what I know to be my proper conduct, I am on the wrong track and I am undoing all I have built up by doing the right thing. I must never let personal piques interfere with living the way I know God wants me to live. When I have no clear guidance from God, I must go forward quietly along the path of duty. The attitude of quiet faith will receive its reward as surely as acting upon God’s direct guidance. I must not weaken my spiritual power by letting personal piques upset me.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may not let myself become too upset. I pray that I may go quietly along the path I have chosen.
The Language of Letting Go – Codependency
Detachment
Detachment doesn’t come naturally for many of us. But once we realize the value of this recovery principle, we understand how vital detachment is. The following story illustrates how a woman came to understand detachment.
“The first time I practiced detachment was when I let go of my alcoholic husband. He had been drinking for seven years -since I had married him. For that long, I had been denying his alcoholism and trying to make him stop drinking.
“I did outrageous things to make him stop drinking, to make him see the light, to make him realize how much he was hurting me. I really thought I was doing things right by trying to control him.
“One night, I saw things clearly. I realized that my attempts to control him would never solve the problem. I also saw that my life was unmanageable. I couldn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to do. His alcoholism was controlling me, even though I wasn’t drinking.
“I set him free, to do as he chose. The truth is, he did as he pleased anyway. Things changed the night I detached. He could feel it, and so could I. When I set him free, I set myself free to live my own life.
“I’ve had to practice the principle of detachment many times since then. I’ve had to detach from unhealthy people and healthy people. It’s never failed. Detachment works.”
Detachment is a gift. It will be given to us when we’re ready for it. When we set the other person free, we are set free.
Today, wherever possible, I will detach in love.
Touchstone – Men’s Meditation
The only intrinsic evil is lack of love.
—John Robinson
When we have feelings of guilt or self-hate, we have spiritual problems. It is a time to turn to our program for help. In the early stages of recovery we may, at times, feel more shameful than we ever did before, simply because we are becoming honest about how we feel. We may even become ashamed of our guilty feelings, and then the problem escalates.
Lack of love for ourselves is at the heart of our problem. We cannot become self-loving by force of will, but we can stop being so willful by simply yielding to the care of a loving God. At those moments we do not feel deserving of love, but we can stop fending it off. Perhaps God’s love is coming to us in the concern of a friend or partner. Maybe it comes in the warm sunshine or in the smile of a child. As we yield to it, we take a spiritual leap into a world we don’t control and we didn’t create, but we can be healed by it.
Today, I will surrender to the love, which comes from the world around me and let it teach me how to love myself.
Elder’s Meditation
“Believing people can soar beyond ordinary life.”
–Fools Crow, LAKOTA
We are created by God to be vision people. First we set the goal and then we see. If we create within ourselves a picture or vision and we hold that picture or vision in our mind, whatever we picture will show up in our reality. If we can see ourselves being educated, then schools and teachers will show up in our lives. If we picture in our mind a positive, spiritual person to be in our lives, we will attract this type of person in our relationships. How big can our dreams be?
Great Spirit, let my visions today be Your vision. Put within me a vision of the being you would have me be. Then help me to keep the vision in my mind.
Daily Horoscope – Cancer
Peers are more than capable of surprising you right now. There is a powerful conjunction between the Moon and Uranus, both of which are in your 11th House of Groups and Social Connections, bringing people out of the shadows to clamor for your attention. If you’ve been feeling stagnant in your friendships, then today you could meet someone — or a whole group of people — who feel like a breath of fresh air. Talking to strangers or acquaintances could gain you amazing new pals!
The Wandering Enigma 