Latest / Sober Readings / We Become Willing
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Welcome to Sober Readings. Today is Sunday, the second of August. Let's begin today's episode with the Serenity Prayer. God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Today's reading from Daily Reflections. We become willing. At the moment we are trying to put our lives in order, but this is not an end in itself. That's a line from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous Page seventy seven. How easily I can become misdirected in approaching the eighth step. I wish to be free, somehow transformed by my sixth and seventh step work. Now more than ever, I am vulnerable to my own self interest and hidden agenda. I am careful to remember that self satisfaction, which sometimes comes through the spoken forgiveness of those I have harmed, is not my true objective. I become willing to make amends knowing that through this process I am mended and made fit to move forward to know and desire God's will for me. Today's reading from twenty four hours a day. August two, AA Thought for the Day. Alcoholics Anonymous has no quarrel with medicine, psychiatry, or religion. We have great respect for the methods of each, and we are glad for any success they may have had with alcoholics. We are desirous always of cooperating with them in every way. The more doctors, the more psychiatrists, the more clergy and rabbis we can get to work with us, the better we like it. We have many who take a real interest in our program. And we would like many more. Am I ready to cooperate with those who take a sincere interest in AA? ⁓ Today's meditation for the day. God is always ready to pour his blessings into our hearts in generous measure. But like the seed sowing, the ground must be prepared before the seed is dropped in. It is our task to prepare the soil. It is God's to drop the seed. This preparation of soil means many days of right living, choosing the right and avoiding the wrong. As you go along, Each day you are better prepared for God's planting until you reach the time of harvest. Then you share the harvest with God, the harvest of a useful and more abundant land. Today's Prayer for the Day. I pray that my way of living may be properly prepared day by day. I pray that I may strive to make myself ready for the harvest which God has planted in my heart. Today's meditation from touchstone. Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, a sense of spiritual deadness. And that's a quote from Shaktai Gawain. Things are not always as they seem, even with ourselves. Sometimes we get settled into a routine in our program. We are beyond the early struggles with detachment and sobriety. We have encountered many of the benefits of recovery. We attend our meetings and we know the words and ideas of the program. Although it all looks good on the outside, when we're honest with ourselves, we know our spirit has gone flat. This is a serious situation that needs our attention. When the inside feeling does not match our outside appearance, we need to become vulnerable again. We need to talk about how we really feel. Maybe little secrets we have been holding have deadened our program. Perhaps we haven't admitted a pain in our life. Maybe we have been seduced by the power of looking good and have traded away the genuine. of being known by our friends. The renewal of this program is something we feel from within, and we can continue to be renewed. I pray my eyes will be open to see and my program will stay alive and genuine. And for today's final reading, I'm gonna read from page three two five of As Bill Sees It Humility Brings Hope. Now that we no longer patronize bars and bordellos, now that we bring home the paychecks, now that we are so very active in AA, and now that people congratulate us on these signs of progress, well, we naturally proceed to congratulate ourselves. Of course, we are not yet within hailing distance of humility. That's from an article written in the Grapevine in June of nineteen sixty one. We ought to be willing to try humility in seeking the removal of our other shortcomings, just as we did when we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. If humility could enable us to find the grace by which the deadly alcohol obsession could be banished, then there must be hope of the same result respecting any other problem we can possibly have. And that's from the 12 and 12, page 76. And that's it for today's readings. Before I close, I'd like to go back and comment on today's daily reflections. It's talking about step eight and specifically this one sentence in here that says, I am careful to remember that self-satisfaction, which sometimes comes through the spoken forgiveness of those I have harmed, is not my true objective. And the sentence reminds us that the purpose of the amends process is not to make ourselves feel better by saying, I'm sorry, receiving forgiveness, and then believing the matter is settled. That can become another another form of self-centeredness. We may feel relief or satisfaction when someone forgives us, but their forgiveness is not something we're entitled to receive. Our true objective is to accept responsibility, become willing to make things right. And change the behavior that caused the harm in the beginning. The eighth step helps prepare us to approach amends with the right motive. Not to gain approval, erase our guilt, or control another person's response, but to clean up our side of the street and live differently going forward. The eighth step asks us to make a list of the people we've harmed and become willing to make amends to them all. The focus is not yet on approaching those people or asking them to forgive us. Instead it is about taking an honest inventory of the damage caused by our drinking and our behavior. This requires humility because we must look beyond our intentions and consider how our actions actually affected others. It also asks us to become willing to repair the harm even when we feel ashamed, resentful, afraid, or convinced that the other person also hurt us. So let me go ahead and read the eighth step, the short version out of the 12 steps and 12 traditions. Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. This and the next two steps are concerned with personal relations. Learning to live with others is a fascinating adventure. Obstacles, reluctance to forgive, non-admission of wrongs to others, purposeful forgetting, necessity of exhaustive survey of the past. Deepening insight results from thoroughness, kinds of harm done to others, avoiding extreme judgments, taking the objective view. Step eight is the beginning of the end of isolation. And that last sentence in that short version of step eight is interesting. Step eight begins the end of isolation because it asks us to face the harm we caused and become willing to repair our relationships. By letting go of shame, resentment, and avoidance, we start moving out of secrecy and back toward honesty, connection, and belonging. So what are your thoughts on step eight? Was there a lot of fear surrounding making the list? My sponsor made it clear to remind me that we're just making a list. We're not doing anything until step nine. So I'd love to hear your thoughts in your comments on step eight and how you approached it with your sponsor. You can send me an email at soberreadings with scott at gmail.com. And if you'd like to come on the show and talk about it, that would be great. Also send me an email or you can go to my website, soberreadings.com, and fill out that form and send that to me. And also while you're there at the website, if you'd like to drop a dollar in the donation basket for today's readings, just click that donate button. So thank you so much for listening today. Stay sober, keep reading, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other, and remember, just for today Don't drink, go to a meeting, and keep coming back. Have a great day, everyone, and as my friend Larry says, best day ever.