Latest / Sober Readings / Our Side Of The Street
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- Scott Hayes: Hey, welcome back to Sober Readings, everyone. My name is Scott, and I am glad you're here with me today. Let's get started today with the serenity prayer. God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. Today's reading from Daily Reflections, Our Side of the Street. We are there to sweep off our side of the street, realizing that nothing worthwhile can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell him what he should do. His faults are not discussed. We stick to our own. And that's from pages seventy seven to seventy eight of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I made amends to my dad soon after I quit drinking. My words fell on deaf ears since I had blamed him for my troubles. Several months later I made amends to my dad again. This time I wrote a letter in which I did not blame him nor mention his faults. It worked, and at last I understood. My side of the street is all that I'm responsible for, and thanks to God and AA, it's clean for today. Today's reading from twenty four hours a day, september seventh, AA thought for the day. Another of the mottos of AA is easy, does it. This means that we just go along in AA doing the best we can and not getting steamed up over problems that arise in AA or outside of it. We alcoholics are emotional people, and we have gone to excess in almost everything we have done. We have not been moderate in many things. We have not known how to relax. Faith in a higher power can help us to learn to take it easy. We are not running the world. I am only one among many. We are resolved to live normal, regular lives. From our AA experience, we learn that easy does it. So ask yourself, have I learned to take it easy? The meditation for the day. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. Sheltering arms express the loving protection of God's spirit. Human beings in their troubles and difficulties need nothing so much as a refuge, a place to relax where they can lay down their burdens and get relief from cares. Say to yourself, God is my refuge. Say it until its truth sinks into your very soul. Say it until you know it and are sure of it. Nothing can seriously upset you or make you afraid if God is truly your refuge. Prayer for the day. I pray that I may go each day to God as a refuge until fear goes and peace and security come. I pray that I may feel deeply secure in the haven of His Spirit. Today's reading from Keep It Simple Daily Meditations for Twelve Step Beginnings and Renewal A liar needs a good memory that's a quote from Quintilian. Many of us wasted a lot of energy trying to keep track of whom we had told what. For example, we'd tell our boss one story and our family another. Then we'd work hard to make sure they never met. How wonderful to be done with that way of life. We now have a life based on honesty. We can now be ourselves wherever we go. Our program tells us that to get sober, we must live a life of strict honesty. Honesty is our first rule to get and stay sober. Life is much more simple this way. We can relax and think of the happy details of life. Prayer for the day from Keep It Simple. Higher power, help me to live honestly. Being honest brings me closer to you. Help me become closer to you. And the action for the day. Today I'll read the first three pages of chapter 5 in Alcoholics Anonymous. Here, I'll learn why honesty is so important to my recovery. And so for today's final reading, let's go ahead and take that action of the day. Turn to chapter 5 in the big book and read the first three pages, which happens to be how it works. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those too who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked, we thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power, that one is God. May you find him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. One, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable. Two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible and Except when to do so would injure them or others. ten. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Eleven. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Twelve. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics. And to practice these principles in all our affairs. Many of us exclaimed, What an order, I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic is The chapter to the agnostic and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas. A that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. And C that God could and would if he were sought. And that was how it works from chapter five of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's usually read at the beginning of most AA meetings. And before I close today, I'd like to go back to 24 hours a day and go back to that question. Have I learned to take it easy? And they say one of the mottos in here, easy does it. I'd like to add, easy does it, but do it. And easy does it reminds me that sobriety doesn't require me to solve every problem today, but it does require me to keep moving forward. Easy does it tells me to slow down, stay in the present, and stop putting unnecessary pressure on myself. Have everything figured out. But the do-it part is just as important. It reminds me that recovery requires action. I still have to go to meetings, reach out to others, work the steps, make phone calls, pray, reflect, and do the things that keep me sober even when I don't feel like doing them. I don't have to race through recovery or be perfect at it. I just can't become complacent. One day at a time. I can take the next right action and trust that those small actions, repeated consistently, will keep me moving in the right direction. And so I'd love to hear your thoughts and your comments on easy does it or easy does it but do it, and how, if you do, incorporate that into your sobriety, into your daily life. You can send me an email at sober readings with Scott at gmail dot com. So that's gonna do it for today's episode of Sober Readings. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to help me share the message, click that like button, share this episode, and also subscribe. And if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket, just go to my website, soberreadings.com and click the donate button. So again, thank you so much for listening, everyone. 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.