Transcript

A New Life · Sober Readings

Scott Hayes: Good morning everyone. Welcome back to Sober Readings. Today is Tuesday, September fifteenth. 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 wisdom to know the difference. Today's reading from Daily Reflections A New Life. Yes, there is a substitute, and it is vastly more than that. It is a fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous. Life will mean something at last. That's from page one hundred five two in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Life is better without alcohol. AA and the presence of a higher power keeps me sober, but the grace of God does even better. It brings service into my life. Contact with the AA program teaches me a new and greater understanding of what Alcoholics Anonymous is and what it does, but most importantly, it helps to show me who I am, an alcoholic who needs the constant experience of the Alcoholics Anonymous program so that I may live a life given to me by my higher power. Today's reading from twenty-four hours a day. September fifteenth AA Thought for the Day. We all realize that we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to all of us. Ask him in your morning meditations what you can do today for the person who is still sick. The answers will come if your own house is in order. See to it that your relationship with God is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. Give freely of what you find in AA, but obviously you cannot transmit something that you haven't got. So make a life study of AA. Today's question is Am I always looking for ways of presenting the AA program? Today's meditation for the day. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. Confidence means to have faith in something. We could not live without confidence in others. When you have confidence in God's grace, you can face whatever comes. When you have confidence in God's love, you can be serene and at peace. You can rest in the faith that God will take care of you. Try to rest in God's presence until His life power flows through you. Be still, and in that stillness, the still small voice will come. It speaks in quietness to the human mind that is attuned to its influence. Today's prayer for the day. Today's reading from Keep It Simple, Daily Meditations for Twelve Step Beginnings and Renewal. Often the test of courage is not to die but to live. And that's a quote from I'm gonna try not to screw this up, Vittorio Alfieri. And we'll talk more about him before we close. What brave people we are. We have chosen life. Okay, maybe we had a little push, maybe a big push, from our family, police, or the pain of our disease. But still, we've chosen recovery. We choose daily to let our higher power run our lives. What trust, what faith, what courage. We work hard at recovery. We do our readings. We go to meetings. We pray and meditate. We look for ways to serve others. Each one of us is building a miracle. We can be proud of this. The prayer for the day from this book, I pray that I'll have the courage to love myself. Higher power, teach me to pat myself on the back when I deserve it. And the action for the day. I will list three ways I am brave in recovery and share them with my group. And for today's final reading, let's go back to As Bill sees it. Today we're reading from page fifteen. Eternal values. Many people will have no truck at all with absolute spiritual values. Perfectionists, they say, are either full of conceit because they fancy they have reached some impossible goal, or else they are swamped in self condemnation because they have not done so. Yet I think we should not hold this view. It is not the fault of great ideals that they are sometimes misused and so become shallow excuses for guilt, rebellion, and pride. On the contrary, we cannot grow very much unless we constantly try to envision what the eternal spiritual values are. And that's from an article in the Grapevine from June of nineteen sixty one. Day by day we try to move a little toward God's perfection, so we need not be consumed by maudlin guilt for failure to achieve his likeness and image by Thursday next. Progress is our aim, and his perfection is the beacon light years away that draws us on. That's from a letter written in nineteen sixty-six. And that's it for today's readings. All right, let's go back to this reading from Keep It Simple and The quote from Vittorio Alfieti, who was an eighteenth century Italian po I had to look this stuff up by the way, an eighteenth century Italian poet and playwright whose work often explored freedom, courage, and the struggle against forces that control us. So this quote reminds us that courage isn't always found in some dramatic or heroic moment. Sometimes the greater courage is simply continuing to live, to face the pain, uncertainty, disappointment, and fear. rather than looking for a way to escape them. And that connects deeply with sobriety because drinking was often an escape from things that I didn't want to face or feel. So sobriety asked me to stay present instead, to make the phone call, to go to the meeting, to ask for help, to sit with uncomfortable feelings, and keep moving forward when life gets difficult. Courage and recovery doesn't always look heroic. Sometimes it's simply deciding that no matter what today brings I'm going to stay sober, face my life, and give tomorrow a chance. And so that's all for today's episode of Sober Readings. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you heard something today that stays with you and helps you along your day today. If you'd like to be a guest on the show and share your experience, strength, and hope, I would love to have you. Just scroll down a little bit and find the link in the show notes to my email. And if you enjoy sober readings and would like to help support the podcast and share the message, You can drop a dollar in the donation basket using the link that is also in the show notes below. And you'll also find down below in the show notes a link to the Sober Readings website, which by the way is getting a facelift. It's getting an update. It's coming soon, a new website, ⁓ where you're gonna learn more about the podcast and stay connected. So as always, just for today, don't drink, go to a meeting and keep coming back. Have a great day, everyone. Be good to yourselves and others. And as always, have a great day. And as my friend Larry says, best day ever.