Transcript

Self-Honesty · Sober Readings

Scott Hayes: Welcome back to Sober Readings. My name is Scott, I am your host, and today we're going to begin 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. And I forgot to mention that today is Saturday, the 18th of April. All right, let's get started with daily reflections. Self-honesty. The deception of others is nearly always rooted in the deception of ourselves. When we are honest with another person, it confirms that we have been honest with ourselves and with God. That's from As Bill Sees It, page 17. When I was drinking, I deceived myself about reality, rewriting it to what I wanted it to be. Deceiving others is a character defect, even if it is just stretching the truth a bit or cleaning up my motives so others would think well of me. My higher power can remove this character defect, but first I have to help myself become willing to receive that help by not practicing deception. I need to remember each day that deceiving myself about myself is setting myself up for failure or disappointment in life and in Alcoholics Anonymous. A close, honest relationship with a higher power is the only solid foundation I've found for honesty with self and with others. Today's reading from 24 Hours, April 18, AA Thought for the Day. As I look back over my drinking career, have I learned that you take out of life what you put into it? When I put drinking into my life, did I take out a lot of bad things? Hospitals with the DTs, jails for drunken driving, loss of a job, loss of home and wife and children? Ask yourself, When I put drinking into my life, was almost everything I took out bad? The Meditation for the Day. I should strive for a friendliness and helpfulness that will affect all who come near to me. I should try to see something to love in them. I should welcome them, bestow little courtesies and understandings on them and help them if they ask for help. I must send no one away without a word of cheer, a feeling that I really care about them. God may have put the impulse in some despairing one's mind to come to me. I must not fail God by repulsing that person. He may have deep needs that he will not express to me unless he is sure of a warm reception. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may warmly welcome all who come to me for help. I pray that I may make them feel that I really care. And for today's final reading, I picked a couple paragraphs out of Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age. So this is chapter three, it's on page 223. And the chapter is titled, Four O'Clock Sunday Afternoon. I'll read the first sentence first, just to put it into context. The following section portrays the high points of the St. Louis Convention and the culmination of 20 years of Alcoholics Anonymous. And on the next page begins the reading that I selected. And this is Bill W. speaking. When we first come into AA, we find here, as we have observed before, a greater personal freedom than any other society knows. We cannot be compelled to do anything. In that sense, this society is a benign anarchy. The word anarchy has a bad meaning to most of us, probably because one of its excitable adherents long ago threw bombs around in Chicago. But I think that was the gentle Russian prince who so strongly advocated the idea felt that if men were granted absolute liberty and were compelled to obey no one in person, they would then voluntarily associate themselves in a common interest. Alcoholics Anonymous is an association of the benign sort the prince envisioned. This kind of association among us is wonderful and free and simple and joyous. So far so good. But we have found that this is not enough. When we had to go into action to function as groups, we found that we had to become a democracy. As the old timers retired, we began to elect our servants by majority vote. Each group in this sense became a town meeting democracy. When we first put our world services into effect, Dr. Bob and I and our old time friends were self appointed guardians and custodians of this society. We took it upon ourselves to provide services. I do not mean it in any irreverent or exaggerate sense when I say that our set up of those days was a sort of double-headed papacy and a college of cardinals. Structurally, we had created a hierarchy of service. But we had learned that such a hierarchy cannot forever float alone and must somehow be connected with the great sea of democracy all about it. The General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous is now about to provide that permanent connection, so much needed between our society and its trustees. But our conference will be more than a connection. It will represent the conscious of AA worldwide, to which our trustees will in this very hour become directly accountable. So I selected this passage out of AA Comes of Age because it gives a little history on how AA became what it is today. It's interesting that in the beginning, Dr. Bob and Bill didn't really know what they were doing. They didn't have any idea on how to get this thing to work. And it just kind of evolved over time. And this is what we have today. And I love this book because it really gives the history. ⁓ from Bill and Dr. Bob themselves of how it all happened and what really happened to make AA what it is today. So I hope you're enjoying that read. I'm gonna go back to this book a little more often to give the history of AA. And with that, we can bring today's episode of Sober Readings to a close. So if you enjoyed the show, please do me a big favor and hit the like button and share this episode and drop a comment too. That would be great. Make sure you're following or subscribe so that you never miss the next episode I really appreciate it and if you're someone who loves to read especially sober literature And look and would like to be a guest reader on my show I would love to have you just shoot me an email at sober readings with Scott at gmail.com And we can make that happen even if you live across the world We can make that happen if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket Just go to sober readings comm and click that donate button. It certainly helps Thank you so much for listening today. Stay sober, keep reading, and I'll see 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, and as my friend Larry says, best day ever.