Transcript

Giving Freely · Sober Readings

Scott Hayes: Welcome back to Sober Readings. My name is Scott. I am your host. Today is Monday, the 27th of July. Let's begin with the serenity prayer today. 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 Giving Freely. We will make every personal sacrifice necessary to ensure the unity of Alcoholics Anonymous. We will do this because we have learned to love God and one another. That's from page two hundred three four of AA Comes of Age. To be self-supporting through my own contributions was never a strong characteristic during my days as a practicing alcoholic. The giving of time or money always demanded a price tag. As a newcomer, I was told we have to give it away in order to keep it. As I began to doubt the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous in my life, I soon found it was a privilege to give to the fellowship as an expression of the gratitude I felt in my heart. My love of God and of others became the motivating factor in my life, with no thought of return. I realize now that giving freely is God's way of expressing Himself through me. Today's reading from twenty four hours, july twenty seventh, AA Thought for the Day. To paraphrase the Psalm, we alcoholics declare the power of liquor and drunkenness showeth its handiwork. Dew unto day uttereth hangovers and night unto night showeth suffering. The law of AA is perfect, converting the drunk. The testimony of AA is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of A are right, rejoicing the heart. The program of AA is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the first drink is clean and during forever. Have I any doubt about the power of liquor? The Meditation for the Day. Walk humbly with thy Lord. Walking with God means practicing the presence of God in your daily affairs. It means asking God for strength to face each new day. It means turning to Him often during the day in prayer for yourself and for other people. It means thanking Him at night for the blessings you have received during the day. Nothing can seriously upset you if you are walking with God. You can believe that He is beside you in spirit to help you and to guide you on your way. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may try to walk humbly with God. I pray that I may turn to Him often as to a close friend. Today's Daily Meditation from Touchstones You cannot get it by taking thought. You cannot seek it by not taking thought. Zenrin Poem We are transported into unfamiliar worlds in this program by ideas that sometimes confound our mind. In the spiritual realms, we learn things we didn't learn anywhere else, and gradually they bring us peace. We can decide with our will to follow a spiritual direction, to turn our life and will over to the care of God. We cannot control what God will do with them. When we learn that part of our program was trying too hard, Being too self-sufficient or being too controlling, our old ways tell us to try hard to control that. But then we are only doing more of the same old thing. We learn that after making our decision, our higher power takes over. Now it is possible to be released from our own trying, to move beyond our own efforts by falling into the caring hand of God. I must give this program first priority in my life. Remembering my spiritual progress comes as a gift, not as an achievement. And for today's final reading, I'm gonna read from a paper. It's actually an excerpt out of a book. And this paper is titled You Can't Make Me Angry, and it's written by Dr. Paul O. ⁓ If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal people, but for alcoholics, these things are poison. And that's actually on page sixty six of the Big Book. Goals and Values in Sobriety By now, we have probably arrived at the following conclusions. That our character defects gone astray and caused by the misuse of and overuse of our God given and therefore good instincts for society, security and sex have been the primary cause of our drinking and our failure at life. Our alcohol ism and ISM ism is underlined there. And that's in step four from the twelve and twelve page fifty. That unless we are now willing to work hard at the elimination of the worst of these defects, both emotional sobriety and peace of mind will still elude us. That all the faulty foundation of our self centered beliefs, our unrealistic expectations upon PPTs, which are people, places and things, for identity, validity, and sense of belonging will have to be torn out and built anew on the bedrock of the spiritual principles of the twelve steps. By having a spiritual awakening or personality change as the result of taking the twelve steps and practicing their principles on a daily basis in all our affairs as a way of life. Many of us, without realizing it, put a low value on our emotional sobriety. Sometimes it is even awarded a negative value. At an AA meeting, a member admitted I get to feeling good, then I realize that I shouldn't be feeling this good when there is so much trouble going on in my life and the world I should be working on these things. We say that serenity and peace of mind are important to us, but our behavior belies our words when we promptly discard our emotional sobriety at the slightest provocation by PPTs, people, places and things during the course of our day and get angry, resentful or fearful. In unfit spiritual condition. For example, early in sobriety, I routinely threw my sobriety at other drivers on the freeway. In fact, they didn't know they had it until by hand gestures, horn blowing, or erratic driving. I made them aware of how they had annoyed me. Many of us do things like this out of habit, without even thinking about it. We react instead of respond. An important part of emotional sobriety is to become consciously aware of what we are doing, when we are doing it, or about to do it, so that we can intervene on ourselves and practice restraint of tongue, pen, and middle fingers, and the principles of our twelve step program, and so stay in a fit spiritual condition and away from that first drink. Carrying this thought of conscious awareness a bit further, we need to ask ourselves what motivates me in life? Do I have a distinct goal or desire or am I drifting, waiting for something or someone to tell me what to do? Do I interpret easy does it to mean doing nothing while waiting for someone something magical to happen? Am I breathing just a little and calling it a life? Who or what makes me happy, sad, confident, or fearful? Do I choose my feelings or do I allow people, places, and things to dictate dictate the way I feel? We might start out by examining what and who we are now. Humility. Can I write a paragraph describing myself in such a way that if I were to read it I would instantly recognize it as being me? Am I in touch with my conscious awareness at the center of my being? Of what and who I really am? Humility? If that's too much trouble, then I should carefully pick one word that best describes my basic overall personality. Perhaps a word like happy, depressed, Friendly, optimistic, unenthusiastic, fearful, loving, resentful, disappointed. Whatever word fits best. Maybe do this in our shares after reading this. If I can't decide on a word and I'm willing to take the risk, I can ask several close friends or relatives to do it for me. I wonder what kind of description I would get. Is that the person I want to be? Am I ready for a change or or am I comfortable being the victim of what? People, places, and things do or say. And if I'm comfortable in the victim role, then what am I getting out of being a victim? Having other PPTs control how I think and feel, control my life, and then complaining about it instead of doing something about it? Why is playing the victim so common in relationships? For one thing, the victim role provides a sense of false security by eliminating the need to change. To take responsibility for my own happiness, self-respect, emotional sobriety, my very life. Would I rather be needed than loved? As a consolation for this unhealthy dependency and neediness, being a victim provides a pleasant sense of self-righteous superiority and indignation. Is there anything sweeter? Instead of overcoming the fear of taking responsibility for my feelings and my life, I feel powerful and superior to you. As I point out to you and anyone who will listen, what you are doing wrong that is making me feel this way. You're the problem, you need help, not me, or so we like to think when playing the victim. We are human beings, and we react usually in direct proportion to how close we are to the person causing us the harm. Absolute, total, and constant control of our feelings and emotions is not possible, and not even desirable. But we can make progress. And I'll stop right there. There is a little more to this paper, but ⁓ we're running out of time. So, again, that was written by Dr. Paul O, and this is an excerpt from a book. I'm not sure what the book was was titled, but this paper is titled You Can't Make Me Angry. And if you'd like a copy of this paper, just send me an email at soberreadingswithscott at gmail.com, and I can certainly send you a copy of it. And so that's gonna do it for today's episode of Sober Readings. I hope you enjoyed that last reading. ⁓ if you'd like to be a guest reader on the show, send me an email at sober readingswithscott at gmail.com, or you can go to my website, soberreadings.com, and there's a short form that you can fill out there that'll also come to me. And while you're there at the website, if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket, just click that donate button. So again, thanks 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, everyone, and as my friend Larry says, best day ever.