Transcript

Growing Up · Sober Readings

Scott Hayes: Good morning everyone, welcome to Sober Readings for Friday. Happy Friday everyone, the 10th of April. We'll begin with the Serenity Prayer. God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Today's reading from Daily Reflections. Growing Up. The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails. That's from As Bill Sees It page 115. Sometimes when I've become willing to do what I should have been doing all along, I want praise and recognition. I don't realize that the more I'm willing to act differently, the more exciting my life is. The more I'm willing to help others, the more rewards I receive. That's what practicing the principles means to me. Fun and benefits for me are in the willingness to do the actions, not to get immediate results. Being a little kinder, a little slower to anger, a little more loving makes my life better. Day by day. Today's reading from 24 Hours. April 10, AA Thought for the Day. When I came into AA, I came into a new world, a sober world, a world of sobriety, peace, serenity, and happiness. But I know that if I take just one drink, I'll go right back into that old world, that alcoholic world, that world of drunkenness, conflict, and misery. That alcoholic world is not a pleasant place for an alcoholic to live in. Looking at the world through the bottom of a whiskey glass is no fun after you've become an alcoholic. So ask yourself today, do I want to go back to that alcoholic world? The Meditation for the Day. Pride stands sentinel at the door of the heart and shuts out the love of God. God can only dwell with the humble and the obedient. Obedience to God's will is the key unlocking the door to God's Kingdom. No man can obey God to the best of his ability without in time realizing God's love and responding to that love. The rough stone steps of obedience lead up to where the mosaic floor of love and joy is laid. Where God's Spirit is, there is your home. There is heaven for you. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that God may make his home in my humble and obedient heart. I pray that I may obey his guidance to the best of my ability. And for today's final reading, we're going to Chapter 16 from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is pages 416 to 417. The chapter is titled, Acceptance Was the Answer. And in a lot of meetings, this is called the Acceptance P- At last, acceptance proved to be the key to my drinking problem. After I had been around AA for seven months, tapering off alcohol and pills, not finding the program working very well, I was finally able to say, okay, God, it is true that I, of all people, strange as it may seem, and even though I didn't give my permission, really, really am an alcoholic of sorts. And it's all right with me. Now, what am I going to do about it? When I stopped living in the problem and began living in the answer, the problem went away. From that moment on, I have not had a single compulsion to drink. And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation, some fact of my life, unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation. as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober. Unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitude. So that's a passage called Acceptance from Chapter 16 in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous called Acceptance Was the Answer. Ask yourself, what does acceptance mean to me? What have you had to accept in your life for your sobriety? How has your sobriety been affected by acceptance? And what is it that you've had to accept? For me, in first getting sober, it was acceptance of the fact that I'm an alcoholic and what alcohol does to me and what alcohol has done to my life. That was a hard one to swallow at first, know standing up in a meeting and saying I'm Scott I'm an alcoholic Was it was difficult for my ego? I will have to I have to admit that but now that I've accepted that I can truly be grateful for my alcoholism and what it's put me through because of This new version of myself that I've that I've become what I've learned in the program of alcoholics anonymous and the other thing about acceptance is Accepting the outcome of things You know, we talk about not being in control of things, letting go, let go and let God. And to me, that means I don't want to control everything. I don't want to force my will on things, but I do want to accept the results. I do want to accept the outcome. Whether or not that outcome is how I wanted it to be, what I wanted the results to be, I'm not in control of that. But I am in control of whether or not I accept it for what it is. And that really changes my mood for the day. and rather than be miserable and angry about how things worked out, I can just accept them and move on. So I'd love to hear your thoughts and your comments on this. Send me an email at soberreadingswithscottatgmail.com. So that's it for today's episode of Sober Readings. I hope you've enjoyed the show. Please do me a favor if you have and click the like button and share this episode with someone who might need it. And like I said, drop me a comment, let me know what you thought. And if you're someone who loves to read, especially sober literature, let me know. I'd love to have you as a guest reader on the show. Just shoot me an email at sober readings with scott at gmail.com. And you can also contact me by going to my website sober readings.com and fill out that short form. And while you're there, if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket, just click that donate button at the website. So thank you everyone so much for listening. Stay sober. Keep reading. and I'll see you in the next episode. So 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.