Latest / Sober Readings / Happy, Joyous, and Free
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Welcome to Sober Readings everyone. Today is Sunday the 24th of May. Let's begin this 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 the wisdom to know the difference. From Daily Reflections, Happy, Joyous and Free. We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous and free. We cannot subscribe to the belief that this life is a veil of tears, though it once was just that for many of us. But it is clear that we made our own misery. God didn't do it. Avoid, then, the deliberate manufacture of misery, but if trouble comes, cheerfully capitalize it as an opportunity to demonstrate His omnipotence. And that is from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, page 133. For years I believed in a punishing god and blamed him for my misery. I have learned that I must lay down the weapons of self in order to pick up the tools of the AA program. I do not struggle with the program because it is a gift and I have never struggled when receiving a gift. If I sometimes keep on struggling, it is because I am still hanging on to my old ideas and the results are nil. Today's reading from 24 Hours, May 24, AA Thought for the Day. In 12-step work, the second thing is confession. By frankly sharing with the prospect, we get him talking about his own experiences. He will open up and confess things to us that he hasn't been able to tell other people. And he feels better when this confession has got these things off his chest. It's a great load off his mind to get those things out into the open. It's the things that are kept hidden that weigh on the mind. He feels a sense of release and freedom when he has opened up his heart to us. So ask yourself, do I care enough about another alcoholic to help him to make a confession? The Meditation for the Day I should help others all I can. Every troubled soul that God puts in my path is the one for me to help. As I sincerely try to help, a supply of strength will flow into me from God. My circle of helpfulness will widen more and more. God hands out the spiritual food to me and I pass it on to others. I must never say that I have only enough strength for my own need. The more I give it away, the more I will keep. That which I keep to myself, I will lose in the end. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may have a sincere willingness to give. I pray that I may not hold back the strength I have received from myself alone. And before I move on to the third reading today, I'd like to point out that yesterday's reading for the 24-hour book said, the 12th step of AA, working with others, can be subdivided into five steps, five words beginning with the letter C. So yesterday was confidence, today was confession. And tomorrow, I'll give you a hint, conviction. And for today's final reading, I'm gonna read a short story from the book called, Forming True Partnerships, How AA Members Use the Program to Improve Relationships. And so this reading is from chapter three, And chapter three is titled Dating and Romance. And this short story is titled Happily Together in Recovery. And it's from February of 2003. By the time I arrived in AA, I had been burned in all of my relationships, although I admit I lit the flame myself a few times, and I wasn't interested in ever dating again. At four years sober, I did start dating again, both in and out of the program, but I still wasn't very interested. One friend from my home group, 20 years my senior and recently divorced, used to join me for breakfast once or twice a week before our meeting, and we'd share our funny dating tales. Did we laugh? You know, after several months of this, we realized that our friendship could develop into something else. We began dating each other and tried to take it slowly. We're still together very happily nearly nine years later. We learned a lot of lessons along the way. We learned that we couldn't belong to the same home group and that only occasionally could we go to meetings together. We each needed to maintain our own program. And when we were in an AA meeting, our focus needed to be on the meeting itself. When we were a new couple, we were too focused on each other to get anything out of a meeting. We learned that in the relationship, our friendship was the most valuable thing we had, and that our romantic inclinations were secondary to the friendship. We learned not to call one another's sponsor. We learned not to try to sponsor one another. We learned to pray together. We learned to be honest with one another. we learn to cherish one another. In AA, we find lives we never could have imagined. I also found the kind of relationship I didn't know I could have. I think that if two people in the fellowship keep their recovery primary and central in their lives and have some solid recovery time behind them, they can date each other without disaster unfolding. While it is true that we are in AA because we have a disease that can re- complete havoc in our lives, it is also true that we are working on a solution. As long as the solution rather than our relationship is central in our lives, we can achieve true partnership. And the author of that story is anonymous. And so that last reading again was from a book called Forming True Partnerships, How AA Members Use the Program to Improve Relationships. And it was published by AA Grapevine. So I hope you enjoyed that last story. That takes us to the end of today's episode of Sober Readings. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, and 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 thank you so much for listening today. 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. And as my friend Larry says, best day ever.