Latest / Sober Readings / True Tolerance
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Welcome to Sober Readings. Today is Friday, the 29th of May. Let's begin today's episode with the Serenity Prayer. 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 True Tolerance The only requirement from AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. That's a line from the twelve steps and twelve traditions page one hundred three nine. I first heard the short form of the third tradition in the preamble. When I came to AA, I could not accept myself, my alcoholism, or a higher power. If there had been any physical, mental, moral, or religious requirements for membership, I would be dead today. Bill W. said in his tape on the Third Traditions that the Third Tradition is a charter for individual freedom. The most impressive thing to me was the feeling of acceptance from members who were practicing the third tradition by tolerating and accepting me. I feel acceptance is love, and love is God's will for us. Today's reading from 24 Hours. May 29, AA Thought for the Day. We who have learned to put our drink problem in God's hands can help others to do so. We can be used as a connection between an alcoholic's need and God's supply of strength. We and Alcoholics Anonymous can be uniquely useful just because we have the misfortune or fortune to be alcoholics ourselves. Do I want to be a uniquely useful person? Will I use my own greatest defeat and failure and sickness as a weapon to help others? Today's meditation for the day. I will try to help others. I will try not to let a day pass without reaching out an arm of love to someone. Each day I will try to do something to lift another human being out of the sea of discouragements into which he or she has fallen. My helping hand is needed to raise the helpless to courage, to strength, to faith, to health. In my own gratitude I will turn and help another alcoholic with the burden that is pressing too heavily upon him. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may be used by God to lighten many burdens. I pray that many souls may be helped through my efforts. And today's final reading is from As Bill Sees It. We're reading from page two nine zero today. Time versus money. Our attitude toward the giving of time when compared with our attitude toward giving money presents an interesting contrast. We give a lot of our time to AA activities for our own protection and growth, but also for the sake of our groups, our areas, AA as a whole, and above all the newcomer. Translated into terms of money, these collective sacrifices would add up to a huge sum. But when it comes to the actual spending of cash, particularly for AA service overhead, many of us are apt to turn a bit reluctant. We think of the loss of all that earning power in our drinking years, of those sums we might have laid by for emergencies or for education of our kids. In recent years this attitude is everywhere on the decline. It quickly disappears when the real need for a given AA service becomes clear. Donors can seldom see what the exact result has been. They well know, however, that countless thousands of other alcoholics and their families are being helped. That's from the Twelve Concepts, pages sixty-three to sixty-four. And that's it for today's episode of Sober Readings. If you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket for today's episode, just go to soberreadings.com and click the donate button. 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.