Transcript

A Clean Sweep · Sober Readings

Scott Hayes: Hey, good morning, everyone. Welcome back to Sober Readings. My name is Scott. I am your host. Today is Thursday, the 13th of August. Let's get started today 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, a clean sweep. And third, having thus cleaned away the debris of the past, we consider how, with our newfound knowledge of ourselves, we may develop the best possible relations with every human being we know. That's from the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page seventy seven. As I faced the eighth step, everything that was required for successful completion of the previous seven steps came together. Courage, honesty, sincerity, willingness, and thoroughness. I could not muster the strength required for this task at the beginning, which is why this step reads Became willing. I needed to develop the courage to begin, the honesty to see where I was wrong, a sincere desire to set things right. Thoroughness in making a list and willingness to take the risks required for true humility. With the help of my higher power in developing these virtues, I completed this step and continued to move forward in my quest for spiritual growth. And I'm going to be bold today and switch up the order of the readings today. Next let's read the meditation from Touchstones. There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self esteem, the more likely one will treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity. People who do not experience self love have little or no capacity to love others. And that's a quote from Nathaniel Brandon. We cannot hang on to feelings of shame and guilt and still hope to become better people. How did these feelings begin? If we were treated badly by people, we need to be honest about what happened so we can resolve it and move on. Have we perpetuated our feelings by acting disrespectfully ourselves? Then we need to take a thorough inventory of our wrongdoings, admit them, make repairs, and let them go. We may wallow in shame. Because facing it feels too frightening. Often we believe our shame is greater than that of others. This belief is usually untrue and grandiose. It's part of how we isolate ourselves. We don't have to face it alone. We have the help of other men and women who can listen to our pain and tell us about their experiences. Today, may I find the courage to face my shame and assert my right to self-esteem. Today's reading from twenty four hours a day. August thirteenth, AA Thought for the Day. We had but two alternatives. One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could, and the other was to accept spiritual help. We became willing to maintain a certain simple attitude toward life. What seemed at first a flimsy read has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God. A new life has been given us, a design for living that really works. All of us establish in our own individual way our personal relationship with God. Today's question is have I established my own relationship with God? Meditation for the day. Make it a daily practice to review your character. Take your character in relation to your daily life, to your dear ones, your friends, your acquaintances, and your work. Each day, try to see where God wants you to change. Plan how best each fault can be eradicated or each mistake be corrected. Never be satisfied with a comparison with those around you. Strive toward a better life as your ultimate goal. God is your helper through weakness to power, through danger to security, through fear and worry to peace and serenity. Today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may make real progress toward a better life. I pray that I may never be satisfied with my present state. And for today's final reading, I'm gonna read an article from the Grapevine from September of twenty twenty-two. And this is on page fifty, and it's titled Strong Voice of the Eagle. And I'm gonna apologize to Joe now because I might screw up these names, but I'm gonna try my best. My name is Joe and I'm a sober anashabe alcoholic. I am Algonquin First Nations from the Great Lakes region in Canada and very proud of it. Anashabe is often translated as first man, original man, or a good person people. My spirit name is Pizongwakanu, which translates to the strong voice of the eagle. I'm from the Eagle Clan. My dry date is October 24, 1990, and my final drink was the day before. I will never forget that night of my last drink. I did not know I would be having my last one that night, but my creator knew. I've been sober more than 30 years now. It has been a great journey. I'm grateful to be sober and prouder of my culture and heritage than ever before. Being an AA and being anishabe, I believe, go hand in hand. For my culture is very spiritual and very giving. AA is all about giving back what we received freely, and my culture is all about giving back to Mother Earth and the land. I grew up in an alcoholic home, which was a very violent home at times. My mother did the best she could with what she had. She was a single mom. My dad walked out on us when I was five. My brother, twenty four years older than me, was my only male role model, and he was a violent alcoholic. I'm not saying that any of this made me an alcoholic. Nothing that happened to me in life made me an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic today because I have an allergy to alcohol. Something happens to me that does not happen in the normal drinker. I get a phenomenon of craving that happens in my body when I drink. After reading my big book and going through the twelve steps, my life started to change. I stopped drinking and my obsession with alcohol stopped. I joined a group and got myself a sponsor who is still my sponsor today. I never knew a life without alcohol, and today I cannot imagine life without AA. I cannot imagine my life without my Creator God today. I've been through a divorce and the loss of a job in the last few years. I lost my brother and my cousin in twenty twelve. But I never had to pick up a drink. Now that's a miracle. Nothing happens in God's world by mistake. I'm blessed today. I'm grateful to be sober and proud to be Nish. That was written by Joe S. in Toronto, Ontario. And again, that was an article written in the Grapevine of September of twenty twenty two titled Strong Voice of the Eagle. And that's it for today's episode of Sober Readings. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please do me a huge favor and hit the like button and share and subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. And if you'd like to be a guest reader on my show, I would love to have you. Just shoot me an email at soberreadingswithscott at gmail.com. And also if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket for today's readings, just go to my website, soberreadings.com, and click the donate button. So again, thank you so much for listening. 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, everyone, and as my friend Larry says, best day ever.