Latest / Sober Readings / Live And Let Live
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- 10 30Reading: Good morning and welcome back to Sober Readings. Today is Friday. Happy Friday, everyone. It's october thirtieth. Let's get started today with the Serenity Prayer. God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. Today we're gonna read from Daily Reflections twenty four hours, and we're gonna go back to Living Sober. I know everybody loves that book so much, and so do I. Alright, so let's get to daily reflections. Live and let live, and you're gonna see that's the theme in two of today's readings. Never since it began has Alcoholics Anonymous been divided by a major controversial issue. Nor has our fellowship ever publicly taken sides on any question in an embattled world. This, however, has been no earned virtue. It could almost be said that we were born with it. So long as we don't argue these matters privately, it's a cinch we never shall publicly. And that comes from the twelve steps and twelve traditions. Do I remember that I have a right to my opinion, but that others don't have to share it? That's the spirit of live and let live. The Serenity Prayer reminds me, with God's help, to accept the things I cannot change. Am I still trying to change others? When it comes to courage to change the things I can, do I remember that my opinions are mine and yours are yours? Am I still afraid to be me? When it comes to wisdom to know the difference, do I remember that my opinions come from my experience? If I have a know it all attitude, aren't I being deliberately controversial? I'm not gonna say much about this reading right now because one of the upcoming readings focuses entirely on this important concept. But I will say that Live and Let Live is one of those simple sayings in AA that carries a powerful message about acceptance and tolerance and allowing others to live their lives without my judgment or my interference. I've learned that I don't have to agree with everyone, change anyone, or let their actions disturb my peace and serenity. I'll share with you something I heard early on in sobriety about about the serenity prayer and how to break it down into something I could understand at that time. The first line: grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. That's everything external to me. Courage to change the things I can. That's everything internal in my head, in my body. And the wisdom to know the difference. So I ask myself. Do I know the difference between external things that I cannot control and internal things in me that I can? Alright, let's get to the reading from twenty four hours, the AA Thought for the Day. I have real friends where I had none before. My drinking companions could hardly be called my real friends, though when drunk, we seem to have the closest kind of friendship. My idea of friendship has changed. Friends are no longer people whom I can use for my own pleasure or profit. Friends are now people who understand me and I them, whom I can help and who can help me to live a better life. I have learned not to hold back and wait for friends to come to me, but to go halfway and to be met halfway open and freely. So ask yourself, does friendship have a new meaning for me? The meditation for the day. There is a time for everything. We should learn to wait patiently until the right time comes. Easy does it. A great lesson we have to learn is how to wait with patience. We can believe that God has a plan for our lives, and that this plan will work out in the fullness of time. And in today's prayer for the day, I'm praying that I may learn the lesson of waiting patiently. And that is such a great reading. I love the meditation for the day. You know, one of the things I've learned had to learn in sobriety is patience. And I'll be the first to admit that it doesn't always come easily to me. I've spent a lot of my life wanting things to happen on my time, on my schedule, in my way, and according to my expectations. But I've learned that trying to force my will into situations usually leads to frustration and disappointment and unnecessary stress. And that's why the AA saying easy does it is such an important reminder for me. Not everything needs to happen right now, and not everything needs to happen the way I think it should. Sometimes the best thing I can do is put in the effort, trust God with the outcome, and patiently allow things to unfold in his time rather than mine. Patience isn't about sitting around doing nothing. It's about doing my part without trying to control everything else. And I found that when I stop forcing things and start trusting the process, I experience a whole lot more peace and serenity in my life. So let's get to today's final reading, which is from Living Sober. And remember I said that these reading two of these readings anyway were very similar. So we're going to chapter five, which is titled, The Same as Today's Reading from Daily Reflections, Live and Let Live. The old saying, live and let live, seems so commonplace, it is easy to overlook its value. Of course, one reason it has been said over and over for years is that it has proved beneficial in so many ways. We AAs make some special uses of it to help us not drink. It particularly helps us cope with people who get on our nerves. Reviewing once more a little of our drinking histories is Many of us can see how very, very often our drinking problem appeared to be related somehow to other people. Experimenting with beer or wine in our teenage years seemed natural, since so many others were doing it, and we wanted their approval. Then came weddings and bar mitzvahs and christenings, and holidays and football games and cocktail parties and business lunches. And the list can go on and on. In all of these circumstances, we drank at least partly because everybody else was drinking and seemed to expect us to. Those of us who began to drink alone or to sneak a drink now and then often did so to keep some other person or people from knowing how much or how often we drank. We rarely like to hear anybody else talk about our drinking. If they did, we frequently told them reasons for our drinking. As if we wanted to ward off criticism or complaints. Some of us found ourselves argumentative or even belligerent toward other people after drinking, yet others of us felt we really got along better with people after a drink or two, whether it was a social evening, a tense sale, or job interview, or even making love. Our drinking caused many of us to choose our friends according to how much they drank. We even changed friends when we felt we had outgrown their drinking styles. We preferred real drinkers to people who just took one or two, and we tried to avoid teetotalers. Many of us were guilty and angry about the way our family reacted to our drinking. Some of us lost jobs because a boss or a colleague at work objected to our drinking. We wish people would mind their own business and leave us alone. Often we felt angry and fearful even toward people who had not criticized us. Our guilt made us extra sensitive to those around us, and we nursed grudges. Sometimes we changed bars, changed jobs, or moved to new neighborhoods just to get away from certain persons. So a great number of people beside ourselves were in one way or another involved in our drinking, to some degree. When we first stopped drinking, it was a great relief to find that the people we met in AA, recovered alcoholics, seemed to be quite different. They reacted to us, not with criticism and suspicion, but with understanding and concern. However, it is perfectly natural that we still encounter some people who get on our nerves, both within AA and outside it. We find that our non-AA friends, co-workers, or family members. Still treat us as if we were drinking. It may take them a little while to believe that we have really stopped. After all, they may have seen us stop many times in the past only to start again. To begin to put the concept of live and let live into practice, we must face this fact. There are people in AA and everywhere else who sometimes say things we disagree with or do things we don't like. Learning to live with differences is essential to our comfort. It is exactly in those cases that we have found it extremely helpful to say to ourselves, well, live and let live. In fact, in AA much emphasis is placed on learning how to tolerate other people's behavior. However offensive or distasteful it may seem to us, it is certainly not worth drinking about. Our own recovery is too important. Alcoholism can and does kill, we recall. We have learned it pays to make a very special effort to try to understand other people, especially anyone who rubs us the wrong way. For our recovery, it's more important to understand than to be understood. This is not very difficult if we bear in mind that the other AA members too are trying to understand just as we are. For that matter, We'll meet some people in AA or elsewhere who won't be exactly crazy about us either. So all of us try to respect the rights of others to act as they choose, or must. We can then expect them to give us the same courtesy. In AA, they generally do. Usually people who like each other in a neighborhood, a company, a club, or AA gravitate toward each other. When we spend time with people we like, we We are less annoyed by those we don't particularly care for. As time goes on, we find we're not afraid simply to walk away from people who irritate us instead of meekly letting them get under our skin, or instead of trying to straighten them out just so they'll suit us better. None of us can remember anyone's forcing us to drink alcohol. No one ever tied us down and poured poured booze down our throats, just as no one physically compelled us to drink. Now we try to make sure no one will mentally drive us to drink either. It is very easy to use other people's actions as an alibi for drinking. We used to be experts at it, but in sobriety we have learned a new technique. We never let ourselves get so resentful towards someone else that we allow that person to control our lives, especially to the extent of causing us to drink. We found we have no desire to let any other person run or our lives. An ancient sage said that none of us should criticize another until we have walked a mile in the other person's boots. This wise advice can give us greater compassion for our fellow human beings, and putting it into practice makes us feel much better than being hung over. Let live, yes, but some of us find just as much value in the first part of the slogan: live. When we have worked out ways to enjoy our own living fully. Then we're content to let other people live any way they want. If our own lives are interesting and productive, we really have no impulse or desire to find fault with others or worry about the way they act. Can you think right now this minute of someone who really bothers you? If you can, try something. Postpone thinking about him or her and whatever it is about the person that riles you. You can boil inside about it later if you want to. But for right now, why not put it off while you read the next paragraph? Live, be concerned with your own living. In our opinion, staying sober opens up the way to life and happiness. It is worth sacrificing many a grudge or argument. Okay, so you didn't manage to keep your mind completely off that other person. Let's see whether the suggestion coming next will help. And that suggestion coming next is in chapter six and it's called. Getting active. And that is such a great chapter, Live and Let Live. Also, getting active is a great chapter. I'm gonna read that coming up soon too. Live and Let Live is such a great concept for this program and for me in my daily life, and it keeps me from being miserable and trying to control everyone and everything outside of my control. And that again is where the Serenity Prayer comes in. And so now it's time to hear from you. I want to hear how live and let live plays a part in your life and in your sobriety. And so you can drop a comment down below, or you can scroll down to the show notes and find the link to my email. Another way to do it is to go to my website, soberreadings.com, and go to the be a guest page. And there you can share your experience, your strength and hope. You can request to be a be a guest on sober readings, or just share your thoughts on today's readings. So that's all for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. I hope something you heard, something I said maybe, stays with you and helps you in your day today. So thanks for spending some time with me today. Be good to yourselves, be good to others, live and let live, and remember, we only have to do this one day at a time. So 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.