Latest / Sober Readings / A Limitless Lode
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: ⁓ Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Sober Readings, where we take recovery one episode and one day at a time. My name is Scott. Thank you for joining me today. Today is Tuesday, the twenty-second of September. I'm gonna be reading from Daily Reflections twenty-four hours a day. Keep it simple, and as Bill sees it, 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's reading from Daily Reflections A Limitless Load. Like a gaunt prospector, belt drawn in over the last ounce of food, our pick struck gold. Joy at our release from a lifetime of frustration knew no bounds. Father feels he has struck something better than gold. For a time he may try to hug the new treasure to himself. He may not see at once that he has barely scratched a limitless load which will pay dividends only if he mines it for the rest of his life. And insists on giving away the entire product. That's on pages 128 to 129 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. When I talk with a newcomer to AA, my past looks me straight in the face. I see the pain in those hopeful eyes. I extend my hand, and then the miracle happens. I become healed. My problems vanish as I reach out to this trembling soul. Today's reading from twenty four hours a day. September twenty two, AA Thought for the Day. Step eight is made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Step nine is made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Making restitution for the wrongs we have done is often very difficult. It hurts our pride. But the rewards are great. When we go to a person and say we are sorry, the reaction we get is almost invariably good. It takes courage to make the plunge, but the results more than justify it. A load is off your chest and often an enemy has been turned into a friend. So ask yourself, have I done my best to make all the restitution possible? Meditation for the day. There should be joy in living the spiritual life. A faith without joy is not entirely genuine. If you are not happier as a result of your faith, there is probably something wrong with it. Faith in God should bring you a deep feeling of happiness and security, no matter what happens on the surface of your life. Each new day is another opportunity to serve God and improve your relationships with other people. This should bring joy. Life should be abundant and outreaching. It should be glowing and outgoing in ever widening circles. The prayer for the day. I pray that my horizons may grow ever wide. I pray that I may keep reaching out for more service and companionship. Today's reading from Keep It Simple, Daily Meditations for Twelve Step Beginnings and Renewal. I'll just take it one day at a time, and when I'm ready, I'll be ready. It'll reverse itself, I guess. That's a quote from America Ferrera. We are to take with us only the joys and problems of the present day. We don't carry with us the mistakes of days gone by. We have no room for them. We are to work at loving ourselves and others today. Just today. It's crazy for us to think we can handle more than one day at a time. During illness, we lived everywhere but in the here and now. We looked to the future or punished ourselves with the past. The AA slogan was. One day at a time teaches us to go easy. It teaches us to focus on what really means anything to us, the here and now. And the prayer for today from Keep It Simple, Higher Power, help me turn the slogans of my programs into a way of life. Help me to live life moment by moment, one day at a time. And the action for the day. Today I'll practice living in the moment. When I find myself living in the past or in the future, I'll bring myself back to today. And for today's final reading, let's go to As Bill Sees It and we're reading from page nineteen. The wine of success. Disagreeable or unexpected problems are not the only ones that call for self control. We must be quite as careful when we begin to achieve some measure of importance and material success. For no people have ever loved personal triumphs more than we have loved them. We drank of success as of a wine which could never fail to make us feel elated. Blinded by prideful self confidence, we were apt to to play the big shot. Now that we're in AA and sober, winning back the esteem of our friends and business associates, we find that we still need to exercise special vigilance. As an insurance against the dangers of big shotism, we can often check ourselves by remembering that we are today sober only by the grace of God and that any success we may be having is far more his success than ours. That's on pages ninety-one to ninety-two of the twelve and twelve. And that's it for today's readings. But before I close, I'd like to go back to keep it simple and the action for the day, which says, Today I'll practice living in the present. When I find myself living in the past or in the future, I'll bring myself back to today. And the question might come up what can I do? What kind of actions can I take to bring myself back to the now, to living in today? Well, one of the things I have to watch in sobriety is where my mind is spending its time. When I live too much in the past, I can get caught up in regret, guilt, shame, and all the things I wish I could change. When I live too far into the future, I can create problems that haven't even happened yet. I start worrying about tomorrow, next month, or how everything is going to work out. Either direction can become dangerous for me because I'm no longer paying attention to the only place where I can actually protect my sobriety. And that's right now. Sometimes I have to ask myself a very simple question. Where are my feet? They're not standing in yesterday and they're not standing in tomorrow. They're right here. So I can make a phone call. I can go to a meeting. I can pray. I can read something. I can go for a run. I can help somebody else. Or simply take the next right action in front of me. I don't have to fix my past today, and I don't have to figure out the rest of my life. I just have to stay sober in this moment. And when the next moment gets here, I can do it again. Maybe that's what one day at a time really means. Bringing myself back to where my feet are and taking care of my sobriety right here, right now. And so don't forget to ask yourself today, where are my feet? And that's gonna bring us to the end of today's episode of Sober Readings. Thank you so much for listening. I hope something you heard today stays with you and helps you throughout your day. If you'd like to be a guest on the show and talk about where are my feet, ⁓ you can share your experience, strength, and hope, or even join me for a reading. There's a link in the show notes to send me an email. An easy way to connect with me on Sober Readings is to go to soberreadings.com and navigate to that page that says be a guest. There's a short form that you can fill out and contact me, leave comments, or request to be a guest. And there's also a page for supporting the the podcast if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket. Just navigate to that support page and click drop a dollar in the basket. So again, thank you so much and as always, 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.