Transcript

Acceptance · Sober Readings

Scott Hayes: Welcome back to Sober Readings, everyone. Thank you for joining me. My name is Scott. Today I'll be reading from Daily Reflections, 24 Hours a Day, and a third reading from the October 2026 edition, ⁓ a special edition actually on loneliness from the Grapevine, and it's titled A Sense of Belonging. So stay tuned for that. 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. From Daily Reflections for September 19th, acceptance. We admitted we couldn't lick alcohol with our own remaining resources, and so we accepted the further fact that dependence upon a higher power, if only our AA group, could do this hitherto impossible job. The moment we were able to accept these facts fully. Our release from the alcohol compulsion had begun. That's from Asbell sees it page one hundred zero nine. Freedom came to me only with the acceptance that I could turn my will and my life over to the care of my higher power, whom I call God. Serenity seeped into the chaos of my life when I accepted that what I was going through was life, and that God would help me through my difficulties, and much more as well. Since then, he has helped me through all of my difficulties. When I accept situations as they are, not as I wish them to be. Then I can begin to grow and have serenity and peace of mind. Today's reading from 24 hours, September 19, AA Thought for the Day. Let us continue with steps two, three, and eleven. We must turn to a higher power for help, because we are helpless ourselves. When we put our drink problem in God's hands and leave it there, we have made the most important decision of our lives. From then on, we trust God for the strength to keep sober. This takes us off the center of the universe. And allows us to transfer our problems to a power outside ourselves. By prayer and meditation, we seek to improve our conscious contact with God. We try to live each day the way we believe God wants us to live. So ask yourself Am I trusting God for the strength to stay sober? The meditation for the day. These things have I spoken unto you, that your joy may be full. Even a partial realization of the spiritual life brings much joy. You feel at home in the world when you are in touch with the divine spirit of the universe. Spiritual experience brings a definite satisfaction. Search for the real meaning of life by following spiritual laws. God wants you to have spiritual success and he intends that you have it. If you live your life as much as possible according to spiritual laws, you can expect your share of joy and peace. Satisfaction and success. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that I will find happiness in doing the right thing. I pray that I will find satisfaction in obeying spiritual laws. And today's final reading from a special edition of the Grapevine for October of twenty twenty six. This edition is titled Loneliness. This story that I'm reading is called A Sense of Belonging, and it was written by Jake B. in Cheyenne, Wyoming. After he lost his best friend Alcohol, loneliness set in. Luckily, he had a sponsor and AA Tools to help. Loneliness is the L in the AA slogan HALT HALT. One of the four dangerous states that can lead to relapse. In my early days, I understood the other letters hungry, angry, and tired. Those were known feelings for me, but loneliness? I didn't truly meet loneliness until I got sober. Today, with nine years of recovery, I've realized that loneliness wasn't just a feeling. It was the void I had been trying to drown for years. When I was drinking, I was busy. I lived by the work hard, play hard mantra, filling my calendar with college, work, hobbies, and exercise. I thought I was thriving. I was a high-functioning and high-production person, fueled by the promise of my nightcap reward. But slowly the fabric of the foundation for that life began to unravel. My nightly drinks migrated from social settings to the solitude of my couch. I wasn't feeling lonely yet, I was feeling demoralized. I was angry at my lack of control over my drinking. I tried to skip a night of drinking or drink less, but I couldn't. Eventually, alcohol took everything. I lost the job, the relationships, and my sense of self. Yet, even in total isolation, I didn't feel lonely. Why would I? I had my best friend alcohol to keep me company. It was a one sided relationship that was killing me. But like any abusive relationship, it convinced me I couldn't survive without it. My first real encounter with loneliness happened in the inpatient treatment. When the fog lifted and the alcohol was gone, the silence was deafening. I couldn't drink away the discomfort. I had to sit in it. By the end of my 30 days, I became terrified. I didn't have the tools to handle being alone with my own thoughts. So I followed the plan. A second month of treatment, a sober house. and AA meetings. I was doing all the right things, but I was still white knuckling the L in H A L T. I kept busy to stay safe. I thought the cure for loneliness was simply the presence of other people. I was feeling more confident and moved in with a girlfriend, also in early recovery, and felt I had finally outrun the void. Boy was I wrong. The relapse happened in a quiet moment. My girlfriend went to work, The house was still, and the loneliness moved in like a cold draught. Because I hadn't learned how to be with myself, I sought to escape myself. I turned to alcohol and woke up in a hospital bed, right back where I started. I felt defeated. Despite all my hard work to get sober, I was missing a vital piece of the puzzle. My sponsor didn't coddle me. He said loneliness is a part of life, and we have to learn to deal with it. The steps will teach you to be comfortable with yourself and And work on a relationship with a higher power so that you're never truly alone. That was a paradigm shift for me. I realized that I had been using the fellowship as a distraction rather than a foundation. To get through the loneliness, I had to develop a relationship with a higher power and perhaps more dauntingly with myself. Today, nine years later, my life looks very different because I treat loneliness with spiritual and practical tools. It begins with my internal world. Through regular meditation and prayer, I have cultivated a stillness within myself and a link with my higher power. This connection with my higher power provides a sense of belonging and contentment that isn't dependent on who's in the room. It is a constant companionship that makes the silence feel full rather than empty. I have also learned that while my internal foundation must be solid, I cannot stay sober in a vacuum. I stay active in the fellowship, not to hide from myself, but to be of service and find a deeper sense of oneness with my fellows. I maintain the lines of communication by keeping in touch with my sponsor and peers when things are going well, so that channels are open when things get heavy. I no longer wait for a crisis to reach out. I make the fellowship a part of my routine. I've discovered that working with others is another helpful tool. When I focus on helping another alcoholic, my loneliness tends to evaporate, replaced by a sense of purpose and connection to the world. Today, I'm grateful for the silence I once feared. It's no longer a void to be filled, but a space where I can hear my higher power and connect with myself. I've come to realize that for me, loneliness isn't a sign that I'm failing at sobriety. It's simply a signal that it's time to go deeper. By continuing to work the steps and leaning into the fellowship, I have watched that cold draft slowly transform into a warm, steady light. And again, that is from the October 2026 edition of Grapevine, a special edition titled Loneliness. And this story was A Sense of Belonging by Jake B. in Cheyenne, Wyoming. And here's my take on loneliness and how it played a role in my relapse. Loneliness played a bigger role in my relapse than I realized while I was going through it. And when I say loneliness, I don't necessarily mean that I didn't have people around me. I had family, friends, and people in the fellowship who cared about me. The problem was that I stopped letting them in. I stopped going to meetings regularly. I stopped making calls and sending texts. I stopped talking honestly about what was going on inside my head. I was around people, but I was becoming more and more alone in my recovery. Looking back, I think that loneliness gave my alcoholic thinking a place to grow. When I'm connected to other people in recovery, somebody can challenge my thinking, remind me where I came from, or simply listen when I'm having a difficult day. But when I isolate, the only person I'm talking to about my problems is me. And I'm not always the best person to be taking advice from. My relapse didn't begin with that first drink. It began much earlier when I slowly started disconnecting from the people and practices that had helped keep me sober for six years. That experience taught me that today I have to pay attention when I start pulling away. Sometimes loneliness isn't a sign that nobody is there for me. Sometimes it's a sign that I need to pick up the phone, walk into a meeting, and let somebody know where I am. I'd love to hear your thoughts and your comments on loneliness and whether or not it affects your sobriety on a daily basis. You can find a link to my email address in the show notes below. Also, if you go to my new website, sobereadings.com, there's a page called Be a Guest. You can fill out that form and send me your thoughts and your comments on loneliness and how it affects your sobriety. And while you're there at the website at soberreadings.com, if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket for today's readings, Just click on that support page and you'll see a button that says drop a dollar in the basket. So again, thank you so much for listening today. 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.