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- Scott Hayes: Welcome back to Sober Readings. Today is Tuesday, the fourteenth of July. Let's begin today's episode with the serenity prayer. God, 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 A Nourishing Ingredient. Where humility had formerly stood for a forced feeding on humble pie, it now begins to mean the nourishing ingredient which can give us serenity. And that's on page seventy four of twelve steps and twelve traditions. How often do I focus on my problems and frustrations? When I am having a good day, these same problems shrink in importance and my preoccupation with them dwindles. Wouldn't it be better if I could find a key to unlock the magic of my good days for use on the woes of my bad days? I already have the solution. Instead of trying to run away from my pain and wish my problems away, I can pray for humility. Humility will heal the pain. Humility will take me out of myself. Humility, that strength granted to me by that power greater than myself, is mine for the asking. Humility will bring balance back into my life. Humility will allow me to accept my humanness joyously. Today's reading from 24 hours. AA Thought for the Day. One of the best things about the AA program is the peace of mind and serenity that it can bring us. In our drinking days, we had no peace of mind or serenity. We had the exact opposite. A kind of turmoil and that quiet desperation we knew so well. The turmoil of our drinking days was caused partly by our physical suffering, the terrible hangovers, the cold sweats. The shakes and the jitters. But it was caused even more by our mental suffering, the loneliness, the feeling of inferiority, the lying, the remorse that every alcoholic understands. So today's question is have I achieved more peace of mind? The meditation for the day. Try to look for God's leading in all your personal relationships, in all your dealings with other persons. God will help you take care of all your relationships with people if you are willing to let Him guide you. Rejoice that God can protect you and keep you from temptation and failure. God can protect you in all situations during the day if you will rely on His strength and go forward. You should feel that you are entering upon the stage of success in the proper way of living. You should not doubt that better things are ahead for you. Go forward unafraid because you feel deeply safe under God's protection. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that God may protect and keep me as long as I try to serve Him. I pray that I may go forward today unafraid. The Daily Meditation from Touchstones Life is not a brief candle. It is a splendid torch that I want to make burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. And that's a quote from George Bernard Shaw. We are men who have sought intensity. Some have said the extremes of our past were a kind of search for a higher power, although we went to self defeating ends. There is no need now for us to give up our intense love of life. Serenity need not be bland. In facing ourselves, confronting our pain, surrendering our arrogant individualism, we are released to live the life we deeply desire. What do men really want? We want to have true lasting friendships with other men and women, to be at peace with ourselves and our higher power. We want to be fully aware in the present moments of our lives. We want to have some joy and to make a contribution to the world. I am grateful that my torch burns brightly. I am finding what I really want. And today's final reading is from As Bill sees it. We're going to go to page 314 today. High and Low. When our membership was small, we dealt with low-bottom cases only. Many less desperate alcoholics tried AA, but did not succeed because they could not make the admission of their hopelessness. In the following years, this changed. Alcoholics who still had their health, their families, their jobs, and even two cars in the garage began to recognize their alcoholism. As this trend grew, they were joined by young people who were scarcely more than potential alcoholics. How could people such as these take the first step? By going back in our own drinking histories, we showed them that years before we realized it, we were out of control, that our drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression. And that's on page 23 of the 12 and 12. And that's it for today's readings. Before I close today, I'd like to go back again to the 24 hours AA thought for the day. And that question, have I achieved more peace of mind? Because that reading was so powerful to me. It really reminds me of the mental suffering, the loneliness, the feeling of inferiority, the lying, the remorse. All of that stuff I can relate to in my drinking days. And in sobriety, only by working the twelve steps, by Being an active member in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, have I achieved peace of mind? You know, for me, the most important thing that I get from my sobriety is freedom. And the freedom that I'm talking about is freedom from the insanity of active alcoholism and addiction. And in this reading, it calls it the turmoil of our drinking days. You can use whatever term you'd like, I call it the chaos of my drinking days. The big book relates us to a tornado whirling through people's lives and destroying things. And that sounds about right for my life, only I didn't see it when I was in it. As a matter of fact, for a while I thought the only thing I was hurting, the only person I was hurting was myself, when we all know that's not the case. And I only began to learn the full impact of my drinking on other people after I got sober and started working the steps. And for me, working the steps was the only true way that I was gonna achieve this peace of mind that they talk about in this reading. So ask yourself that question today. Have I achieved peace of mind in your sobriety? What do you do on a daily basis to maintain that peace of mind and serenity? I'd love to hear your thoughts and your comments. You can send me an email at soberreadings with Scott at gmail.com. And also if you'd like to come on the show and be a guest reader and talk about that. I would love to have you. So that's gonna do it for today's episode of Sober Readings. Thank you so much for listening. Hey, remember, if you want 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 see 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.