Latest / Sober Readings / A Design For Living
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Hey everyone, welcome back to Sober Readings. My name is Scott, I'm your host. Today is Friday, the seventh of August, and let's start today like we always do 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 design for living. We, in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men. 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, or if you prefer, a design for living that really works. And that's from page twenty eight of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I try each day to raise my heart and hands in thanks to God for showing me a design for living that really works through our beautiful fellowship. But what exactly is this design for living that really works? For me, it is the practice of the twelve steps to the best of my ability, the continued awareness of a God who loves me unconditionally, and the hope that in each new day, there is a purpose for my being. I am truly, truly blessed in the fellowship. Today's reading from twenty four hours August seventh AA thought for the day. We in AA are offering an intangible thing, a psychological and spiritual program. It's a wonderful program. When we learn to turn to a higher power, with faith that that power can give us the strength we need, we find peace of mind. When we re-educate our minds by learning to think differently, we find new interests that make life worthwhile. We who have achieved sobriety through faith in God. and mental reeducation are modern miracles. It is the function of our AA program to produce modern miracles. Do I consider the change in my life a modern miracle? Today's meditation for the day. You should never doubt that God's Spirit is always with you, wherever you are, to keep you on the right path. God's keeping power is never at fault, only your realization of it. You must try to believe in God's nearness and availability of His grace. It is not a question of whether God can provide a shelter from the storm, but of whether or not you seek the security of that shelter. Every fear, worry, or doubt is disloyalty to God. You must endeavor to trust God wholly, practice saying all is going to be well. Say it to yourself until you feel it deeply. Today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may feel deeply that all is well. I pray that nothing will be able to move me from that deep conviction. Today's meditation from Touchstone. We love because it's the only true adventure. And that's a quote from Nicky Giovanni. In loving, we meet ourselves. As we have become more honest, we no longer make excuses about our relationship problems. We can't blame our troubles on our partner. Our problems with love were often because we didn't know how to be close or we didn't dare to be. When we let ourselves engage in this adventure, we meet many obstacles, things we can't control, and sometimes we want to quit right there. We have arguments and disappointments as well as good feelings. But what adventure is without difficulty or surprises? Part of the reason for choosing new experiences is to confront forces outside our control. A relationship is a dialogue. Only if we stay with it through the frustrations, express our deepest feelings openly, and listen to our partner do we achieve a new level of understanding and confidence in the relationship. Then deeper levels also open within ourselves. Today I will let honesty guide me in this adventure of my love dialogue. And for today's final reading, I'm gonna read from the grapevine of February of 2021. And this story is titled Just Following Suggestions. Someone wrecked his new car, and boy did they need a good cussing out. Luckily, his sponsor had a better idea. And this is on page twenty-five. At six months sober, I had just finished cleaning and waxing my newly purchased but used maverick. That car was the answer to my prayer, which went, God, please show me how I'm going to commute to work now that I have landed my first real job in sobriety. The maverick looked real good as I glanced out at it through my bedroom window. Except, right at that exact moment, a beautiful light blue Mercedes backed into its rear left fender. Immediately my temper spiked and I felt outrage. But then I remembered miraculously, that my sponsor Jay had told me to call him anytime my feelings started to take control. Don, call me before you act on a strong emotion, he would say. So I did. I called Jay immediately and blurted, some woman just backed into my car after I spent all afternoon cleaning and waxing it, and I'm going down there to make sure she knows that I know what she did. No, Jay said. Write your name and phone number on a piece of paper and take it to her. Tell her that you can't talk right now, but give her your contact information and tell her to please call you later. Then you turn around and leave. What? I sputtered in response. That doesn't make any sense. She was in the wrong and she needs a good cussing out. Just do it, Don, he said. We'll talk about it later. Reluctantly I did just as he said, though his advice made no sense to me at all. That evening he and I spoke after our AA meeting. Jay, help me understand what you told me to do today, I asked. Don, you called me with a problem and I offered a way to behave that is consistent with the principles we practice in AA, Jay explained. What you did was humble, hopeful, and faithful, and there is no requirement for you to understand. I thought about that and then I replied I'm committed to what you told me to do because is because it is different than the life I had before, even though it makes no sense to me at all. Returning home after the meeting, I found a message on my answering machine from a mister Leigh who said he was the husband of the woman who damaged my car earlier that day. He left his phone number and said, We will do whatever is needed to make this right if you just call me. The next day I called and was invited to their house. Mr. and Mrs. Lay welcomed me warmly and apologized for my inconvenience. They gave me a check for $200, and Mr. Lay gave me the address of the car repair shop he owned. He said he had the best body repairman in town who would get right on fixing the damage to my car. After I left their house, I felt like I'd been treated so well by them. I had always been consistently disappointed by the way people treated me. Now it felt good to be treated well. A year later, still following my sponsor's suggestions that made no sense, I entered a classroom for the first time in twenty five years. I was enrolled in an eight AM writing class at our community college. As I watched all the other students arrive and find seats, I felt more and more conspicuous. I was forty two years old and none of the other students were older than twenty three or twenty four. Right then the professor misses Edna Leigh walked in, looked at everyone, and walked directly over to my desk. I saw your name on the list of students, she said, and hoped you were the Don I knew who had once given me his name and number, and here you are. Thank you for being here and helping me to be more comfortable with a room full of youngsters. Every semester I feel too old to be here. That woman taught the first class on my return to school and And was the most encouraging person in my academic pursuits for the next 10 years. She became my very good friend. As I continued following my sponsor's suggestions, I earned a degree in social work while working as a paraprofessional in the field of substance abuse recovery. Subsequently, I earned a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling. What Jay told me to do had finally made sense. That was written by Don S. in Mountain City. And that's a great story because it really reminds me of that saying, Would I rather be happy or right? And in this case, yes, he might have been right. It might have been righteous anger, but would it have helped this situation? I don't think so. And I feel that way too. Whenever I get angry, I like to think to myself, Is my anger gonna help this situation or hurt it? And most of the time. It's gonna hurt the situation, it's not gonna make things any better. I absolutely know how to make things worse, and I know that I don't wanna do those things anymore. So now I try to practice when I can remember, I try to practice that pause and rather than reacting, especially in anger, I pause, take a few breaths, and then respond accordingly. Something hopefully that's helpful in that in that situation. How would you have handled a situation like that? I would love to hear about it. If you'd like to be a guest on my show and talk about it, send me an email at sober readings with Scott at gmail.com. I would love to make that happen. That'd be an interesting conversation about anger. That's one thing I can definitely talk about. I have a lot of experience with it, unfortunately. And so that's gonna do it for today's episode of Sober Readings. Thank you so much for listening today. 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.