Latest / Sober Readings / Entirely Honest
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Welcome back to Sober Readings everyone, today is the fourth of May. Let's begin this episode with a 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. Entirely Honest. We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long and happily in this world. That's from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 73 to 74. Honesty, like all virtues, is to be shared. It began after I shared my whole life story with someone in order to find my place in the fellowship. Later, I shared my life in order to help the newcomer find his place with us. This sharing helps me to learn honesty in all my dealings and to know that God's plan for me comes true through honest openness and willingness. Today's reading from 24 Hours. May 4th AA Thought for the Day. When I was drinking, I always tried to build myself up. I used to tell tall stories about myself. I told them so often that I half believe some of them now, even though I know they aren't true. I used to hang around the lowbrow bar rooms so I could feel superior to the other customers. The reason I always tried to build myself up was that I knew deep down in my heart that I really didn't amount to anything. It was a kind of defense against my feeling of inferiority. So ask yourself, do I still build myself up? The Meditation for the Day God thought about the universe and brought it into being. His thought brought me into being. I must think God's thoughts after him. I must often keep my mind occupied with thoughts about God and meditate on the way he wants me to live. I must train my mind constantly in quiet times of communion with God. It is the work of a lifetime to develop the full stature spiritually. This is what I am on earth for. It gives meaning to my life. and today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may think God's thoughts after him. I pray that I may live as he wants me to live. And for today's final reading, I'm gonna read a few paragraphs out of a book by Harry Tebout called The Collected Writings. And the section is titled Humility. But before I get to that, I'll read a section of the introduction. Harry Morgan Tebow was the first psychiatrist to publicly recognize and uphold the work of Alcoholics Anonymous. He was born January 2, 1896 in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating from West Layen College in 1917, he attended medical school at Johns Hopkins University. There he interned and specialized in psychiatry. In 1922, he joined the staff at Westchester Division of the New York Hospital. where he remained until 1924. Thereafter, until 1935, he practiced psychiatry at various centers for child guidance. That year, he became director of Blythewood Sanitarium, Greenwich, Connecticut. And it was there that alcoholism became the primary concern of his professional career. And this section that I'll read is from a chapter titled Alcoholics Anonymous, An Experiment of Nature. So this little section is titled Humility and it's on page 70. The need to gain and maintain humility was the second concept derived from AA. The wisdom of letting the individual suffer and hit bottom was easily apparent, but it was difficult to understand why he had to be left prone. Enlightenment came from an AA friend, one of the co-founders of that fellowship. He had given an inspiring and moving talk and when, unexpectedly, I was in invited to comment, I found myself speaking my appreciation with unwanted eloquence. After the meeting, as I started to say goodbye to him, he responded with a wave of the hand and the announcement that he was going out to get drunk. It was not possible then to ask questions, because several patients had to be returned immediately to the sanitarium. The next time we met, he made the challenging remark, you've got a lot to learn about us drunks. And then he explained his strange response at the meeting. Don't you know we drunks can't stand praise? Hitting bottom was only half the job for the alcoholic. The real task was to stay there. Praise could go to his head, cause it to swell, and make him feel once more that he could handle liquor. Humility could prevent that rebound. The two concepts thus learned from AA were incorporated into a technique of treating the alcoholic. He maybe helped to hit bottom and then helped to avoid a return of the state of mind that had produced trouble previously. As a consequence of these policies, two clinical facts came into view. The first had been termed surrender. The second is the need for ego reduction. And the next section on this page is titled surrender and I'll read that some other day. So Harry Tebow was one of the first psychiatrists to actually describe alcoholism as a disease rather than moral failing or criminal activity. He actually came up with the concept of deflation of ego and he believed that a key part of recovery was breaking down an alcoholic's inflated sense of self or denial and that's exactly what they were talking about in this paragraph that I just read. And another important fact about Dr. Tebow is that he bridged the gap between psychiatry and spirituality. He saw value in AA's spiritual approach and helped to explain it in psychological terms, making it more acceptable to clinicians. And so this is another great book that explains the early beginnings, some of the early beginnings of AA and how it came about. So I'll start incorporating ⁓ some more readings from this book. Again, it's called Harry Tebout, The Collected Writings. And so I'll start reading some of these passages from this book too in Sober Readings. And so I hope you enjoyed that section. And that's it for today's episode of Sober Readings. So if you enjoyed the show, please do me a huge favor and hit that like button, share this episode, and leave a comment. And also, if you like reading sober literature and you'd like to be on the show, send me an email at soberreadingswithscott at gmail.com. And if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket, just go to soberreadings.com. click that donate button and if you haven't already gone to the website, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom, there's another book on there, my book actually, my memoir and it's titled, I Love You, Don't Do Anything Stupid. And there's a link to Amazon there where you can pick it up. So thank you again 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. And as my friend Larry says, best day ever.