Latest / Sober Readings / Turning Negative To Positive
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Welcome to Sober Readings. Today is Tuesday, the twenty sixth of May. Let's begin 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 the wisdom to know the difference. Today's reading from Daily Reflections Turning Negative to Positive. Our spiritual and emotional growth in AA does not depend so deeply upon success as it does upon our failures and setbacks. If you will bear this in mind, I think that your slip will have the effect of kicking you upstairs instead of down. And that's from Asbil sees it page one hundred eight four. In keeping with the pain and adversity which our founders encountered and overcame in establishing AA, Bill W sent us a clear message. A relapse can provide a positive experience toward abstinence and a lifetime of recovery. A relapse brings truth to what we hear repeatedly in meetings. Don't take that first drink. It reinforces the belief in the progressive nature of the disease, and it drives home the need for and beauty of humility in our spiritual program. Simple truths come in complicated ways to me when I become ego driven. Today's reading from 24 hours, May 26th, AA Thought for the Day. And before I begin this reading, I just want to remind you that on May 23rd, it began by saying the twelfth step of AA, working with others, can be subdivided into five steps. Five words beginning with the letter C. And so May 23rd was confidence. The next day was confession, and then conviction. And so today we're on conversion. So may twenty sixth, AA thought for the day. In twelfth step work, the fourth thing is conversion. Conversion means change. The prospect must learn to change his way of thinking. Until now, everything he's done has been connected with drinking. Now he must face a new kind of life, without liquor. He must see and admit that he cannot overcome drinking by his own willpower, so he must turn to a higher power for help. He must start each day by asking his higher power for the strength to stay sober. This conversion to belief in a higher power comes gradually as he tries it and finds that it works. So ask yourself, do I care enough about another alcoholic to help him to make this conversion? Today's meditation for the day. Discipline of yourself is absolutely necessary before the power of God is given to you. When you see others manifesting the power of God, you probably have not seen the discipline that went before. They made themselves ready. All your life is a preparation for more good to be accomplished when God knows that you are ready for it. So keep disciplining yourself in the spiritual life every day. Learn so much of the spiritual laws that your life cannot again be a failure. Others will see the outward manifestation of the inward discipline in your daily living. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may manifest God's power in my daily living. I pray that I may discipline myself so as to be ready to meet every opportunity. And for today's final reading, I'm gonna pick up where I left off in AA Comes of Age: A Brief History of a Unique Movement. So we were in Chapter Two, which is titled The Three Legacies of Alcoholics Anonymous. And this was Bill W. giving a speech about his one of his relapses, and he had ended up on the kitchen floor unconscious the next morning. And then it was right back to three bottles of bathtub gin a day, so we'll pick it up from there. Then one afternoon the telephone rang. It was my old boarding school friend and drinking companion, Ebbie. Even over the phone, I somehow knew that he was sober. I could not remember a time when he had been sober in New York City. Long ago I had marked him for a hopeless case. I had heard, in fact, that they were going to put him away because of alcoholic insanity. Eagerly I said, Come right over. We'll talk about the good old days. Now why did I say that? It was because my present was unbearable, and I knew there was to be no future. Soon Ebbie stood beaming in the doorway. Then he was sitting across the kitchen from me. There was a big crock of gin and pineapple juice between us. Immediately I felt that there was something different about Ebbie. It was not only that he was sober. I could not put a finger on what it was. I offered him a drink and he refused. Then I asked, What's this all about? You say you aren't drinking. But you also say you aren't on the water wagon either. What's up? Well, Ebbie said, I've got religion. What a crusher that was. Ebbie and religion. Maybe his alcoholic insanity had become religious insanity. It was an awful letdown. I had been educated at a wonderful engineering college where somehow I had gathered the impression that man was God. But I had to be polite, so I said, What brand of religion have you got, Ebby? ⁓ he said, I don't think it has got any special brand name. I just fell in with a group of people, the Oxford groups. I don't go along with all their teachings by any means. But those folks have given me given me some wonderful ideas. I learned that I had to admit I was licked. I learned that I ought to take stock of myself and confess my defects to another person in confidence. I learned that I needed to make restitution for the harm I had done others. I was told that I ought to practice the kind of giving that has no price tag on it. The giving of yourself to somebody. Now, he added, I know you are going to gag on this. But they taught me that I should try to pray to whatever God I thought there was for the power to carry out these simple precepts. And if I did not believe there was any God, then I had better try the experiment of praying to whatever God there might be. And you know, Bill, it's a queer thing. But even before I had done all this, just as soon as I decided that I would try with an open mind, it seemed to me that my drinking problem was lifted right out of me. It wasn't like the water wagon business at all. This time I felt completely released of the desire, and I have not had a drink for months. Ebbie didn't try to pressure or evangelize me, and pretty soon he left. For several days I went on drinking, but in no waking hour was the thought of my friend absent from my mind. I could not forget what he had said. In the kinship of common suffering, one alcoholic had been talking to another. And I'll end today's reading there. This meeting of Ebbie and Bill W in his kitchen is in the big book. It's under Bill's story. But this speech given by Bill W gives a bit more details about how it happened and what was actually said. That last line in this section highlights what the AA preamble states is our primary purpose to stay sober and help another alcoholic to achieve sobriety when he says, one alcoholic had been talking to another. And What he didn't know is that Ebbie had planted the seed. And as you'll see the next time I pick up in this story, it began to work on Bill W. It wasn't instant, but the seed began to grow. So stay tuned in future episodes for the continuation of this story, as it was given in a speech by Bill W. And so that's it for today's episode of Sober Readings. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you'd like to be a guest reader on the show, I'd love to have you just send me an email at sobereadings with Scott at gmail.com. And if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket, just go to my website, soberreadings.com and click the donate button. So again, thank you so much for listening, everyone. 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.