Latest / Sober Readings / Helping Others
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Good morning everyone. Welcome to Sober Readings. Today is Friday, the twenty-fourth of July. I cannot believe July is almost over already. Anyway, 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 the wisdom to know the difference. Today's reading from Daily Reflections: Helping Others. Our very lives as X-problem drinkers depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. And that's on page 20 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Self-centeredness was my problem. All my life, people had been doing things for me, and I not only expected it, but I was ungrateful and resentful they didn't do more. Why should I help others when they were supposed to help me? If others had troubles, didn't they deserve them? I was filled with self pity, anger, and resentment. Then I learned that by helping others with no thought of return, I could overcome this obsession with selfishness, and if I understood humility, I would know peace and serenity. No longer do I need to drink. Today's reading from twenty four hours, july twenty four, AA thought for the day. AA is like a dike holding back the ocean of liquor. If we take one glass of liquor, it is like making a small hole in the dike, and once such a hole has been made, the whole ocean of alcohol may rush in upon us. By practicing the AA principles, we keep the dike strong and in repair. We spot any weakness or crack in that dike and make the necessary repairs before any damage is done. Outside the dike is the whole ocean of alcohol. Waiting to engulf us again in despair. Am I keeping the dike strong? A meditation for the day. Keep as close as you can to the higher power. Try to think, act, live as though you are always in God's presence. Keeping close to a power greater than yourself is the solution to most of the earth's problems. Try to practice the presence of God in the things you think and do. That is the secret of personal power. It is the thing that influences the lives of others for good. Abide in the Lord and rejoice in His love. Keep close to the divine spirit in the universe. Keep God close behind your thoughts. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may keep close to the mind of God. I pray that I may live with him in my heart and mind. Today's daily meditation from Touchstones. Many things are lost for want of asking, and that is an English proverb. It's a principle of this program that we grow, in part, by learning to ask for what we need. Perhaps today we are struggling with a problem that could be eased if we talk to another man in the program. We could call him on the phone and just ask him if he has a few minutes to talk. Maybe we're wondering about a physical pain. Maybe we feel strange about something we said and would like to ask someone's opinion. Mistaken notions about masculinity get in the way of recovery. When we refuse to ask for help, we think we should know the answers and be self-sufficient. Maybe we feel stupid if we have to ask. Those notions drop by the wayside as we get healthier and learn the rewards of connecting with others to satisfy our mutual needs. No longer does false pride have to keep us isolated and struggling alone. Today I will notice what I need and practice asking for help. And for today's final reading, we're gonna go back to Living Sober. Today we're gonna read Chapter 2, Staying Away from the First Drink. Very important chapter, right in the front of the book. Expressions commonly heard in AA are if you don't take that first drink, you can't get drunk, and one drink is too many, but twenty are not enough. Many of us, when we first began to drink, never wanted or took more than one or two drinks. But as time went on, we increased the number. Then, in later years, we found ourselves drinking more and more, some of us getting and staying very drunk. Maybe our condition didn't always show in our speech or our gait, but by this time we were never actually sober. If that bothered us too much, we would cut down, or try to limit ourselves to just one or two, or switch from hard liquor to beer or wine. At least we tried to limit the nut the amount so we would not get too disastrously drunk, or we tried to hide how much we drank. But all these measures got more and more difficult. Occasionally we even went on the wagon and did not drink at all for a while. Eventually we would go back to drinking, just one drink, and since that apparently did no serious damage, we felt it was safe to have another. Maybe that was all we took on that occasion, and it was a great relief to find we could take just one or two, then stop. Some of us did that many times. But the experience proved to be a snare. It persuaded us that we could drink safely. And then there would come the occasion, some special celebration, a personal loss, or no particular event at all, when two or three made us feel fine, so we thought one or two more could not hurt. And with absolutely no intention of doing so, we found ourselves again drinking too much. We were right back where we had been, over drinking without really wanting to. Such repeated experiences have forced us to this logically inescapable conclusion. If we do not take the first drink, we never get drunk. Therefore, instead of planning never to get drunk, or trying to limit the number of drinks or the amount of alcohol, we have learned to concentrate on avoiding only one drink, the first one. In effect, instead of worrying about limiting the number of drinks at the end of a drinking episode, we avoid the one drink that starts it. Sounds almost foolishly simplistic, doesn't it? It's hard for many of us now to believe that We never really figure this out for ourselves before we came to AA. Of course, to tell the truth, we never really wanted to give up drinking altogether either until we learned about alcoholism. But the main point is, we know now that this is what works. Instead of trying to figure out how many we could handle, four, six, a dozen, we remember just don't pick up that first drink. It is so much simpler. The habit of thinking this way has helped hundreds of thousands of us stay sober for years. Doctors who are experts on alcoholism tell us that there is a sound medical foundation for avoiding the first drink. It is the first drink which triggers, immediately or sometime later, the compulsion to drink more and more until we are in drinking trouble again. Many of us have come to believe that our alcoholism is an addiction to the drug alcohol. Like addicts of any sort who want to maintain recovery, we have to keep away from the first dose of the drug we have become addicted to. Our experience seems to prove this, as you can read in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, and in our Grapevine magazine, and as you can hear wherever AA members get together and share their experiences. And again, that was chapter two from Living Sober, and it's called Staying Away from the First Drink. And for me, staying away from the first drink is really the foundation of my sobriety. Remember that the first step is the only step that I really need to do perfectly. I admit that I'm powerless over alcohol, and so taking that first drink would be very foolish, if not fatal. The first drink is the one that sets everything else in motion, so I don't have to worry about the second, the third, the tenth, as long as I avoid the first. That means staying connected, being honest, asking for help. And remembering where drinking once took me. So just for today, I don't have to drink, no matter what happens. And so that's gonna do it for today's episode of Sober Readings. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, do me a big favor and hit that like button. Also share this episode and subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. If you'd like to be a guest reader on the show, send me an email at soberreadings with Scott at gmail.com. And if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket for today's readings, just go to my website, sobereadings.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.