Transcript

Driven · Sober Readings

Scott Hayes: Hey, welcome back to Sober Readings, or welcome to Sober Readings if you're just joining us for the first time. Thank you for joining us if that's the case. My name is Scott, I am the host. Today is August 6th, it's Thursday. Let's begin today's episode with the Serenity Press. 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 Driven. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self delusion, self seeking, and self pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. And that's in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, page 62. My selfishness was the driving force behind my drinking. I drank to celebrate success and I drank to drown my sorrows. Humility is the answer. I learned to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. My sponsor tells me that service keeps me sober. Today I ask myself have I sought knowledge of God's will for me? Have I done service for my AA group? Today's reading from twenty four hours August sixth AA Thought for the Day. Psychologists are turning to religion because just knowing about ourselves is not enough. We need the added dynamic of faith in a power outside of ourselves on which we can rely. Books on psychology and psychiatric treatments are not enough without the strength that comes from faith in God. And clergy and rabbis are turning to psychology because faith is an act of the mind and will. Religion must be presented in psychological terms to some extent in order to satisfy the modern person. Faith must be built largely on our own psychological experience. So ask yourself today, have I taken what I need from both psychology and religion when I live the AA way? Today's meditation. Refilling with the Spirit is something you need every day. For this refilling with the Spirit, you need these times of quiet communion. Away, alone, without noise, without activity. You need this dwelling apart, this shutting yourself away in the very secret place of your being, away alone with your Maker. From these times of communion, you come forth with new power. This refilling Is the best preparation for effective work. When you are spiritually filled, there is no work too hard for you. Today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may be daily refilled with the right spirit. I pray that I may be full of joy of true living. Today's meditation from Touchstone. God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing. And that's a quote from Rabindranath Tagor. I hope I said that correctly. I apologize. We seek balance in our lives. The greatest sign of unmanageability in our past was the unbalanced lives we led. This is no easy lesson to learn. We are inclined to grasp for a single answer, thinking we now have the key insight to a happier way of life. As men, many of us have pursued our happiness in work with little time for anything else. Perhaps for some, the singing and playing we have done. We're part of our addiction or participating with someone else in their addiction. This makes it feel dangerous or frightening now to be playful in recovery. We can find ways to have more balance in our lives. Spiritual vitality grows when we make room in our day for lighthearted play as well as the serious tasks. I pray for guidance from my higher power to help me find a balance in my life today. And for today's final reading, I'm gonna read a story from Voices of Women in AA. Stories of experience, strength, and hope from Grapevine. And like it says, this is an AA Grapevine publication. And I'm gonna read from chapter seven, which is titled Our Families. And this story was written in June of 2001, and it's called When Every Meeting Counts. Like most of us, I consider my biggest life-changing event to be the day I walked into an AA meeting, so I was not at all prepared for the metamorphosis I underwent with the birth of my daughter eight sober years later. Before this event, I had a wonderful husband with 17 years of sobriety, a sponsor, a home group, and a support network of AA friends. I was reaping the joys of sobriety, a normal life and sometimes even one with serenity and stability. But I was unprepared to deal with the 24-hour a day demands of an infant. No sleep, no meetings, and barely enough time to talk with my sponsor. Though never hungry, I was constantly lonely and tired, and as a result, irritable, discontent, and angry. One night, in tears and frustration, I sat rocking my daughter and asked my husband, Why didn't you tell me it was going to be this hard? God only knows the love this man has shown for me and being willing to undertake another child in midlife. As my youngest stepchild becomes a senior in high school, our daughter will enter kindergarten. With so many diaper changes in my life, my sober friends eventually became strained. Consumed with my child, I couldn't relate to the freedom and problems of my childless friends. I craved the companionship of other mothers, sitting in AA or strolling down the street of my neighborhood. The isolation of having a baby was very painful to me. Keep it simple became my basic level of functioning. Since I was no longer able to get to a meeting when I needed or wanted one, every meeting counted. I had a very erratic work schedule, and finding babysitters proved to be daunting. At first, I took my daughter to my home group with some regularity, but it was difficult to concentrate, wondering if at any moment she would cry. As she got older and started to toddle around, I sat at the back of the room, straining to hear. I was grateful to be in the spirit of the meeting, but I was barely hanging on. I suggested we offer babysitting at the meeting, but this met with lukewarm support. I just didn't have the resources to find a regular sitter at h at the time. Some members were supportive, others let me know quite clearly how upset they were that my baby was interrupting their sharing. I left my home group in frustration. A new solution presented itself when my husband found an early morning Saturday meeting. Often leaving home in darkness, we attended regularly while my stepdaughter stayed with the baby. This small meeting with intimate sharing became my lifeline for two years. Topics focused on recovery from alcoholism and my sobriety was strengthened by the love and support I received there. Recently I started a meeting at my daughter's preschool. We meet while our class is in session, so I don't have to find a babysitter. I enjoy the responsibility and commitment of setting up this meeting as much as I did my first years of sobriety. As my meetings are fewer, I need to hear topics grounded in AA each week, so we always read a topic from our literature. Once, when no one showed up, I decided to read the third step from the twelve and twelve. I was so taken by how many times the word willingness appeared. That it led me to a study of the entire twelve and twelve. Then I went back to the big book and joined an online big book study group. Our literature is vital to my path and sobriety now. My prayer life has also deepened. Regular prayer and outside support are great comforts. These are tools I learned in AA. Since having my daughter, I have learned much from my husband and my sponsor about self sacrifice. For someone used to living Life in the driver's seat, even in sobriety, this was a rude awakening. Having a child is utterly humbling. I write this to offer hope and encouragement to other sober new mothers. Too often I have seen women in AA leave the fellowship as the demands of their children and families take over. Prayer and a willing heart enabled me to find what I needed to stay sober and connected to the fellowship. It's not easy, but it is entirely worth it. Looking back, I am so grateful for the motivation of my new life challenges. My daughter continually makes me work on myself to become a healthy mother, and this in turn strengthens my sobriety. And that is from someone named MSW in Richmond, Virginia. So thank you, MSW, for submitting that story to the AA Grapevine publication. And although I cannot relate to that because obviously I'm not a mother, I am a father and I do have a young child. And she's been coming to meetings with me for years now. And it's beautiful to see the relationship that she's formed with some of the people in the meetings. They love her and she now enjoys going to the meeting. And I've heard so many stories from people that were the same way that grew up with their parents, ⁓ their parents taking them to meetings. And when, you know, after they became alcoholics themselves, unfortunately, when they were ready, they knew where to go because they they knew what the solution was because they watched their parents go through it. So I am totally grateful to be able to bring my daughter to AA meetings and her feel the love of the fellowship like I feel it. And so that's gonna do it for today's episode of Sober Readings. If you'd like to talk about your child coming to meetings with you or your experience with going to meetings as a young child, I'd love to hear it. You can come on my show as a guest reader or a guest speaker. I would love to have you. Just send me an email at sober readingswithscott at gmail.com and we can make that happen. ⁓ if you'd like 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 and thank you so much for that. And 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.