Latest / Sober Readings / A Riddle That Works
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Good morning everyone, happy Monday, and welcome to Sober Readings for the twenty fourth of August. It's Monday. Let's begin today's episode with the Serenity Prayer. God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. Today's reading from Daily Reflections A Riddle That Works. It may be possible to find explanations of spiritual experiences such as ours, but I have often tried to explain my own and have succeeded only in giving the story of it. I know the feeling it gave me and the results it has brought, but I realize I may never fully understand its deeper why and how. That's from As Bill Sees It page three one three. I had a profound spiritual experience during an open AA meeting, which led me to blurt out, I'm an alcoholic. I have not had a drink since that day. I can tell you the words I heard just prior to my admission and how those words affected me, but as to why it happened, I don't know. I believe a power greater than myself chose me to recover, yet I don't know why. I try not to worry or wonder about what I do not yet know. Instead, I trust that if I continue to work the steps, practice the AA principles in my life, and share my story, I will be guided lovingly toward a deep and mature spirituality in which more will be revealed to me. For the time being, it is a gift for me to trust God, work the steps, and help others. Today's reading from twenty four hours a day. August twenty four, AA Thought for the Day. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly, and we were willing to set these matters straight. We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We asked God to remove our fears and we commenced to outgrow fear. Many of us needed an overhauling in regard to sex. We came to believe that sex powers were God given and therefore good if used properly. Sex is never to be used lightly or selfishly, nor is it to be despised or loathed. If sex is troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others, and so take our minds off ourselves. Am I facing my sex problems in the proper way? The meditation for the day. Cling to the belief that all things are possible with God. If this belief is truly accepted, It is the ladder upon which a human soul can climb from the lowest pit of despair to the sublimest heights of peace of mind. It is possible for God to change your way of living. When you see the change in another person through the grace of God, you cannot doubt that all things are possible in the lives of people through the strength that comes from faith in him who rules us all. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may live expectantly. I pray that I may believe deeply that all things are possible with God. Today's reading from Keep It Simple: Meditations for Twelve Step Beginnings and Renewal for August 24. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifetime romance. And that's a quote from Oscar Wilde. There's a big difference between being self-centered and having self-love. We're self-centered when we think we don't need people. We might think I'm more important than others. Being self-centered ends up hurting us. It makes us lonely. It keeps us from our higher power. Addiction is about being self-centered. Recovery in the twelve steps are about self love. If we love ourselves, we'd say we're all equal and in need of each other. Self-love includes having good relationships. It includes trusting that we'll do what is best with the help of our higher power. We must believe in ourselves to trust ourselves. And the prayer for the day from this book, Higher Power, help me love myself as you love me. Help me take good care of myself. And the action for the day. Today I'll list three things I like about myself. I'll talk with a friend and share these things. I'll ask my friend what he or she likes about me. And for today's final reading, let's go back to As Bill Sees It. And if you remember, the last time we read from As Bill Sees It, it was the end of the book, so we finished it. So today we'll start back from the beginning. I'll read the foreword, followed by page one. So the foreword from As Bill Sees It. Dear friends, this volume includes several hundred excerpts from our literature, touching nearly every aspect of AA's way of life. It is felt that this material may become an aid to individual meditation and a stimulant to group discussion, and may well lead to a still wider reading of all our literature. Over the past twenty-five years, it has been my privilege to write these books about AA. The text of Alcoholics Anonymous, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, and Twelve Concepts for World Service, the last part as part of our Third Legacy Manual. Many pieces have been written for our monthly magazine, the AA Grapevine, and I have always carried on a large personal correspondence. These are the chief sources from which the content was chosen for this volume. Because the quotations used were lifted out of their original context, it has been necessary in the interest of clarity to edit and sometimes to rewrite a number of them. Of course, all this material reflects my personal viewpoint on AA's way of life. As such, it is bound to have its limitations and imperfections. Nevertheless, one may hope that this new publication will meet a genuine need. Everly devoted Bill W and he wrote that in April of nineteen sixty seven. And so let's go to page one from As Bill Sees It, this one is called Personality Change. It has often been said of AA that we are interested only in alcoholism. That is not true. We have to get over drinking in order to stay alive. But anyone who knows the alcoholic personality by first hand contact knows that no true alkie ever stops drinking permanently without undergoing a profound personality change. And that's in a letter written in 1940. We thought conditions drove us to drink. And when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't do so to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics. It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were. And that is from the twelve and twelve page forty seven. And that brings us to the end of the readings for today. I'm so excited to get back into As Bill Sees It From the Beginning. You know, as it goes in in AA and in meetings, we go to the end of the book and go right back to the beginning, and that's great because a lot of times I just forget what I read. I forget all the stories and the and the letters and everything from the beginning of As Bill Sees It. So I hope you're as excited as I am to get back into As Bill Sees It From the Beginning. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of Sober Readings. If you did, hit that like button and share this episode to help me. Spread the message. If you're someone who loves to read sober literature and you'd like to be a guest reader on my show, I'd love to have you. Just send me an email at sobereadings with Scott at gmail.com. And also if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket, just go to my website, soberreadings.com, scroll down a little bit and find the donate button. And remember, just like a meeting, there are no dues or fees, but we do have expenses. So every dollar helps. So thank you very much for that. And thank you very 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.