Daily Recovery Readings
Daily Reflections
August 21
WE JUST TRY, p.242
My stability came out of trying to give, not out of demanding that I receive.
-The Best Of Bill, pp. 46-47
As long as I try, with all my heart and soul, to pass along to others what has been passed along to me, and do not demand anything in return, life is good to me. Before entering this program of Alcoholics Anonymous I was never able to give without demanding something in return. Little did I know that, once I began to give freely of myself, I would begin to receive, without ever expecting or demanding anything at all. What I receive today is the gift of “stability,” as Bill did: stability in my A.A. program; within myself; but most of all, in my relationship with my Higher Power, whom I choose to call God.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
August 21
A.A. Thought For The Day
“Who are you to say there is no God? This challenge comes to all of us. Are we capable of denying that there is a design and purpose in all of life as we know it? Or are we willing to admit that faith in some kind of Divine Principle is a part of our makeup, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend? We find a great Reality deep down within us, if we face ourselves as we really are. In the last analysis, it is only there that God may be found. When we find this Reality within us, we are restored to our right minds.” Have I found the great reality?
Meditation For The Day
“Behold, I make all things new.” When you change to a new way of life, you leave many things behind you. It is only the earth-bound spirit that cannot soar. Loosen somewhat the strands that tie you to the earth. It is only the earthly desires that bind you. Your new freedom will depend on your ability to rise above earthly things. Clipped wings can grow again. Broken wings can regain a strength and beauty unknown before. If you will, you can be released and free.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may be freed from things that hold me down. I pray that my spirit may soar in freedom.
As Bill Sees It
The Value of Human Will, p. 232
Many newcomers, having experienced little but constant deflation, feel a growing conviction that human will is of no value whatever. They have become persuaded, sometimes rightly so, that many problems besides alcohol will not yield to a headlong assault powered only by the individual’s will.
However, there are certain things which the individual alone can do. All by himself, and in the light of his own circumstances, he needs to develop the quality of willingness. When he acquires willingness, he is the only one who can then make the decision to exert himself along spiritual lines. Trying to do this is actually an act of his own will. It is the right use of this faculty.
Indeed, all of A.A.’s Twelve Steps require our sustained and personal exertion to conform to their principles and so, we trust, to God’s will.
12 & 12, p. 40
Thought For The Day
Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth.
Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book) In Short Takes
Part 2. They Stopped In Time
Physician, Heal Thyself!
Psychiatrist and surgeon, he had lost his way until he realized that God, not he, was the Great Healer.
The Third Step said: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” Now they asked us to make a decision! We’ve got to turn the whole business over to some joker we can’t even see! And this chokes the alcoholic. Here he is powerless, unmanageable, in the grip of something bigger than he is, and he’s got to turn the whole business over to someone else! It fills the alcoholic with rage. We are great people. We can handle anything. And so one gets to thinking to one-self, Who is this God? Who is this fellow we are supposed to turn everything over to? What can He do for us that we can’t do for ourselves? Well, I don’t know who He is, but I’ve got my own idea.
