Daily Recovery Readings
Daily Reflections
October 14
A PROGRAM FOR LIVING
When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 86
I lacked serenity. With more to do than seemed possible, I fell further behind, no matter how hard I tried. Worries about things not done yesterday and fear of tomorrow’s deadlines denied me the calm I needed to be effective each day. Before taking Steps Ten and Eleven, I tried to focus on God’s will, not my problems, and to trust that He would manage my day. It worked! Slowly, but it worked!
Twenty-Four Hours
A Day
October 14
A.A. Thought For The Day
How big a part of my life is A.A.? Is it just one of my activities and a small one at that? Do I only go to A.A. meetings now and then and sometimes never go at all? Do I think of A.A. only occasionally? Am I reticent about mentioning A.A. to people who might need help? Or does A.A. fill a large part of my life? Is it the foundation of my whole life? Where would I be without A.A.? Does everything I have and I do depend on my A.A. foundation? Is A.A. the foundation on which I build my life?
Meditation For The Day
Lay upon God your failures and mistakes and shortcomings. Do not dwell upon your failures, upon the fact that in the past you have been nearer a beast than an angel. You have a mediator between you and God–your growing faith–which can lift you up from the mire and point you toward the heavens. You can still be reconciled with the spirit of God. You can still regain your harmony with the Divine Principle of the universe.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may not let the beast in me hold me back from my spiritual destiny. I pray that I may rise and walk upright.
As Bill Sees It
FALSE PRIDE, p. 285
The alarming thing about pride-blindness is the ease with which it is justified. But we need not look far to see that self-justification is a universal destroyer of harmony and of love. It sets man against man, nation against nation. By it, every form of folly and violence can be made to look right, and even respectable.
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It would be a product of false pride to claim that A.A. is a cure-all, even for alcoholism.
1. GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1961
2. A.A. COMES OF AGE, p. 232
Thought For The Day:
To thine own self be true
Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book) In Short Takes
Bill’s Story
Gradually things got worse. The house was taken over by the mortgage holder, my mother-in-law died, my wife and father-in-law became ill.
Then I got a promising business opportunity. Stocks were at the low point of 1932, and I had somehow formed a group to buy. I was to share generously in the profits. Then I went on a prodigious bender, and that chance vanished.
hat chance vanished. I woke up. This had to be stopped. I saw I could not take so much as one drink. I was through forever. Before then, I had written lots of sweet promises, but my wife happily observed that this time I meant business. And so I did.
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Credits.
Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book), The Daily Reflections and As Bill Sees It are published by The General Services Office (GSO) of Alcoholics Anonymous. These and other A.A. literature can be purchased here.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day is Published by Hazelton Publishing.
The AA Grapevine is published by The AA Grapevine, Inc. You can subscribe here.
