April – 12 Step Spiritual Readings
| Feel free to post any of this months readings or spiritual quotes you connect with in the comment section. Thursday 1st April through to Friday 30th April. |
| Feel free to post any of this months readings or spiritual quotes you connect with in the comment section. Thursday 1st April through to Friday 30th April. |
Sheila
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
Since I’ve been in A.A., have I made a start toward becoming more
honest? Do I no longer have to lie to my loved ones? Do I try to have
meals on time, and do I try to earn what I make at work? Am I trying
to be honest? Have I faced myself as I really am and have I admitted
to myself that I’m no good by myself, but have to rely on God to help
me do the right thing? Am I beginning to find out what it means to be
alive and to face the world honestly and without fear?
Meditation For The Day
God is all around us. His spirit pervades the universe. And yet we
often do not let His spirit in. We try to get along without His help and
we make a mess of our lives. We can do nothing of any value without
God’s help. All our human relationships depend on this. When we let
God’s spirit rule our lives, we learn how to get along with others and
how to help them.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may let God run my life. I pray that I will never again
make a mess of my life through trying to run it myself.
Carly (New York)
April 4
Daily Reflections
CRYING FOR THE MOON
“This very real feeling of inferiority is magnified by his childish
sensitivity and it is this state of affairs which generates in him that
insatiable, abnormal craving for self-approval and success in the eyes
of the world. Still a child, he cries for the moon. And the moon, it
seems, won’t have him!”
LANGUAGE OF THE HEART, p. 102
While drinking I seemed to vacillate between feeling totally invisible
and believing I was the center of the universe. Searching for that
elusive balance between the two has become a major part of my
recovery. The moon I constantly cried for is, in sobriety, rarely full; it
shows me instead its many other phases, and there are lessons in them
all. True learning has often followed an eclipse, a time of darkness,
but with each cycle of my recovery, the light grows stronger and my
vision is clearer.
Suzy :) Just for today
NA Just For Today
Growing Honestly
“On a practical level, changes occur because what’s appropriate to one phase of recovery may not be for another.”
Basic Text p. 101
When we first came to Narcotics Anonymous, many of us had no legitimate occupation. Not all of us suddenly decide we’re going to become honest and productive model citizens the moment we arrive in NA. But we soon find, in recovery, that we are not so comfortable doing many of the things we once did without a second thought when we were using.
As we grow in our recovery, we begin to be honest in matters that probably hadn’t bothered us when we used. We start returning extra change a cashier may have given us by mistake, or admitting when we hit a parked car. We find that if we can begin to be honest in these small ways the bigger tests of our honesty become much easier to handle.
Many of us came here with very little capacity to be honest. But we find that as we work the Twelve Steps, our lives begin to change. We are no longer comfortable when we benefit at the expense of others. And we can feel good about our newfound honesty.
Just for today: I will examine the level of honesty in my life and see if I’m comfortable with it.
Tracey
April 9
Daily Reflections
FREEDOM FROM “KING ALCOHOL”
. . . let us not suppose even for an instant that we are not under
constraint. . . . Our former tyrant, King Alcohol, always stands ready
again to clutch us to him. Therefore, freedom from alcohol is the
great “must” that has to be achieved, else we go mad or die.
As Bill Sees It, p. 134
When drinking, I lived in spiritual, emotional, and sometimes, physical
confinement. I had constructed my prison with bars of self-will and
self-indulgence, from which I could not escape. Occasional dry spells
that seemed to promise freedom would turn out to be little more than
hopes of reprieve. True escape required a willingness to follow
whatever right actions were needed to turn the lock. With that
willingness and action, both the lock and the bars themselves opened
for me. Continued willingness and action keep me free–in a kind of
extended daily probation–that need never end.
Alex
NA Just For Today 9th April 🙂
Acting Out
“We learn to experience feelings and realize they can do us no harm unless we act on them.”
IP No. 16, “For the Newcomer”
Many of us came to Narcotics Anonymous with something less than an overwhelming desire to stop using. Sure, the drugs were causing us problems, and we wanted to be rid of the problems, but we didn’t want to stop getting high. Eventually, though, we saw that we couldn’t have one without the other Even though we really wanted to get loaded, we didn’t use; we weren’t willing to pay the price anymore. The longer we stayed clean and worked the program, the more freedom we experienced. Sooner or later, the compulsion to use was lifted from us completely, and we stayed clean because we wanted to live clean.
The same principles apply to other negative impulses that may plague us. We may feel like doing something destructive, just because we want to. We’ve done it before, and sometimes we think we’ve gotten away with it, but sometimes we haven’t. If we’re not willing to pay the price for acting on such feelings, we don’t have to act on them.
It may be hard, maybe even as hard as it was to stay clean in the beginning. But others have felt the same way and have found the freedom not to act on their negative impulses. By sharing about it and seeking the help of other recovering people and a Power greater than ourselves, we can find the direction, the support, and the strength we need to abstain from any destructive compulsion.
Just for today: It’s okay to feel my feelings. With the help of my sponsor, my NA friends, and my Higher Power, I am free not to act out my negative feelings.
California Colin :)
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
When I came into A.A., I came into a new world. A sober
world. A world of sobriety, peace, serenity, and happiness.
But I know that if I take just one drink, I’ll go right
back into that old world. That alcoholic world. That world
of drunkenness, conflict, and misery. That alcoholic world
is not a pleasant place for an alcoholic to live in. Looking
at the world through the bottom of a whiskey glass is no fun
after you’ve become an alcoholic. Do I want to go back to
that alcoholic world?
Meditation For The Day
Pride stands sentinel at the door of the heart and shuts out
the love of God. God can only dwell with the humble and the
obedient. Obedience to God’s will is the key unlocking the
door to God’s kingdom. You cannot obey God to the best of your
ability without in time realizing God’s love and responding to
that love. The rough stone steps of obedience lead up to where
the mosaic floor of love and joy is laid. Where God’s spirit
is, there is your home. There is heaven for you.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that God may make His home in my humble and obedient
heart. I pray that I may obey His guidance to the best of
my ability.
Suzy :) Just for today
NA Just For Today
Too Busy
“We must use what we learn or we will lose it, no matter how long we have been clean.”
Basic Text, p. 82
After putting some clean time together, some of us have a tendency to forget what our most important priority is. Once a week or less we say, “I’ve gotta get to a meeting tonight. It’s been.. ” We’ve been caught up in other things, important for sure, but no more so than our continued participation in Narcotics Anonymous.
It happens gradually. We get jobs. We reunite with our families. We’re raising children, the dog is sick, or we’re going to school at night. The house needs to be cleaned. The lawn needs to be mowed. We have to work late. We’re tired. There’s a good show at the theater tonight. And all of a sudden, we notice that we haven’t called our sponsor, been to a meeting, spoken to a newcomer, or even talked to God in quite a while.
What do we do at this point? Well, we either renew our commitment to our recovery, or we continue being too busy to recover until something happens and our lives become unmanageable. Quite a choice! Our best bet is to put more of our energy into maintaining the foundation of recovery on which our lives are built. That foundation makes everything else possible, and it will surely crumble if we get too busy with everything else.
Just for today: I can’t afford to be too busy to recover. I will do something today that sustains my recovery.
Davey
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
Having found my way into this new world by the grace of God
and the help of A.A., am I going to take that first drink,
when I know that just one drink will change my whole world?
Am I deliberately going back to the suffering of that
alcoholic world? Or am I going to hang onto the happiness
of this sober world? Is there any doubt about the answer?
With God’s help, am I going to hang onto AA. with both hands?
Meditation For The Day
I will try to make the world better and happier by my
presence in it. I will try to help other people find the
way God wants them to live. I will try to be on the side
of good, in the stream of righteousness, where all things
work for good. I will do my duty persistently and faithfully,
not sparing myself. I will be gentle with all people. I will
try to see other people’s difficulty and help them to correct
it. I will always pray to God to act as interpreter between
me and the other person.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may live in the spirit of prayer. I pray that
I may depend on God for the strength I need to help me to do
my part in making the world a better place.
April 13
Lukas (Netherlands)
NA Just For Today
People – Pleasing
“…approval-seeking behavior carried us further into our addiction…”
Basic Text p. 14
When others approve of what we do or say, we feel good; when they disapprove, we feel bad. Their opinions of us, and how those opinions make us feel, can have positive value. By making us feel good about steering a straight course, they encourage us to continue doing so. “People-pleasing” is something else entirely. We “people-please” when we do things, right or wrong, solely to gain another person’s approval.
Low self-esteem can make us think we need someone else’s approval to feel okay about ourselves. We do whatever we think it will take to make them tell us we’re okay We feel good for awhile. Then we start hurting. In trying to please another person, we’ve diminished ourselves and our values. We realize that the approval of others will not fill the emptiness inside us.
The inner satisfaction we seek can be found in doing the right things for the right reasons. We break the people-pleasing cycle when we stop acting merely to gain others’ approval and start acting on our Higher Power’s will for us. When we do, we may be pleasantly surprised to find that the people who really count in our lives will approve all the more of our behavior. Most importantly, though, we will approve of ourselves.
Just for today: Higher Power, help me live in accordance with spiritual principles. Only then can I approve of myself.
Josh ;)
Each Day a New Beginning
One has to grow up with good talk in order to form the habit of it. –Helen Hayes
Our habits, whatever they may be, were greatly influenced, if not wholly formed, during childhood. We learned our behavior through imitation, imitation of our parents, our siblings, our peer group. But we need not be stuck in habits that are unhealthy. The choice to create new patterns of behavior is ours to make–every moment, every hour, every day. However, parting with the old pattern in order to make way for the new takes prayer, commitment, determination.
All of us who share these Steps have broken away from old patterns. We have chosen to leave liquor and pills alone. We may have chosen to leave unhealthy relationships. And we are daily choosing to move beyond our shortcomings. But not every day is a successful one. Our shortcomings have become ingrained. Years of pouting, or lying, or feeling fearful, or overeating, or procrastinating beckon to us; the habit invites itself.
We can find strength from the program and one another to let go of the behavior that stands in the way of today’s happiness. And we can find in one another a better, healthier behavior to imitate.
The program is helping me to know there is a better way, every day, to move ahead. I am growing up again amidst the good habits of others, and myself.
Sheila
Alcoholics Anonymous – Fourth Edition
Chapter 7 – WORKING WITH OTHERS
Never avoid these responsibilities, but be sure you are doing the right thing if you assume them. Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A kindly act once in a while isn’t enough. You have to act the Good Samaritan every day, if need be. It may mean the loss of many nights’ sleep, great interference with your pleasures, interruptions to your business. It may mean sharing your money and your home, counseling frantic wives and relatives, innumerable trips to police courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails and asylums. Your telephone may jangle at any time of the day or night. Your wife may sometimes say she is neglected. A drunk may smash the furniture in your home, or burn a mattress. You may have to fight with him if he is violent. Sometimes you will have to call a doctor and administer sedatives under his direction. Another time you may have to send for the police or an ambulance. Occasionally you will have to meet such conditions.
p. 97
Dirk
NA Just For Today
Detachment
“Addiction is a family disease, but we could only change ourselves.”
IP No. 13, “Youth and Recovery”
Many of us come from severely damaged families. At times, the insanity that reigns among our relatives feels overwhelming. Sometimes we feel like packing our bags and moving far, far away.
We pray that our family members will join us in recovery but, to our great sadness, this does not always happen. Sometimes, despite our best efforts to carry the message, we find that we cannot help those we hold most dear. Our group experience has taught us that, frequently, we are too close to our relatives to help them. We learn that it is better to leave them in our Higher Power’s care.
We have found that when we stop trying to settle the problems of family members, we give them the room they need to work things out in their own lives. By reminding them that we are not able to solve their problems for them, we give ourselves the freedom to live our own lives. We have faith that God will help our relatives. Often, the best thing we can give our loved ones is the example of our own ongoing recovery. For the sake of our family’s sanity and our own, we must let our relatives find their own ways to recover
Just for today: I will seek to work my own program and leave my family in the care of a Higher Power.
pg. 114
Barney Rubble
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
By submitting to God, we’re released from the power of liquor.
It has no more hold on us. We’re also released from the things
that were holding us down: pride, selfishness, and fear. And
we’re free to grow into a new life, which is so much better
than the old life that there’s no comparison. This release
gives us serenity and peace with the world. Have I been
released from the power of alcohol?
Meditation For The Day
We know God by spiritual vision. We feel that He is beside us.
We feel His presence. Contact with God is not made by the
senses. Spirit-consciousness replaces sight. Since we cannot
see God, we have to perceive Him by spiritual perception. God
has to span the physical and the spiritual with the gift to us
of spiritual vision. Many persons, though they cannot see God,
have had a clear spiritual consciousness of Him. We are inside
a box of space and time, but we know there must be something
outside of that box, limitless space, eternity of time, and
God.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may have a consciousness of God’s presence. I
pray that God will give me spiritual vision.
Babs :)
As Bill Sees It
No Personal Power, p. 114
“At first, the remedy for my personal difficulties seemed so obvious
that I could not imagine any alcoholic turning the proposition down
were it properly presented to him. Believing so firmly that Christ can
do anything, I had the unconscious conceit to suppose that He would
do everything through me–right then and in the manner I chose.
After six long months, I had to admit that not a soul had surely laid
hold of the Master–not excepting myself.
“This brought me to the good healthy realization that there were
plenty of situations left in the world over which I had no personal
power–that if I was so ready to admit that to be the case with
alcohol, so I must make the same admission with respect to much
else. I would have to be still and know that He, not I, was God.”
Letter, 1940
Brucie boy ;)
Keep It Simple
Patience is needed with everyone, but first of all with ourselves. —St. Francis de Sales
How do you treat yourself? Do you talk to yourself in a kind and loving voice? We can’t be kind and loving to others until we learn to be kind and loving with ourselves. To live this way, we must give ourselves the gift of patience.
Let’s practice patience with ourselves daily. Practice talking to yourself in a kind, loving voice.
Your voice will be that of a loving parent who helps a child with a new task. Your Higher Power
Is willing to be patient with you. Give yourself the same gift.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, I pray that I’ll treat myself and others with the same loving patience You’ve shown me.
Action for the Day: I will listen to how I talk to myself. I will practice talking to myself with a kind, loving, and patient voice.
Peter Mc
April 30
Daily Reflections
A GREAT PARADOX
These legacies of suffering and of recovery are easily passed
among alcoholics, one to the other. This is our gift from God,
and its bestowal upon others like us is the one aim that today
animates A.A.’s all around the globe.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 151
The great paradox of A.A. is that I know I cannot keep the
precious gift of sobriety unless I give it away.
My primary purpose is to stay sober. In A.A. I have no other
goal, and the importance of this is a matter of life or death
for me. If I veer from this purpose I lose. But A.A. is not
only for me; it is for the alcoholic who still suffers. The
legions of recovering alcoholics stay sober by sharing with
fellow alcoholics. The way to my recovery is to show others
in A.A. that when I share with them, we both grow in the
grace of the Higher Power, and both of us are on the road
to a happy destiny.
Bobbie
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
People often ask what makes the A.A. program work. One of the
answers is that A.A. works because it gets people away from
themselves as the center of the universe. And it teaches them to rely
more on the fellowship of others and on strength from God. Forgetting ourselves in fellowship, prayer, and working with others is what makes the A.A. program work. Are these things keeping me sober?
Meditation For The Day
God is the great interpreter of one human personality to another.
Even personalities who are the nearest together have much in their
natures that remains a seated book to each other. And only as God
enters and controls their lives are the mysteries of each revealed to the other. Each personality is so different. God alone understands
perfectly the language of each and can interpret between the two. Here we find the miracles of change and the true interpretation of life.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may be in the right relationship to God. I pray that God
will interpret to me the personalities of other people, so that I can
understand them and help them.
Sheila xxx
Walk in Dry Places
No Conditional Sobriety
Admission of Powerlessness
Sobriety in AA is unconditional. This means that there’s never been a reason for drinking, no matter how bad our circumstances may become. As the AA pioneers were fond of saying, “THERE’S NOTHING THAT DRINKING WON’T MAKE WORSE.”
How do we know if we’ve been setting conditions on sobriety? It’s revealed to us in our own thinking. If we believe, for example, that a certain setback such as the ending of a relationship is just cause for drinking, we have made our sobriety conditional.
In such cases, what we need to do is clear up our own thinking on the subject. Maybe further inventory is needed, or perhaps we should let ourselves learn from the experience of others. Self-honesty is also important in getting priorities in order.
The decision to choose unconditional sobriety brings additional benefits in helping us to organize our lives. Once we completely understand that sobriety is all-important, it becomes easier to make other decisions that bear on keeping sober. We find ourselves choosing the ideas and activities that enhance sobriety, while rejecting other things that could threaten it.
I’ll never waver in a moment from my relief that I must continue to seek sobriety…… unconditionally. There is nothing that could ever justify my taking a drink.
Sheila xxx
Walk in Dry Places
The Barrier of Sick Pride
Sharing Feelings
Pride can be either sick or healthy. It’s sick pride that keeps us in bondage to alcohol. It’s healthy pride that emerges when we have high self-esteem. Finding the right path in sobriety always involves a battle to keep sick pride out of our lives.
What if I’m at a discussion meeting and I feel reluctant to admit that certain character defects are still giving me trouble? Can this be sick pride carrying on the pretense that I have risen above such problems? What if someone takes issue with a point I’ve tried to make in a discussion? Does sick pride cause me to react in self-defense?
We learn in the 12 Step program that we gain nothing by attempting to conceal our character defects from our fellow members. We gain everything by sharing our true feelings and letting others know we are vulnerable human beings. There is never any need to defend or explain anything we’ve tried to say in a meeting. The real message always comes through in our attitude, and it will reach those for whom it’s intended.
I’ll check myself today to see if sick pride is dictating what I say and do. The more I can let others see me as I really am, the more honest my relationships will be.
Terence
April 11
Daily Reflections
A WORD TO DROP: “BLAME”
To see how erratic emotions victimized us often took a long time. We
could perceive them quickly in others, but only slowly in ourselves.
First of all, we had to admit that we had many of these defects, even
though such disclosures were painful and humiliating. Where other
people were concerned, we had to drop the word “blame” from our
speech and thought.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 47
When I did my Fourth Step, following the Big Book guidelines, I
noticed that my grudge list was filled with my prejudices and my
blaming others for my not being able to succeed and to live up to my
potential. I also discovered I felt different because I was black. As I
continued to work on the Step, I learned that I always had drunk to rid
myself of those feelings. It was only when I sobered up and worked on
my inventory, that I could no longer blame anyone.
Terence
Each Day a New Beginning
The world is a wheel always turning. Those who are high go down low, and those who’ve been low go up higher. –Anzia Yezierska
Everything changes. Nothing stays the same. And letting go of the way things are, anticipating instead what they might become, frees us to live each moment more fully.
Time marches on, and our destiny marches with it. There is purpose in how our lives unfold, the ups and downs serve our growth. We must neither resent the doldrums nor savor too long the elation. Giving too much attention to either state interferes with our awareness of the present. And the present has come to teach us.
We must move with time. We must focus our attention on the moment and accept whatever feelings each experience elicits. Emotional maturity is accepting our feelings and letting them go and facing instead the next moment with fresh receptivity. Our lessons are many, and they accompany the lows as well as the highs. We can be grateful for both.
The program has taught us freedom from lingering lows. It has given us the tools to move confidently forward, trusting that all is well. Nothing lasts forever, and within each struggle is the opportunity for real growth.
The highs will pass away, just as will the lows. They visit us purposefully. I will give them their freedom and find mine as well.
Georgie Girl xx
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought For The Day
A police captain once told about certain cases he had come
across in his police work. The cause of the tragedy in each
case was drunkenness. He told his audience about a man who
got into an argument with his wife while he was drunk and beat
her to death. Then he went out and drank some more. The police
captain also told about a woman who got too near the edge of
an old quarry hole when she was drunk and fell one hundred
and fifty feet to her death. When I read or hear these stories,
do I think about our motto: “But for the grace of God”?
Meditation For The Day
I must keep balance by keeping spiritual things at the center
of my life. God will give me this poise and balance if I pray
for it. This poise will give me power in dealing with the lives
of others. This balance will manifest itself more and more in
my own life. I should keep material things in their proper place
and keep spiritual things at the center of my life. Then I will
be at peace amid the distractions of everyday living.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may dwell with God at the center of my life.
I pray that I may keep that inner peace at the center of
my being.