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November 6

Step by Step

“When we first come into AA, many of us are confused because, as a general rule, we’re at the end of our respective ropes, and we don’t know what to do. It’s like the fellow who came in AA and his sponsor said to him, ‘Listen, buddy, do you believe in a Higher Power?’ And the guy said, ‘Heck, yes, I been married to her for years!’ Yes, we find it rather confusing but, as we get around and get to know people in the group, they lead the way and all we have to do is to follow.” – Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, “They Lost Nearly All,” Ch 8 (“Desperation Drinking”), p 512.

Today, through the confusion of beginning recovery and even in sobriety, the answers are simply simple, and the simplest is “to follow.” We cannot nor should follow others in recovery for they, too, are in the same boat. Instead, all of us need to follow the Program and its 12 steps and traditions of ethics. Complications that arise are not from the program or traditions but from within; we make it as complicated, confusing or difficult as we allow it. Today, I will counter any confusion, complications or doubts with the simple motto, “Keep It Simple.” And our common journey continues. Step by step. – Chris M.

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~ EASY DOES IT ~ (A Book of Daily 12 Step Meditations) ~

BROKEN HEARTS

Time wasted in getting even can never be used in getting ahead.

~ Anonymous ~

Many of us, during the course of our lives, experience a number of broken relationships. Some of them are very painful and stay with us for years. We often feel we have been harmed and hold onto deep resentments about the rejection. After many days, months, sometimes years, we bury our broken heart and carry on with our lives.

Step Eight asks us to take another look at these relationships. We must dig up our broken heart and assume our responsibility for our part in the break. We come to discover that, whether we like it or not, we all have a part in the breakdown of a relationship. The way to help us heal a broken relationship is to make amends. As hard as it may be for us, we must make every effort except where we may harm someone. We must be honest, even if it means the amends are not returned.

Today I'll remember that relationships always have two sides. I will take responsibility for my part in broken ones, and make amends where I can to the best of my ability.

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~ WISDOM TO KNOW ~ (More Daily Meditations For Men) ~

That is the thankless position of the father in the family—the provider for all, and the enemy of all.

~ August Strindberg ~

Many of us feel like outsiders in our families. We sometimes feel like a paycheck and not much more to our loved ones. We grew up with absent fathers and we never learned how to live as fathers in the close circle of love at home.

How can we move from an outsider position—or even an enemy position—into a full partnership with our mates and families? We can begin by showing our real selves. We take the risk of telling them what we care about, what we love, and how we feel. We say what scares us, what breaks our hearts, and what our past was like. The greatest gift we can give is to open our feelings and let our loved ones know us.

These changes do not happen in a day or even a month. But gradually, with repeated expressions of ourselves, in the process of letting ourselves be known, we become loved for who we are, not only for what we can do.

Today I will tell someone in my family how I feel.

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~ A WOMAN’S SPIRIT ~ (More Meditations For Women) ~

There is an intuitive core at the depth of your being.

~ Helene Lerner-Robbins ~

Deep within ourselves, we know everything. We haven’t yet learned to tap this inner source of wisdom, but now that we have found this spiritual program, lessons will be forthcoming. This means that each of us is fully capable of understanding the best way to attain a serene life. Within our souls lie all questions and their answers. Our self- centeredness commonly blocks the information that’s trying to rise to our awareness. However, when we can keep our ego small, our humility large, we’ll understand clearly why we are here, what we need to know, what we have to do.

When we are frustrated, it’s hard to believe that we have the wisdom we need within us. We race from one meager option to another, finding no solution. But if we still the mind, the information we seek will bubble forth. Hard to believe? Not once we’ve tried it. Hard to remember? Not with enough practice.

I am wise. The knowledge I need today will rise to my mind’s eye.

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~ TODAY I WILL DO ONE THING ~ (Daily Readings for Awareness and Hope) ~

I need to stay active

Before recovery, I'd get high whenever I felt bored. But now that I'm sober (and stable), drugs are no longer an option. It's especially hard these days when I feel edgy and restless, when I don't know what to do with myself.

The best answer I have right now is the Twelve Step fellowship. There, I'm not alone. I've heard others at my meeting say they've struggled with not knowing what to do with themselves or do with their time; many say they don't always know how to have fun. Through my program, I can stay in contact and stay active with safe, recovering people, as I slowly adjust to my new recovery lifestyle.

I will ask my fellow group members what they do with their time and how they have fun.

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~ BODY, MIND, AND SPIRIT ~ (Inspiration and Support for Recovery) ~

The first act of bad faith consists of evading what one cannot evade, of evading what one is.

~ Jean-Paul Sartre ~

When did we learn to pretend to be other than we were? When did we learn that what or who we were wasn’t good enough — that we could never do or say or be enough?

We learned in childhood, as did our parents, and their parents as well. Wearing a mask was a habit that evolved into becoming that mask, while our real selves disappeared.

In many ways, our real selves are still untested. But unlike the old days when they’d emerge only under pressure, we now try our real selves on like new clothes — first in a locked room when no one’s looking; later, in the open air and finally, with other people.

Being who we are is scary and awkward and strange at first, but it is an act of faith, one that builds upon the next act. These acts of faith are the process that is our recovery.

Today help me show my real face, if only for a moment.

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~ MORNING LIGHT ~ (Meditations to Begin Your Day) ~

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.

~ Flora Whittemore ~

Imagine you have broken your arm. You can go to the hospital, get your arm x-rayed and casted, and, when it is healed, do the rehabilitation work necessary to restore function and strength. Or you can ignore your broken arm and try to function as best as you can using only one arm. The choice is yours.

Your life was broken before you came into recovery. Perhaps you ignored taking care of this breakage for a long time, working around it and all of the damage it was causing you and others. But eventually you came to the realization that being broken was no longer working. You chose to enter a program of recovery.

By choosing recovery, you are also choosing to put forth the effort to live with abstinence and to engage in different ways of acting, thinking, and behaving than you did in the past. Simply put, you cannot recover unless and until you have made both the decision to recover and the commitment to this decision. Recovery is a choice that needs to be nurtured on a daily basis. You do this by continually exercising your power to choose and your free will to make decisions that are right for you.

I want to recover. I choose to recover. I will recover.

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~ NIGHT LIGHT ~ (A Book Of Nighttime Meditations) ~

Constant togetherness is fine—but only for Siamese twins.

~ Victoria Billings ~

Fusion in relationships can be self-destructive. Bonding so tightly with one person, with little time spent apart, is a perfect setup to addiction. When we become addicted to a person, we can be as desperate and suffering as an addict without a fix.

Growing up, we may have spent hours fantasizing about how wonderful relationships were. We may have placed so much hope in dreams of a perfect relationship that once we met someone, we unconsciously smothered the other person and ourselves in togetherness. We may have believed time spent apart meant our partner didn't love us or care to be with us.

Each flower in a garden has a separate set of roots, separate stems, leaves, and buds. Although the flowers may be the same variety, each is different in a subtle way. Similarly, we grow with our partner, like two separate flowers sharing the same garden. Our roots may intertwine and our leaves touch, yet we still grow and flourish separately from the other.

Tonight I can spend time flourishing on my own, relaxing for a peaceful night's sleep.

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~ DAY BY DAY ~ (Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts) ~

Welcoming new ideas

No group has a harness on the program or on our Higher Power’s will. Out of new assemblies emerge various thoughts on intervention and recovery. Provided that the program’s main purpose is not forgotten, new and creative endeavors can enlighten us.

If we are narrow-minded, we miss opportunities to help others and to progress spiritually. Book-thumpers, hardnosers, do-it-on- your-own-timers—all of us contribute. And those who need our particular brand of help will be brought to us by our Higher Power.

Am I receptive to new and different ways?

Higher Power, as you help me to keep an open heart, help me to keep an open mind.

Today I will look for new ideas by

God help me to stay clean and sober today!

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~ IF YOU WANT WHAT WE HAVE ~ (Sponsorship Meditations) ~

Be not ashamed, to say what you are not ashamed to think.

~ MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE ~

Newcomer

I went to an Eleventh Step meeting last night. After the reading, someone shared that a fictional character from a movie had become her Higher Power! Doesn't that prove what nonsense this Higher Power stuff is?

Sponsor

I'm not at meetings to debate issues or shoot down my neighbor's concept of a Higher Power. I'm here to stay alive and in recovery, and to help others to do the same. When I'm practicing my own spiritual path with sincerity, I become less concerned about how others do it.

We don't have to define a Power greater than ourselves as anyone else defines it, but we do have to find and acknowledge what that Power is for each of us. For some, it's the source of life. For some, it's our capacity to take responsibility and make ethical decisions. For some, it's love—our feelings and acts of caring for ourselves and others.

When we hit bottom, some part of us finally gave up on the idea that we had to be our own Higher Power. Under-standing that remains essential if we're to live without addictive substances and behavior. Recovery gets side-tracked when we entertain the belief that our foundation is anything other than a Higher Power.

Today, I acknowledge my relationship with a Power greater than myself.

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~ THE EYE OPENER ~

According to St. John, God is Love. That appears to be the only description given and leads us to assume that it is His chief attribute. The fact that things are not always as we think they should be does not contradict it. Practically all our griefs we brought upon ourselves, many of them were essential in order to fully develop our characters, and many may be the result of God's long-range planning that we with our limited perception, cannot conceive.

If God had not loved the world, He would have given up on it a long time ago.

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~ The 12 STEP PRAYER BOOK ~ (A Collection of Favorite 12 Step Prayers and Inspirational Readings) ~

Instinctively Know

God, I pray the instincts that once compelled me toward addiction will continue to be redirected toward solving problems. By working the Steps, I have learned to face up to and solve the problems of everyday living that used to cause me to seek relief in my addiction. I trust I can handle situations with common sense and the help of my friends.

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~ AROUND THE YEAR WITH EMMET FOX ~ (A Book of Daily Readings) ~

THE KAFFIR DIDN'T KNOW

About the middle of the last century, a traveler was journeying along through what was then a remote part of South Africa. One day while smoking his pipe outside the hut in a native village, he noticed a group of little naked children playing what was evidently a native version of the time honored game of marbles. He watched the game idly for a while, and then something about the rough stones caught his attention. They were quite small pebbles, dull, but—here his pulse began to steeplechase. He spoke to the children's father, with studied carelessness, and the Kaffir said, "Oh yes, the children like these little stones. They have some more in the hut," and he brought forth a small basket containing several more.

Repressing his excitement, the traveler took out a large plug of tobacco, worth perhaps twenty or thirty cents in our money, and said, "I would like to take the stones home for my children. I will give you this tobacco for them. Are you willing?" The Kaffir laughed and said, "I am robbing you but if you insist, all right," and the bargain was sealed—which not only enriched the stranger but led in time to the great discovery of the South African diamond fields.

The fate of the Kaffir is really the fate of most human beings. Man holds a fabulous treasure in his possession—the power of the Spoken Word—and yet, in most cases, he does not know it.

The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure . . . to bless all the work of thine hand . . . (Deuteronomy 28:12).

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~ A DEEP BREATH OF LIFE ~ (365 Daily Inspirations for Heart-Centered Living) ~

Give Me a Sign

Ask, and you shall receive. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

~ Jesus Christ ~

Marvin was confused about whether to leave his job in St. Louis and take a more lucrative position in Washington, D.C. After wrestling with the dilemma for a long time, he decided to turn the decision over to Spirit. “Just give me a sign!” Marvin prayed. Late that night when he went home, Marvin was stunned to find a “For Sale” sign on his lawn. “Well, there’s my sign,” he concluded.

The next morning when Marvin asked his wife about the sign, she did not know what he was talking about. Marvin took her out to show her, and the sign was gone. But as far as Marvin was concerned, the move was a done deal, he had his sign. He accepted the position, which proved to be very fulfilling.

Although all prayers for signs are not answered so dramatically, the universe will prompt us in a direction. A friend may utter a key phrase, we may notice a particular book on a coffee table, or we may see a symbol in a dream. In compassion, God is willing to point us in a direction if we ask sincerely and keep our antennae up for a signal.

Show me what I am to do for the highest good of all concerned.

I walk the way appointed by the hand of love.