Change the behavior

 

Reflection for the Day

Among the many gifts that we are offered in The Program is the gift of freedom. Paradoxically, however, the gift of freedom is not without a price tag; freedom can only be achieved by paying the price called acceptance. Similarly, if we can surrender to God's guidance, it will cost us our self-will, that "commodity" so precious to those of us who have always thought we could and should run the show. Is my freedom today worth the price tag of acceptance?

Today I Pray

May God teach me acceptance - the ability to accept the things I cannot change. God also grant me courage to change those things I can. God help me to accept the illness of my addiction and give me the courage to change my addictive behavior.

Today I Will Remember

Accept the addiction. Change the behavior.

Carrying the message, not the addict

 

“They can be analyzed, counseled, reasoned with, prayed over, threatened, beaten, or locked up, but they will not stop until they want to stop.”

Basic Text, p. 65

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Perhaps one of the most difficult truths we must face in our recovery is that we are as powerless over another’s addiction as we are over our own.  We may think that because we’ve had a spiritual awakening in our own lives we should be able to persuade another addict to find recovery.  But there are limits to what we can do to help another addict.

We cannot force them to stop using.  We cannot give them the results of the steps or grow for them.  We cannot take away their loneliness or their pain.  There is nothing we can say to convince a scared addict to surrender the familiar misery of addiction for the frightening uncertainty of recovery.  We cannot jump inside other peoples’ skins, shift their goals, or decide for them what is best for them.

However, if we refuse to try to exert this power over another’s addiction, we may help them.  They may grow if we allow them to face reality, painful though it may be.  They may become more productive, by their own definition, as long as we don’t try and do it for them.  They can become the authority on their own lives, provided we are only authorities on our own.  If we can accept all this, we can become what we were meant to be—carriers of the message, not the addict.

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Just for today:  I will accept that I am powerless not only over my own addiction but also over everyone else’s.  I will carry the message, not the addict.

Personality Change

"It has often been said of A.A. that we are interested only on 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 alky ever stops drinking permanently without undergoing a profound personality  change."

<< << << >> >> >>

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.

1. LETTER, 1940

2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 4

Meditation

A friend in Program says . . .
Meditation was always a mystery to me. I didn't know how to do it, and I never like trying something that I'm not going to be good at. I always thought there was a "right" way to meditate; that is, until I took a walk one day and decided to meditate while walking.

Several minutes into the walk, I suddenly felt myself getting focused. For more than fifteen minutes, I was experiencing the moment. I was aware of so many sights, sounds, and smells. The sun was just rising; there was a cloud that continually changed colors in the new morning light; there were chirping crickets and singing birds.
So it seems to me that our lives are a series of moments, and meditation is simply experiencing those moments one after another. If we ever perfected meditation, life would be one big moment of total awareness. But for me, just then, merely having a series of brief moments of being in the "now" was a wonderful and glorious thing.

"The spiritual life is never one of achievement: it is always one of letting go."

Selfishness

 

No man is more cheated than the selfish man.
--Henry Ward Beecher

When we're selfish, we close off the channels of exchange with others. Not only are we grabbing and holding all the goods or attention we can get, but we are denying others the possibility of sharing with us in the benefits. We may be selfish in material goods, but there are many other ways too. Some of us expect our spouses to meet our needs while we make little effort to meet theirs. Some of us discover our selfishness as we drive, refusing to yield a position to another car or getting furious if we lose a place in heavy traffic.

By contrast, our generosity and welcoming responses nourish the spirit within us and create a good environment for our growth. Sometimes giving does not come easily We have a more generous spirit when we are in touch with our ultimate vulnerability. All of life is fragile, and we need each other to have a good life. We can truly hold on to nothing but ourselves. Giving what we can of our time, our energy, and our goods, helps create the kind of world we want to live in.

Today, I will look for ways to be generous with those with whom I share this world.

Letting Go of Sadness

A block to joy and love can be unresolved sadness from the past.

In the past, we told ourselves many things to deny the pain: It doesn't hurt that much…. Maybe if I just wait, things will change.… It’s no big deal. I can get through this…. Maybe if I try to change the other person, I won’t have to change myself.

We denied that it hurt because we didn’t want to feel the pain.

Unfinished business doesn't go away. It keeps repeating itself, until it gets our attention, until we feel it, deal with it, and heal. That’s one lesson we are learning in recovery from codependency and adult children issues.

Many of us didn’t have the tools, support, or safety we needed to acknowledge and accept pain in our past. It’s okay. We’re safe now. Slowly, carefully, we can begin to open ourselves up to our feelings. We can begin the process of feeling what we have denied so long—not to blame, not to shame, but to heal ourselves in preparation for a better life.

It’s okay to cry when we need to cry and feel the sadness many of us have stored within for so long. We can feel and release these feelings.

Grief is a cleansing process. It’s an acceptance process. It moves us from our past, into today, and into a better future—a future free of sabotaging behaviors, a future that holds more options than our past.

God, as I move through this day, let me be open to my feelings. Today, help me know that I don’t have to either force or repress the healing available to me in recovery. Help me trust that if I am open and available, the healing will happen naturally, in a manageable way.

Quoted from the app Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie.

Courage

 
"Come to the edge," he said. "No, we will fall," they replied. They came to the edge. He pushed them . . . and they flew.
--Apollinaire

Without courage it is virtually impossible to progress along the spiritual path. Courage enables us to face the fears that arise when we go for what we want.

Courage often involves going against conventional wisdom and walking the path alone. It takes courage to give up the high paying job and work part-time while you start your own business on the side. It takes courage to leave an unworkable relationship. It takes courage to face the pain of one's childhood and seek to heal it. In short, it takes courage to be oneself.

People ask, "How can I have courage when I'm afraid?" The answer is clear. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to move forward in spite of it. When fear comes up in your life, fully feel and experience it. If you try to push it away, it will only expand.
 
Say to your fear, "I acknowledge you. But as I connect with my higher knowing, I see that you are not in alignment with my true calling. Because I have the courage and the faith to follow my heart, I am moving ahead with my plans in spite of you." Then proceed. Like the actor whose stage fright leaves in the first moments of the play, yours will fade as you  actively embrace your own unique destiny - with courage.

Rescued By Surrender

Characteristic of the so-called typical alcoholic is a narcissistic egocentric core, dominated by feelings of omnipotence, intent on maintaining at all costs its inner integrity…. Inwardly the alcoholic brooks no control from man or God. He, the alcoholic, is and must be the master of his destiny. He will fight to the end to preserve that position. A.A. COMES OF AGE, p.311

The great mystery is: “Why do some of us die alcoholic deaths, fighting to preserve the ‘independence’ of our ego, while others seem to sober up effortlessly in A.A.?” Help from a Higher Power, the gift of sobriety, came to me when an otherwise unexplained desire to stop drinking coincided with my willingness to accept the suggestions of the men and women of A.A. I had to surrender, for only by reaching out to God and my fellows could I be rescued.

Daily Reflection © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services