More Recovery Readings - March

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March 16

You are reading from the book Today's Gift.
'Tis God gives skill, but not without men's hands. He could not make Antonio Stradivarius violins without Antonio. --George Eliot
When she was four years old, she climbed onto the piano stool. To her parents' astonishment, a simple prelude she'd heard on the radio flew across the keys from her fingers. That very week they found her a teacher, and the house was filled with the music of her developing talent.
While other girls played, made the honor roll, starred on the basketball team, and dated boyfriends, she sat inside at her beloved piano and practiced. At seventeen, when she made her debut, the critics said, "She's a natural. A genius!"
We know she was no natural, but through hard work, she made her piano playing part of her nature. When we put love into our labor, our own dreams grow into being.
Am I willing to make some sacrifices today to do the things I really want to do?


You are reading from the book Touchstones.
When a man's self is hidden from everybody else ... it seems also to become hidden even from himself, and it permits disease and death to gnaw into his substance without his clear knowledge. --Sidney Jourard
A man's recovery is in knowing himself honestly and learning to have loving relationships with others. Many of us have had close calls with death as the consequence of our addictions or codependency. We ignored the dangers in our lives and many of us neglected our health. We wore ourselves out and wasted our energies.
Spiritual recovery and physical health go hand in hand. In recovery, moving toward fullness in life, our selves are returned to us. We leave behind our old learning and habits because they were lethal. We are becoming men who tune in to ourselves and to others around us. We are looking at ourselves and saying, "I'll work with it!"
I will not hide myself; I will continue to be open with myself and others.


You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.
True intimacy with another human being can only be experienced when you have found true peace within yourself.
--Angela L. Wozniak
Intimacy means disclosure--full expression of ourselves to another person. Nothing held back. All bared. There are risks, of course: rejection, criticism, perhaps ridicule. But the comfort we feel within is directly proportional to the peace we've come to know.
Each day we commit ourselves to recovery, we find a little more peace. Each conversation we have with our higher power brings us a little more security. Each time we turn our full attention to another person's needs, we feel our own burdens lightened.
Peace comes in stages. As we continue to accept our powerlessness, the depth of our peace increases. Turning more often to a power greater than ourselves eases our resistance to whatever condition prevails. Forgiving ourselves and others, daily, heightens our appreciation of all life and enhances our humility. Therein lies peace.
We each are a necessary part of the creative spirit prevailing in this world. The details of our lives are well in hand. We can be at peace. Who we are is who we need to be.
Intimacy lets me help someone else also live a full and peace-filled life. I will reach out to someone today.


You are reading from the book The Language Of Letting Go.
Positive Energy
Its so easy to look around and notice what's wrong.
It takes practice to see what's right.
Many of us have lived around negativity for years. We've become skilled at labeling what's wrong with other people, our life, our work, our day, our relationships, our conduct, our recovery, and ourselves.
We want to be realistic, and our goal is to identify and accept reality. However, this is often not our intent when we practice negativity. The purpose of negativity is usually annihilation.
Negative thinking empowers the problem. It takes us out of harmony. Negative energy sabotages and destroys. It has a powerful life of its own.
So does positive energy. Each day, we can ask what's right, what's good - about other people, our life, our work, our day, our relationships, ourselves, our conduct, our recovery.
Positive energy heals, conducts love, and transforms. Choose positive energy.
Today, God help me let go of negativity. Transform my beliefs and thinking, at the core, from negative to positive. Put me in harmony with the good.


Choosing positive thoughts and making positive choices fill me with new strength, confidence and excitement. I can feel positive energy flow through me with every positive thought I choose. --Ruth Fishel

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Journey to the Heart

Become Willing to Heal Your Heart

We don’t open our hearts by being a tower of strength. We don’t open our hearts by glossing over things in our head. We open our hearts by feeling what we feel. We open our hearts by being vulnerable, honest, and gentle.

We’ve become so strong, so self-sufficient. I can deal with that we say. No big deal. I’ll keep moving on.

Yet many circumstances we’ve been through, and some we’re going through now, cause break lines in our heart. Some of the fractures are small. Some are big. They really hurt. Maybe certain people in our lives weren’t there for us, aren’t there for us now in a way we’d like them to be. Maybe some deceived us unconsciously or betrayed us deliberately. I can deal with that we say. I understand. They have their own issues. I forgive.

Yes, people do have their own issues. And we do forgive. But now it may be time to learn gentleness, compassion, understanding, and forgiveness for ourselves as well.

We don’t open our hearts by ignoring the break lines. We take our hand, knowing it’s held by God, and gently run our fingers across each crack. Yes, it’s there. Yes, I feel it.

Yes, I’m ready to heal my heart.

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More Language Of Letting Go

Don’t be a back seat driver

I was walking through a toy store one day when I saw a little toy steering wheel attached to the tray of a stroller. The child could play with the wheel and pretend that he or she was controlling the direction of the cart. The steering wheel wasn’t attached to anything; someone else was behind the stroller, pushing it here or there. The child could steer all he or she wanted to, but if Mom was going to the hardware department, then the child was going there,too.

What a good lesson to teach children at such an early age: no matter where you steer, something bigger than you is going to push you wherever it wants.

We soon outgrow the stroller and then burst into adulthood. First we learn to drive– finally a wheel that does something! Now we’ve got real freedom! But the car needs gas, we have a curfew, and there are speed limits and driving laws. Or we graduate from school and move into the real world. Finally no more parents controlling our every move. But then there is rent, and the boss, and the roommates, or a spouse and children to consider.

No matter how much we grow, where we go, or how old we get, there is someone else above, someone bigger, pushing us in this direction or that. Sorry, no new car this year, you’ve got a different lesson to learn.

We can want things, pray for things, and hope that things will come to pass. But ultimately, we’re not in control. Instead of spending our time and energy trying to get someplace else, we can learn the lesson and enjoy the beauty of the life we’ve been given.

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In God’s Care

As the ripples caused by a flung stone stir the surface of a whole pond, so your joy-making shall spread in ever-widening circles.
~~God Calling, March 10th

We might all have friends who stir up bubbles of joy within us. We love being in their presence. A gloomy day doesn’t darken their mood, as it might ours, and we wonder where their joy comes from. The answer is simple. Somehow, they have discovered that they have some choice as to their mood, and in most situations they decide to experience joy. We can choose the same for ourselves.

Our feelings, actions, and attitudes are within our personal realm of control. To pretend that only people and circumstances are what make us happy or angry is denying what God has given each of us: the power to make choices about who we are every moment.

To feel joy is often a decision no more difficult than to feel sorrow. Choosing to see our blessings, even in the wake of turmoil, will bring us joy. And then we, too, can encourage joy in others.

My joy can be my decision. I’ll make joy my mood of choice whenever possible today.

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Answering the Call
Taking Responsibility for Your Destiny

by Madisyn Taylor

Each and every day you have the opportunity to answer your own call and take action toward creating the life you want.


There are those of us who believe that our lives are predestined and that we should resign ourselves to our lots in life. Yet the truth is that it is up to each one of us to decide what that destiny will be. While each of us is born with a life purpose, it is up to us whether or not we will say yes to fulfilling it. And just like when we choose what to eat, who to keep company with, and whether to turn right or left when we leave our home everyday, choosing to say yes to your destiny is a decision that can only be realized when you take action to make that choice a reality.

Whether you believe it is your destiny to be a parent, an adventurer, an artist, a pioneer, or a spiritual guru, saying yes to your destiny is only the first step. While manifesting your destiny starts with knowing what you want and believing you can attain your goals, there are then the actions that must be taken and the decisions to be made before your destiny can truly happen. When you take responsibility for fulfilling your destiny and begin acting with the intention of doing so, you not only take fate into your own hands, but also you become the hands of your own fate. Doorways inevitably open for you to step through, and every choice you make can be a creative act toward realizing your goals and dreams. You begin to follow your instincts and intuition, recognize opportunities when they are presented to you, and seize those golden moments. You also begin to recognize the decisions that may not serve this greater picture and can more easily push them aside.

Remembering that the decision to fulfill your destiny is always a choice can be empowering. Knowing you are fulfilling your destiny because you want to, rather than because you have to, can make a huge difference. When you are freed from obligation, obstacles in your way become challenges to be overcome, and the journey becomes an adventure rather than the obligatory steps you are being forced to take. Your destiny may be waiting for you, but whether or not you meet your destiny is up to you. Your fate is in your hands. Published with permission from Daily OM

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A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

The Program teaches us that we are bodily and mentally different than our fellows. We are reminded that the great obsession of every abnormal drinker — and every one of us who is otherwise addictive — is to prove that somehow, some day, we will be able to control our drinking,, eating or gambling. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing, we are told, and many pursue it to the gates of insanity or death. Have I conceded to my innermost self that, for me, “One is too many and a thousand not enough..”?

Today I Pray

May I have no illusions about someday becoming a moderate drinker or drug-user after being an obsessive one. May I muffle any small voice of destructive pride which lies to me, telling me that I can now go back to my former addiction and control it. This is a Program of no-return, and I thank God for it.

Today I Will Remember

My goal must be lifelong abstinence — a day at a time.

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One More Day

Time ripens all things. No man’s born wise.
– Cervantes

One moment in time, a phrase from an old song that still rings true. In a single moment we could decide the balance of how we will live our lives. Split-second decisions, not all good ones, permeate the fabric of our lives, of everyone’s lives — regardless of medical problems.

Sometimes we are very sorry about a decision we made too quickly, a decision which may alter the course of our lives for a short while or even permanently. Perhaps the car we insisted on having is a lemon, or we may not like the new community into which we impulsively moved. We have to learn to live with our decisions, at least until we make a decision to change. Ponder a decision just a moment longer. Each experience can deepen our wisdom.

I will attempt to take my time when making decisions.