Recovery Daily

Grief Cleanses the Soul

Recovery Daily — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:20:47 +0000

A painful loss can seem like the end of hope for us. It is true that the place a loved one had in our lives will never be filled. The loss of a job may dash a dream that will not come true – at least not as we thought it would. The aging of our body ends physical strength, and we lose options that will not come around a second time. Yet, change is a basic fact of life. We must empty a glass before we can fill it with something else. Our spiritual task is to become less rigid in our attachments and more accepting of the flow of life. When we look straight at our losses and allow ourselves to cry and grieve over them, we are saying good-bye and letting go. Grief cleanses the soul and frees us to move on to new dreams. The loss of a job may put us in a position to discover undreamed of possibilities. In time, the loss of a love heals, and it deepens our relationship with our Higher Power and with our other friends. The other side of grief is freedom, and we are learning to have many new dreams in our life

Telling More of the Truth

Recovery Daily — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:55:59 +0000

Truth connects us to life while fear, isolation, and dishonesty alienate us from it. As using addicts, we hid as much of the truth about ourselves from as much of the world as we possibly could. Our fear kept us from opening ourselves up to those around us, providing protection against what others might do if we appeared vulnerable. But our fear also kept us from connecting with our world. We lived like alien beings on our own planet, always alone and getting lonelier by the minute. The Twelve Steps and the fellowship of recovering addicts give people like us a place where we can feel safe telling the truth about ourselves. We are able to honestly admit our frustrating, humbling powerlessness over addiction because we meet many others who’ve been in the same situation – we’re safe among them. And we keep on telling more of the truth about ourselves as we continue to work the steps. The more we do, the more truly connected we feel to the world around us

Weakness to Power

Recovery Daily — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:35:45 +0000

Make it a daily practice to review your character. Take your character in relation to your daily life, to your dear ones, your friends, your acquaintances, and your work. Each day try to see where God wants you to change. Plan how best each fault can be eradicated or each mistake be corrected. Never be satisfied with a comparison with those around you. Strive toward a better life as your ultimate goal. God is your helper through weakness to power, through danger to security, through fear and worry to peace and serenity

Difficult People

Recovery Daily — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:25:56 +0000

Most of us have one or two exceptionally difficult people in our lives. How do we deal with such a person in our recovery? First, we take our own inventory. Have we wronged this person? Has some action or attitude of ours served as an invitation for the kind of treatment they have given us? If so, we will want to clear the air, admit we have been wrong, and ask our Higher Power to remove whatever defects may prevent us from being helpful and constructive. Next, as people seeking to live spiritually oriented lives, we approach the problem from the other person’s point of view. They may be faced with any number of challenges we either fail to consider or know nothing about, challenges that cause them to be unpleasant. As it’s said, we seek in recovery “to forgive rather than be forgiven; to understand rather than be understood.” Finally, if it is within our power, we seek ways to help others overcome their challenges without injuring their dignity. We pray for their well-being and spiritual growth and for the ability to offer them the unconditional love that has meant so much to us in our recovery

Lessons

Recovery Daily — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:51:28 +0000

Learning in recovery is hard work. The things we most need to know are often the hardest to learn. We study recovery to prepare ourselves for the experiences life will give us. As we listen to others share in meetings, we take mental notes we can refer to later. To be prepared, we study our notes and literature between “lessons.” Just as students have the opportunity to apply their knowledge during tests, so do we have the opportunity to apply our recovery during times of crisis. As always, we have a choice in how we will approach life’s challenges. We can dread and avoid them as threats to our serenity or we can gratefully accept them as opportunities for growth. By confirming the principles we’ve learned in recovery, life’s challenges give us increased strength. Without such challenges, however, we could forget what we’ve learned and begin to stagnate. These are the opportunities that prod us to new spiritual awakenings. We will find that there is often a period of rest after each crisis, giving us time to get accustomed to our new skills. Once we’ve reflected on our experience, we are called on to share our knowledge with someone who is studying what we’ve just learned. In the school of recovery, all of us are teachers as well as students

Our Birthright

Recovery Daily — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:21:07 +0000

To be unconditionally loved is our birthright, and we are so loved by God. We desire just such a love from one another, and we deserve it; yet, it’s a human quality to look for love before giving it. Thus many of us search intently for signs of love. Too many of us are searching, rather than loving. Truly loving another means letting go of all expectations. It means full acceptance, even celebration of another’s personhood. Not easy, but so rewarding, to ourselves as well as to the one who is the focus of our love. Love is a balm that heals. Loving lightens whatever our burdens. It invites our inner joy to emerge. But most of all, it connects us, one with another. Loneliness leaves. We are no longer alienated from our environment. Love is the mortar that holds the human structure together. Without the expression of love, it crumbles. This recovery program has offered us a plan for loving others, as well as ourselves. Love will come to us, just as surely as we give it away

The Gift of the Moments

Recovery Daily — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:48:35 +0000

Each moment of your day, which you devote to this new way of life is a gift to God. The gift of the moments. Even when your desire to serve God is sincere, it is not an easy thing to give Him many of these moments: the daily things you had planned to do, given up gladly so that you can perform a good service or say a kind word. If you can see God’s purpose in many situations, it will be easier to give Him many moments of your day. Every situation has two interpretations – your own and God’s. Try to handle each situation in the way you believe God would have it handled

The Results of Faith

Recovery Daily — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:27:15 +0000

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is not seeing, but believing. Down through the ages, there have always been those who obeyed the heavenly vision, not seeing but believing in God. And their faith was rewarded. So shall it be to you. Good things will happen to you. You cannot see God, but you can see the results of faith in human lives, changing them from defeat to victory. God’s grace is available to all who have faith – not seeing, but believing. With faith, life can be victorious and happy

Relationships

Recovery Daily — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:17:59 +0000

Having relationships without barriers, ones in which we can be entirely open with our feelings, is something many of us desire. At the same time, the possibility of such intimacy causes us more fear than almost any other situation in life. If we examine what frightens us, we’ll usually find that we are attempting to hide an aspect of our personalities that we are ashamed of, an aspect we sometimes haven’t even admitted to ourselves. We don’t want others to know of our insecurities, our pain, or our neediness, so we simply refuse to expose them. We may imagine that if no one knows about our imperfections, those imperfections will cease to exist. This is the point where our relationships stop. Anyone who enters our lives will not get past the point at which our secrets begin. To maintain intimacy in a relationship, it is essential that we acknowledge our defects and accept them. When we do, the fortress of denial, erected to keep these things hidden, will come crashing down, enabling us to build up our relationships with others

We Must Surrender

Recovery Daily — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:43:50 +0000

Most of us have tried everything we can think of, exerted every ounce of force possible, to fill the spiritual hole inside us. Nothing – not drugs, not control and management, not sex, money, property, power, or prestige – has filled it. We are powerless; our lives are unmanageable, at least by ourselves alone. Our denial will not change that fact. So we surrender; we ask a Higher Power to care for our will and our lives. Sometimes in surrendering, we don’t know that a Power greater than ourselves exists which can restore us to wholeness. Sometimes we’re not sure that the God of our understanding will care for our unmanageable lives. Our lack of certainty, though, does not affect the essential truth: We are powerless. Our lives are unmanageable. We must surrender. Only by doing so can we open ourselves wide – wide enough for our old ideas and past wreckage to be cleared, wide enough for a Higher Power to enter