Category Archives: Behavioural Addiction

Daily Reading from Recovery Days August 22nd by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – sit comfortably

Choices


We make choices every day, some small, some big.
Life can be seen as just a series of choices. It is thus
important that we learn how to choose correctly.
Addicted people often choose only to meet their
immediate wants – perhaps a pill or a drink. In that
way, they are seeking instant relief, as children want
their immediate needs to be met. But children learn
gradually to make responsible choices – through the
example of others, and by trial and error.
Unfortunately, addiction means we don’t learn this
way and the results are obvious. Recovery is about
making grown-up choices. Am I learning to make
the right choices?


People only make changes when they understand
the need. If for example, I want to change my
outbursts of anger, I must first understand why they
happen, what makes me behave like that. Practising
self-awareness and honesty leads me to discover the
things in me that I need to change. Today I will
reflect on the process of making choices and ask
God for wisdom to make the right ones.

Daily Reading from recovery Days August 21st by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – enjoy the moment

True love

Awareness begins with viewing your thoughts and
emotions in as detached a way as possible and
learning from them. It is a technique that may seem
awkward at first but then becomes a habit.
Perseverance produces insights that lead to change.
The change that helps people most is ceasing to see
oneself and one’s needs as the main focus of
attention. See oneself as part of creation, so that
everything is no longer about ‘me’, can be called
‘disidentification.’ Am I ready to learn awareness?


Modern love stories are often about manipulation,
intrigue and possessiveness. People pursue other
people in states of anxiety, desperation and burning
desire. It makes for great reading and great cinema,
but real love is something else. Loving people
because you need them in order to be happy is not
what love should be – it becomes about control
instead. I must recognise only real love.
Love does not dishonour others, it is not
self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it
keeps no record of wrongs. St Paul.
I ask God today that I will seek only true love.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days August 20th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – close eyes briefly

Ego

It’s said that the three hardest things for most people
to do are: giving love in return for hate, including
the excluded, and admitting to being wrong. What
makes it so difficult for us? It’s our old problem –
our ego. We are so used to wanting success, fearing
the disdain of others and of not meeting their
expectations, that we find it acutely painful when
our pride is threatened. When we find inner peace, it
becomes unimportant what others think or say. Am
I too concerned about what people think of me?


The good in the world comes from love, the bad is
basically fear. The more that I fill my heart with
love, the less room there will be for fear. My fears
come from my lack of insight and lack of trust.
Situations that frighten me are manageable when I
understand them properly. There may be situations
that I cannot understand, but if I really believe in a
Power greater than myself, then I should trust and
not be afraid. Today I reflect on this.

Daily Readings from Recovery Days August 19th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – breathe slowly


Self-respect


Self-respect is important because it changes not just
the way you see yourself but also the way others see
you. A young American in Detroit made a meagre
living making clay pots and selling them in the local
market. He decided one day that change was
needed, so he wrote a large placard explaining that
the pots were made with very special clay under
supervision of a master craftsman, in a limited
edition of just two hundred. He also upped the price
tenfold. Within a day he had sold them all. He is
now a leading artist and advocate for social change
in the area. His story illustrates a truth – that if you
increase your valuation of something, even of
yourself, then others will respond positively and
agree with your valuation. Do I place a high enough
value on myself?

I must not over-value myself, that would be too
prideful but neither should I undervalue myself,
because that is effectively undervaluing my Higher
Power who is my guide and strength. I just need to
have a realistic view of myself and my strengths and
weaknesses. Today I ask God for the wisdom to see
myself as I really am.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days August 18th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – feel your body from top to toes

Trust in a Higher Power

In the book The Outsider, the hero Meursault is
shown as a cold-bloodied murderer awaiting
execution, who says that he has only a little time left
and he doesn’t want to waste it on God. That is an
astonishingly arrogant statement. The author, Albert
Camus is trying to shock the reader, but he is also
saying somewhat bleakly, that total honesty, and
uncompromising self-sufficiency is the only answer,
if you believe God does not exist. Camus does not
want this to be the case, indeed he spent his life
attempting to transcend nihilism. Believing in a
Higher Power allows us to feel we are connected. Do
I feel I am not alone?

Blaise Pascal’s thoughts on the existence of God are
known as Pascal’s Wager:
If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you
lose nothing. Wager then, without
hesitation, that he exists.
This is a sensible approach, but much better to believe
completely in a Higher Power. Today, I reflect on the
further words of Pascal: there is a God-shaped
vacuum in the heart of every man.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days August 17th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – relax your whole body gradually

Life as a prayer

You pray in your distress and in your need,
would that you might pray also in the
fullness of your joy and in your days of
abundance. Kahlil Gibran.
We have so much to be grateful for, it should be a
pleasure to express our thank but prayer is a twoway
system. If you can say hello to your next-door
neighbour, surely you can say ‘good morning’ and
‘good night’ to your Higher Power. Do I maintain a
regular connection with my Higher Power?


Prayer is nothing else than being
on terms of friendship with God.
St Teresa of Avila.
If we make prayer a mental task or even a vocal
performance, then we are missing the whole point.
God is here on earth, involved in everything we do.
As St Teresa also said: Yours are the eyes through
which he looks with compassion on the world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands through which he blesses the
world. She makes it sound as if everything we do
each day is a kind of offering in prayer. It is.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days August 15th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – enjoy the moment

Recovery requires maintenance


We’re not in Kansas anymore.The Wizard of Oz.
Indeed, we are not. We are in recovery and Oz is our
Rehab. The cyclone that threw little Dorothy into a
whole new world has been likened to the storm
created by addiction. The Scarecrow that she meets
(who needs a brain), the Tin Man (who needs a
heart) and the Lion (who needs courage) remind us
of the essentials required for change to happen. The
Wicked Witch is of course, our addiction. On this
day in 1939, The Wizard of Oz premiered in
Hollywood. I don’t know why so many children’s
stories seem to be metaphors for addiction, perhaps
it is in the eye of the beholder. Am I grateful today
that I can reflect on stories of all kinds without any
negative feelings?

Many things require maintenance including
physical health, relationships and beliefs. I must
maintain my recovery seriously. The Wicked Witch
may not get me if I don’t, but addiction certainly
will. Today I ask God for the wisdom not to
minimise the need to maintain my recovery.

Daily Readings from Recovery Days August 14th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – sit comfortably


Power of example


Richmond Walker wrote the Twenty-four Hours a
Day AA meditation book, published in 1954. It has
sold over ten million copies. Richmond was a
member of the first AA group in Boston, USA and
died in 1965 after twenty-two years of sobriety. An
artist and a poet as well as a dedicated family man,
he is a great example of service freely given. The
Little Black Book, as it is known, was officially
published by the Hazelden Foundation in an
amicable arrangement with Alcoholics Anonymous.
Richmond did not profit financially, and his name
did not appear as author. Am I ready to do service
unselfishly?

The writer of the Little Black Book continues the
tone set in the AA Big Book, first published some
fifteen years earlier: This is what I found, this is
what I did, do you wish to do the same, with God’s
help? The book does not advocate any specific
religion. If I wish to grow spiritually, then there
could hardly be a better method.. Today I give
thanks for the power of example in my recovery.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days August 13th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – breathe slowly


A day at a time

‘A Day at a Time’ is the best-known slogan in the
Twelve Step movement. It goes right back to the
beginnings of AA when Bill W and Dr Bob visited a
hospitalised alcoholic in 1935, soon after Dr Bob
himself sobered up. The ‘third man’ was called
Bill D. Talking together, they agreed that anyone
could quit for twenty-four hours. That’s what we’re
talking about, just a day at a time, said the two
founders. Bill D would reminisce about the
moment years later, in happy sobriety. He never
drank again after that first meeting. The slogan
refers not just to staying sober ‘a day at a time’ but to
living one’s life on that basis. Am I living my life
‘a day at a time’?

If I take things a day at a time, I can do away with all
the remorse and resentment of the past and I can
avoid anxiety about tomorrow. Today is
manageable because I know that I will get
through it, whatever happens, with guidance
from my Higher Power. Today I give thanks for
the wisdom and example of so many brave men
and women who showed me the way, a day at a time.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days August 12th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – relax your whole body gradually


Love

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For
only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together. For the
pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and
the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
Kahlil Gibran.
Love, says Gibran, is about nurturing one another
without being codependent. As we grow spiritually, we
also grow in self-reliance. The selflessness of real love is
at odds with the obsessive desire that romantic love
produces. Love is a strong emotion and the newly sober
are encouraged to attend to other aspects of their
recovery first. There is of course another form of love –
that of one’s fellow human beings who deserve all the
love we can give in their struggle in sobriety. Can I
extend the hand of love to my fellow humans who are
addicted?

When you love you should not say, ‘God is in my heart’
but rather, ‘I am in the heart of God.’
Kahlil Gibran.
If I am in love, I know I am alive. Today I give
thanks that I can experience love.