Monthly Archives: March 2025

Daily Reading from Recovery Days March 11th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – send positive thoughts

Gratitude

Old-timers in AA talk about the ‘Attitude of
Gratitude’, saying that if you fill your mind and soul
with gratitude, there will be no room left for
resentments or any of those other nasty feelings that
are so dangerous for people in recovery. They have a
point. One of the best ways of clearing resentful
thoughts from your head is to make a list of all the
things that you are grateful for. Why allow ourselves
to entertain such negativity when we can fill our
head with pleasant things? Am I grateful to my
Higher Power for doing for me what I could not do
for myself?


Gratitude is sometimes said to be both a feeling and
a behaviour. This means that as well as being an
emotional response to the good things that are
happening to us, it is also an act of responsibility to
live a life of gratitude that involves the power of
example. We should feel grateful, but we should also
demonstrate our gratitude through our behaviour.
Today I give thanks to God for all the blessings that
I have received in recovery.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days March 10th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – listen to your breathing


Fellowship

We live for human connection. It motivates us to
learn social skills so that we can build friendships.
Relationships increase our confidence and self-esteem.
We feel important, worthy and validated. We
also feel that we belong – another human need that
goes back to the earliest man. The absence of
connection and belonging makes most people
profoundly unhappy. When you have felt excluded
by your addiction from many things, it can come as
a pleasant shock to be made welcome at your first
Twelve Step meeting. Don’t react negatively, be
grateful for the attention. Everyone there has had a
‘first time’ experience too. Can I accept the simple
act of reaching out to another human being?

Our Higher Power works through other people. So,
when another person welcomes you with the hand of
friendship, recognise this as the work of your Higher
Power and accept graciously. It is all a part of
handing over. May I be grateful today for the help of
God, working through other people to bring
connection and belonging back into my life.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days March 9th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – review expectations

Opportunity of recovery

When we first experience the Twelve Step way of
recovery, a lot of the ideas seem quite alien: admit
that you’re powerless, hand it over, explore
character defects, a day at a time – it’s as if we’re
being asked to reveal our inadequacies for no good
reason. As always, our response is crucial – do we
choose to see the positive or the negative in all this?
What could be seen as a major stumble along life’s
pathway can also be seen as the perfect opportunity
to reinvent ourselves. Am I willing to see the great
opportunity offered by recovery?

Confronting a problem and exercising choice in
what to do about it, will not solve the problem. We
still have to do something about it. Accept
powerlessness and unmanageability, change our
attitudes and behaviour, seek help, follow the Steps
until healthy habits are established. It may seem a
lot, but thousands have lived happy lives by doing
just that. I ask today for the courage to take positive
action and for the understanding of my values,
principles and needs that will lead me to the right
course.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days March 8th by Chris B

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Opportunity of recovery

When we first experience the Twelve Step way of
recovery, a lot of the ideas seem quite alien: admit
that you’re powerless, hand it over, explore
character defects, a day at a time – it’s as if we’re
being asked to reveal our inadequacies for no good
reason. As always, our response is crucial – do we
choose to see the positive or the negative in all this?
What could be seen as a major stumble along life’s
pathway can also be seen as the perfect opportunity
to reinvent ourselves. Am I willing to see the great
opportunity offered by recovery?

Confronting a problem and exercising choice in
what to do about it, will not solve the problem. We
still have to do something about it. Accept
powerlessness and unmanageability, change our
attitudes and behaviour, seek help, follow the Steps
until healthy habits are established. It may seem a
lot, but thousands have lived happy lives by doing
just that. I ask today for the courage to take positive
action and for the understanding of my values,
principles and needs that will lead me to the right
course.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days March 7th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – send positive thoughts

Giving oneself


We all need connection. It is not possible to be
happy when you are completely alone. Kindness,
honesty, forgiveness and gratitude provide
meaning to life. But they are all just pointless words
unless we show them to another person. We cannot
validate ourselves if we live in a vacuum. We all
naturally look for happiness and avoid suffering and
this may lead us to view other people as a threat, but
we can only create happy lives by giving to others.
Am I ready to give myself to others?

Human beings have the power of choice.
Sometimes we like to think that we have no choice,
but this is often just a quick way of saying that we
have given in to our baser instincts – greed, fear and
the like. We always have a choice of how we can
react to any situation, but we struggle sometimes to
see what is essential and what is secondary. That is
why it is important to have a good value system and
high principles. We won’t always get it right, but we
learn from mistakes. Today I pray that I may make
the right choices, with God’s help.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days March 6th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – listen to the silence


Change through example of others


Change happens not through words but through
example. Opinions and advice do not sway many
people, but actions are powerful. If we isolate
ourselves, we risk never exposing ourselves to this
kind of power directly. Just as when you learn to ride
a bicycle, reading about it in a book or having
someone tell you how is not as effective as seeing it
done. If we see a person, especially someone we
know, actually doing something, we tell ourselves: I
could do that too. Recovery is like that, provided I
interact with others in recovery. Am I involved with
other recovering people in the fellowships?

There is strength in numbers and inspiration in the
example of others. We in recovery are blessed that
we have access to the vast resource of positive help
that the Twelve Step fellowships offer. Our spiritual,
mental and physical needs are all catered for by this
worldwide fellowship of like-minded people. There
are few organisations that compare, and we should
indeed be grateful. I give thanks today for the great
blessing of the Twelve Step fellowships which are a
force for good in the world.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days March 5th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – breathe deeply

Day at a time

It is a fine aspiration to be able to take each day as it
comes, to face down misfortune or disapproval or
disease and simply live in the day. But it requires
courage and the help of our Higher Power. It also
requires a clear conscience because we cannot fully
devote ourselves to the business of living in the right
way, if we know that deep down, there is something
within us that is wrong. We do not have to be
perfect; we simply need to be doing our best to
make progress and grow spiritually on a daily basis.
Am I ready to take each day as it comes?

Sometimes when we approach the time of
meditation and reflection, our head is so full of
worries and concerns that we feel it impossible to
find peace and calm. Don’t despair. Take a few
deep breaths and close your eyes. Imagine yourself
floating in a peaceful lake surrounded by hills and
trees. Everything is quiet, except for a few birds
twittering in the background. Let nature hold you a
while. Feel that you belong. Be grateful for
belonging and put aside for now all thoughts of
wanting. Feel the moment and be thankful for that.
Today I ask God for peace, for me and for all.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days March 4th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – sit comfortably

Higher Power

Step Three is partly about surrendering to win. It is
a moment of hope, not despair. It is about
regeneration: we must surrender our old life in order
to be given a new and better one. When some of us
discover that we have made addiction our Higher
Power and felt its malign influence, we must act
quickly to replace it with a power that cares for us.
Am I ready to recognise my new Higher Power?

When we surrender our old life in favour of a better
model we are reaching out for help. When we say
Thy will be done, we are handing over our lives to
the care of our Higher Power. We are really seeking
to experience our basic human aspects in the
optimum manner: honesty, discipline, involvement,
belonging, intelligence and love. We all have these
somewhere inside us, but we need to experience
fulfilment in order to find true happiness. Today I
ask God for the best possible understanding of his
will for me.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days March 3rd by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – send positive thoughts


Step Three

In Step Two we have found hope and comfort in the
idea that help is available and in Step Three we
commit ourselves to asking for this. Finally, it is
time to act. Our response to situations is what
matters. When our lives are spiralling out of control,
the one power left to us is the ability to choose our
response. Do I fully understand that my response to
any situation is what matters?

‘Let go and let God’ is a well-known fellowship
slogan. It does not mean that we can sit back and
receive a miracle. By turning our will and our lives
over to the care of God, we first hope for a sense of
direction in our lives. God will supply the strength,
but it is then up to us to make the effort. Most of us
ask for things and expect quick fixes but recovery is
about changing attitudes and taking positive action.
US statesman Frederick Douglass said:
I prayed for twenty years and received no answer
until I prayed with my legs.
Today I ask God for the courage to commit myself
to surrender my ego and ask for help

Daily Reading from Recovery Days March 2nd by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – listen to your breathing

Failure is opportunity

Smooth seas don’t make good sailors. The
fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous was born out of
failure. But failure is a fact of life. It is almost
impossible to live without failing at something, yet
the more you fail the more you learn. Failure opens
our minds to new ideas. Some of the most creative
people got their best ideas when failure was
staring them in the face.


If necessity is the mother of invention, then failure
must be the father of creativity. When we are at
our most desperate is when we are at our most
creative. It’s often struggling artists who paint
the most dramatic pictures. Alcoholics
Anonymous can be seen as a fellowship of once despairing
people who made a virtue of their
misfortune:
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Lord Tennyson.
May I never allow myself to be defeated by
adversity. May I continue to be inspired by the
example of others, especially those who
successfully recover from addiction.