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Daily Reading from Recovery Days April 30th by Chris B

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Rememberr Mindfulness – close eyes briefly

HALT

In April, we looked at courage, honesty, integrity,
giving, helping others and the joy of recovery. These
positive attributes do not just appear, we must work
for them, and we must ask for help. Our main
motivation at first is fear – addiction will kill us
unless we take positive action. Soon other
motivations appear: we don’t want to disappoint our
friends who offered help, we don’t want to lose the
new happiness we are starting to feel, and we do want
to be true to our Higher Power. Later on, the siren
call of our addiction will become so tiny that we don’t
notice it at all but for now, there is still work to be
done. There are no holidays from recovery. Do I
understand that recovery is for life – that, however
good I am feeling, I must remain vigilant?


HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) are the four
things to avoid in early recovery. We could find
ourselves in any (or all) of those states at any
time. We should have a plan to deal with this – a
person to call or a meeting to attend. Our great
good fortune is that we have worldwide
support. We must ask for help, so we see how to
help others, when the time comes. Today I
remind myself to ask for help.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days April 29th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – send positive thoughts

Filling the void

Addiction and creativity have always been closely
linked. Hardship, pain and frustration are often the
catalysts for great creativity and many great writers
and painters struggled with addiction. But recovery
and the freedom from suffering it brings, can also
produce great work. The AA Big Book, written by
recovering alcoholics for alcoholics, is a prime
example of this. AA co-founder People in recovery
sometimes find an unexpected talent that brings
them great enjoyment. This can ‘fill the void’ and
occupy them beneficially, when they take addiction
out of their lives. Am I ready to explore my potential
for new interests and activities?


Reach out – soothe another’s pain.
Feel the friendship, feel the gain.
See your life begin to blossom.
Little sprigs of hopes forgotten
Growing into big strong trees.
Force the wine witch to her knees. Anon.
Sometimes poems like this, by a newly recovering
alcoholic, help build strength and determination to
stay sober, and a new interest too. Today I ask God
for the motivation to explore new ideas.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days April 28th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – review expectations
Denial
When you decide to quit addictive behaviour and
face up to reality, you are essentially casting off your
denial – the twisted mental process that allowed you
to continue your addiction for so long although you
knew it was wrong. Sobering up means accepting
three essential truths:

  • This is what your behaviour was like
  • This is how it makes others think about you
  • This is how it makes you feel about yourself.
    Facing reality can be painful – nobody likes hearing
    other people’s criticism, however justified. The
    thing that gives us encouragement is that we have a
    plan for putting things right – the Twelve Step
    programme. With this plan and the help of our
    Higher Power, reality does not seem so painful.
    The moment we decide to sober up is a hugely
    important milestone. The road ahead may be
    arduous, but we have a roadmap and a guide. All
    that is left to do is to make the first move. Today I
    thank God I have the needs for my recovery journey.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days April 27th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – close eyes briefly


New ideas


Addiction means giving up everything else for the
sake of having just one thing. Recovery is about
giving up just one thing for the sake of regaining
everything else. It should be so easy to choose
between addiction and recovery, but so many of us
cannot let go. It’s like the old monkey trap story –
the monkey’s hand fits through the hole to pick up
the rice but the hand with the rice can’t fit back out.
For the monkey, like us, it’s a mind problem – not
being able to let go of old ideas. Am I ready to let go
of old attitudes and embrace new ideas?


The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but
in escaping from the old ones.
Maynard Keynes.
We don’t want to give up our old ways because we
can’t imagine that anything else would work for us.
We can’t imagine life without our drug or behaviour
of choice, and we certainly can’t imagine enjoying
life without it. Today I ask God for the strength of
mind and insight, to be able to let go of the old
attitudes that stop me from embracing the new.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days April 26th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – relax your whole body gradually


Learning life’s lessons

Anyone in recovery who reads Alice in Wonderland
might see it as an allegory about addiction. A young
girl disappears down a rabbit hole into a fantasy
world where she discovers mind and body-altering
substances. It’s also a story about self-discovery:
Who in the world am I? she asks. She
learns too about growing up and making the right
choices. By the end of the book, Alice is behaving
like an adult: It’s no use going back to yesterday,
she says, because I was a different person then.
The book helps us understand the challenges
of growing up, though there is no evidence
that the author had addiction in mind. Am I
open to learning lessons in life from all sources?
We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.
How do you know I’m mad? said Alice.
You must be, said the Cat, or you wouldn’t
have come here. But let me tell you something.
The best people usually are.
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

Such wise words of acceptance. I’ve heard
similar things at AA meetings. Today I ask God for
the wisdom to know I have an illness that is
mental, physical and spiritual.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days April 25th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – close eyes briefly


Happy recovery


What can we do to make recovery a joyful experience?
For a start, we can shed some burdens:

  1. Make sure that we have addressed the past
    and made amends
  2. We must do Steps Four to Seven
  3. Stop worrying about tomorrow – focus on today
  4. Hand life’s problems over to a Higher Power.
    Having shed these three burdens, we can
    try some new ideas:
  5. Cultivate friendships, perhaps in the fellowships
  6. Explore new interests
  7. Discover the pleasure in helping others.
    We should always remember that happiness comes
    as a result of good actions. Am I ready to build a
    happy recovery, helped by my Twelve Step group?

  8. The American psychologist M Scott Peck, in his
    book The Road Less Travelled, spoke about the
    blessing of alcoholism because it puts people into a
    visible state of crisis for which there is a ready-made
    therapeutic community – an AA group. How
    fortunate we are to have this. I ask God today for the
    enthusiasm to build a contented and meaningful
    recovery.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days April 23rd by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – enjoy the moment

Spiritual growth


The joy of living is a sometimes-unexpected bonus
for many recovering addicted people. Feeling
physically well is only a part of that. We realise that
there is more pleasure in giving than in getting, that
caring about other people is fulfilling, that friends
are dependable, that Higher Power is real, that
honesty brings peace of mind, that living a day at a
time is manageable. When we look at the wreckage
of our past and compare it to the calm simplicity of
our life today, there is so much to be happy about
and so much to be grateful for. Am I grateful that
my life has changed so much for the better?

I accept the good that surrounds me instead of
searching for it, and I truly understand the meaning
of spiritual growth. That is how my sobriety will
turn into a happy recovery. I know that by
surrendering my life to my Higher Power, I will find
peace and contentment. Thus, my life will have
true meaning and happiness. For that I am grateful.
Today I ask God for spiritual growth that will
continue for the rest of my life.

Daily Reading from recovery Days April 22nd by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – close eyes

Progress, not perfection

Active addiction leads to a form of soul sickness.
People become a poor imitation of the person they
once were. But on sobering up, they come to
themselves, as they come to their senses. The
addicted self is not the real self. To some extent we
are dual personalities who need to become whole
again. That means to regain our integrity. It will
require courage, honesty and realism but with the
help of our Higher Power, it can be done. Carl Jung
said in his letter to Bill W: Alcoholism is a spiritual
disease the basis of which is man’s yearning
for wholeness.


Am I ready to regain my true integrity?
Many of us sought for completeness and wholeness
in our addiction, but no addictive behaviour can
provide such a thing. We can only find meaning and
purpose in life through a belief in a Higher Power
and the knowledge that we are doing what is right.
Perfection is not required, only steady progress.
Today I ask that I will do my best in everything I
attempt and that every choice that I make today will
be the best for the recovery of others and of myself.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days April 21st by Chris B

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Respect for others

Ordinary people don’t make a fuss about life – kids,
work, school, stress, relationships, tiredness,
kindness. The humdrum realities of life require a
special kind of dedication and commitment. The
single person raising a family on benefit while
perhaps recovering from addiction will never
receive a medal. Perhaps they will never be thanked
or remembered except by the few whose lives they
touched and made better, with an unsolicited act of
kindness. Do I respect my fellow men and women
and help them whenever I can?

Selfishness and a rampant ego make it extremely
hard to perform unsolicited acts of kindness. They
probably make it extremely hard as well, to really
love someone. But if we cannot give love, how can
we expect to receive it? Christianity teaches that to
love is to suffer because the sublime feeling of love
is inevitably going to make us unhappy, if only one
day, by its absence. When a loved one suffers, we
suffer too. And when a loved one recovers, we rejoice
in that recovery. Love and suffering are connected.
Today I will remember that.

Daily Reading from Recovery Days April 19th by Chris B

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Remember Mindfulness – review expectations

Power of example

The story of the Good Samaritan in the Bible is a
story of courage, compassion, and hope. It takes
courage to recognise injustice, to take a different
view from others and most of all, to act when others
do not. What motivated this brave person? It can’t
have been a selfish desire for fame, although he is
famous – we do not even know his name. All his
actions were of giving. This totally unselfish and
anonymous act of kindness has affected more
people over the centuries than other gifts in history
though some involved great generosity too. The
power of example could not be better demonstrated.
Do I understand the power of example, so that I can
be an example to others?

Courage to stand out and behave differently from
the crowd is a special kind of courage. When the
crowd is against you, they show a very negative
power of example that requires a special kind of
help to overcome – Higher Power. Today I ask God
for courage when I need to take a stand for what
is right.