February-17 topics

Daily Readings and Inspirations

Daily Reflections: THE LOVE IN THEIR EYES 

1. Some of us won't believe in God, others can't, and still others who do not believe that God exists have no faith whatever He will perform this miracle. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 25 

2. It was the changes I saw in the new people who came into the Fellowship that helped me lose my fear,  and change my negative attitude to a positive one. I could see the love in their eyes and I was impressed  by how much their "One Day at a Time" sobriety meant to them. 

3. They had looked squarely at Step Two and came to believe that a power greater than themselves was  restoring them to sanity. That gave me faith in the Fellowship, and hope that it could work for me too. I  found that God was a loving God, not that punishing God I feared before coming to A.A. I also found that  He had been with me during all those times I had been in trouble before I came to A.A. I know today that  He was the one who led me to A.A. and that I am a miracle. 

NA Just For Today: Carrying The Message, Not The Addict 

1. "They can be analyzed, counseled, reasoned with, prayed over, threatened, beaten, or locked up, but they  will not stop until they want to stop." Basic Text, p. 62 

2. Perhaps one of the most difficult truths we must face in our recovery is that we are as powerless over  another's addiction as we are over our own. We may think that because we've had a spiritual awakening in our own  lives we should be able to persuade another addict to find recovery. But there are limits to what we can do to help  another addict.

3. We cannot force them to stop using. We cannot give them the results of the steps or grow for them. We  cannot take away their loneliness or their pain. There is nothing we can say to convince a scared addict to surrender  the familiar misery of addiction for the frightening uncertainty of recovery. We cannot jump inside other peoples'  skins, shift their goals, or decide for them what is best for them. 

4. However, if we refuse to try to exert this power over another's addiction, we may help them. They may  grow if we allow them to face reality, painful though it may be. They may become more productive, by their own  definition, as long as we don't try and do it for them. They can become the authority on their own lives, provided we are only  authorities on our own. If we can accept all this, we can become what we were meant to be - carriers of the message,  not the addict. 

Just for today: I will accept that I am powerless not only over my own addiction but also over everyone  else's. I will carry the message, not the addict.

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From recoveryhq.com

ACRONYMS: Recovery 

SLOGANS: RECOVERY

From myself