Readings for each day of the week

Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 86 to 88; Step Eleven, morning

Friday

On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

Saturday

In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.

Sunday

We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.

Monday

If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing.

Tuesday

There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one’s priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.

Wednesday

As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.

Thursday

We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.

It works—it really does.

We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.

Calendar readings

01 October 2023

This is also the psychological notion of compensation—that we compensate for what we believe is the terrible truth about ourselves by doing the opposite. So, for example, if I feel that I am about to fall apart, I believe magically that, by keeping everything externally perfect, I will be held together. This pattern is exhibited by those who insist that everything on their desk has to be absolutely in order, or whose clothes have to be perfect, or whose food has to be arranged a certain way on a plate. Incidentally, we all demonstrate aspects of this dynamic, because the ego part of us always feels as if it is going to fall apart, and the world serves as the defensive compensation for this fear.

Kenneth Wapnick. The Journey Home: The Obstacles to Peace in A Course in Miracles

02 October 2023

‘One of my morning readings, Science of Mind, has a powerful meaning for me I would like to share parts of. ‘A woman was leaning over the victim of an accident while a crowd looked on.’ Suddenly she was roughly pushed aside by a man who said, “Step back, please. I’ve attended a course in first aid.” The woman looked on for a few minutes while the man got busy with the victim, then she said calmly, “When you come to the part where you have to send for the doctor, I’m already here.”’

Al Kohallek

03 October 2023

Another way of saying the same thing is that we are terrorised that God will destroy us from within, so we put a fence around the fear as a way of controlling it. Next, we have the insane and maladaptive idea that, by controlling every aspect of our external life, we are really in control of what is inside us. That is the meaning of the important line in “The Two Pictures” in the text: “It is essential to realize that all defences do what they would defend” (T-17.IV.7:1). The more we hold on to those outer defences—the need to organize our life outside—the more we strengthen our belief that there is an inner disaster about to happen; otherwise, we would not need the defence. This defence, incidentally, can take the form of a thought system as implied here in the text, or a behavioural system, or both. What the dynamic of compensation really does, again, is reinforce how fragile and unstable we believe we are inside.

Kenneth Wapnick. The Journey Home: The Obstacles to Peace in A Course in Miracles

04 October 2023

Someone has said that the entire world is suffering from one big fear … the fear that God will not answer our prayers. I don’t know about everyone else, but that’s a biggie for me. I seek fragments when the whole is at hand. “Beware of the ego [our personal “reality”] masquerading as Spirit.” That infinite Power that created you and me is within every cell of our human bodies, as long as we are alive, transforming everything we eat into life’s energy.’ We don’t ask for too much when we ask for everything it takes to do and be His Will.’ Everything we need to do and to be that is freely given.

Al Kohallek

05 October 2023

The very first sign of waking up is the insight that we are not doomed to retrace our steps forever.

Mingyur Rinpoche

06 October 2023

A salt doll journeyed for thousands of miles and stopped on the edge of the sea.
It was fascinated by this moving liquid mass, so unlike anything it had seen before.
‘What are you?’ said the salt doll to the sea.
‘Come in and see,’ said the sea with a smile.
So the doll waded in. The further it went the more it dissolved till there was only a pinch left. Before that last bit dissolved, the doll exclaimed in wonder, ‘Now I know what I am!’

The Song of the Bird, Anthony de Mello

07 October 2023

When we have something to share, we share it. However, when members use up limited meeting time to go on and on about personal grievances, they aren’t helping anyone, including themselves. While we may have an urgent desire to unburden ourselves when troubles are weighing on our hearts and minds, that can be reserved for one-to-one talks, when the interchange is more likely to be helpful to both.

Al-Anon’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

08 October 2023

Our prayers, meditations, affirmations, and contemplations increase our chances to do and be who we are, if we put our awakening into practice. We could read a thousand cookbooks and starve to death. We have to eat the meals which we prepare and which are prepared for us.

Al Kohallek

09 October 2023

The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to renounce this life’s concerns,
For friends and relatives, long acquainted, must all go their separate ways;
Wealth and prized possessions, painstakingly acquired, must all be left behind;
And consciousness, the guest who lodges in the body, must in time depart.

Gyelse Tokme Zangpo, The Thirty-Seven Practices of All the Bodhisattvas

10 October 2023

From Season of Life, about Joe Ehrmann, football player, coach, minister, on teaching boys how to become adults. Ehrmann, talking to a bunch of high school boys, before a game:

“What is our job?” he asks on behalf of the eight assistant coaches. “To love us,” most of the boys yelled back. “And what is your job?” he shot back. “To love each other,” the boys responded.

Jeffrey Marx

11 October 2023

“When you are in the woods, you cannot ever be lost. You are surrounded by friends and surrounded by God.”

–Joe Coyhis, Stockbridge–Munsee

Every plant, every animal, every insect, every bird, every tree is made up of God. God is life and everything is alive. When you are hunting, remember all nature is your friend. All nature has purpose. All nature participates in the life cycle. Nature communicates. Nature talks. Nature listens. Nature forgives. Nature respects. Nature loves. Nature lives in harmony. Nature follows the law. Nature is kind. Nature is balance. The woods are alive and beautiful. Nature is our friend.

wellbriety.com

12 October 2023

Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the Dwarfs’ knees: pieces and tongues and pigeons and trifles and ices, and each Dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand. But it wasn’t much use. They began eating and drinking greedily enough, but it was clear that they couldn’t taste it properly. They thought they were eating and drinking only the sort of things you might find in a stable. One said he was trying to eat hay and another said he had got a bit of an old turnip and a third said he’d found a raw cabbage leaf. And they raised golden goblets of rich red wine to their lips and said, “Ugh! Fancy drinking dirty water out of a trough that a donkey’s been at! Never thought we’d come to this.” ...

“You see,” said Aslan. “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out. But come, children. I have other work to do.”

The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis

13 October 2023

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 2

14 October 2023

You sound like a two-headed Malgorian I knew when I was a boy. You ever try to talk to a two-headed Malgorian? You see, the thing with a two-headed Malgorian is it can never figure out what it really wants to do and, and that can be very confusing, believe me. And the trouble with my Malgorian friend was he had all kinds of problems and he couldn’t decide how to solve them. So he’d always come running to me, so I could solve them for him, you see. You know what I finally said to that Malgorian, I said, “Fellas, deal with it yourselves.”

Deep Space Nine

15 October 2023

Trying to find a Buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form. It’s not something you can pick up or put down. And you certainly can’t grab it. Beyond this mind you’ll never see a Buddha. The Buddha is a product of your mind. Why look for a Buddha beyond this mind?

The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

16 October 2023

Any perception of anyone as being different from you is a lie. That is a statement that has absolutely no exceptions. Remember, in the Course, perception is interpretation. It does not mean that your physical eyes do not see differences. Of course you see differences. But eyes lie. As the Course says, “Nothing so blinding as perception of form” (T-22.III.6:7). Eyes see form, ears hear form, hands write form, bodies do form things. Nothing so blinding as perception of form. Love is content; it is not form. Any perception you have that there are differences in this world you know are of the ego.

Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. Love: An Ever-Fixed Mark

17 October 2023

It is good to set aside a specific time everyday to be heartbroken and to speak out all one's problems before God, but the rest of the day be only happy.

Nachman of Breslov

18 October 2023

Shifu: Po, the day you were chosen as Dragon Warrior was the worst day of my life. By far. Nothing else came close. It was the worst, most painful mind-destroying, horrible, moment I have ever experienced. But once I realised the problem was not you, but within me, I found inner peace, and was able to harness the flow of the universe.

Kung Fu Panda 2

19 October 2023

Let us say daily: I am one with the Love of God. I am one in the Love of God with all people. My love goes out to everyone, and I know that it is returned from everyone. Overlooking everything that might seem to deny this Divine beneficence, I trust that Infinite Love will guide and protect me in everything. And I counsel my own soul to show forth this love in such a manner that it shall embrace and warm the heart of humanity, bringing confidence and trust and faith and hope to everyone it touches. Daily I affirm that love governs all of humanity into pathways of peace and joy. Daily I affirm that love goes before and makes the way plain and happy. And daily I affirm that my own love is renewed and rekindled by that great and vast Love in which I am immersed, that Love that is God.

365 Science of Mind, 18 July

20 October 2023

It is customary to consider forgetfulness a disadvantage. I believe it is an advantage. Knowing how to forget means knowing how to loosen the troubles of the past.

Nachman of Breslov

21 October 2023

These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1

22 October 2023

You need to have great stubbornness in the service of God.

Nachman of Breslov

23 October 2023

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason ‘gainst my fury
Do I take part: the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance:

The Tempest, Act V, Scene I

24 October 2023

Whenever a person rises from one level to the next, it necessitates that he first has a descent before the ascent. Because the purpose of any descent is always in order to ascend.

Nachman of Breslov

25 October 2023

Step Three does not say you turn your will and life over to God. It says you turn them over to the care of God. You think all you have to do is stop drinking, go to meetings, and everything will be fine. You’re wrong. God will do the impossible, which means you have to do the possible. You are the action officer. He told me that God will do nothing for me I can do for myself. This is a programme of action. Action, action, action.

Hal Marley

26 October 2023

They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

Khalil Gibran

27 October 2023

Know that the primary essence of exile is only our lack of belief.

Nachman of Breslov

28 October 2023

When you come to a fork in the road, take it!

Hal Marley

29 October 2023

They suggested I could just stay sober one day at a time. They explained that it might be easier to set my sights on the twenty-four hours in front of me and to take on these other situations when and if they ever arrived.

Alcoholics Anonymous, The Missing Link

30 October 2023

I can’t afford resentments against anyone, because they are the build-up of another drunk. I must live and let live.

Alcoholics Anonymous, Fear of Fear

31 October 2023

What I did in Step Three was enter into a partnership with God. God is my senior partner; I am the junior partner. Straightforward deal. I don’t need to go through a secretary to get through to my senior partner. He’s available in all times and in all places to provide me with the help and the guidance I need. I’m not aware of the long-range plans. I know there are deadlines next week, next month, next year, but my responsibility is only for one day at a time. Sometimes, that’s too much and I have to take it an hour at a time, five minutes at a time, and I let Him manage.

Hal Marley

01 November 2023

And “think”—that one important word means so much to me. My life was always act and react. I never stopped to think. I just didn’t give a whoop about myself or anyone else.

Alcoholics Anonymous, Fear of Fear

02 November 2023

I had to hide, as a great many people in AA have had to do. I did my hiding in the hampers and in my dresser drawers. When we begin to do things like that with alcohol, something’s gone wrong.

Alcoholics Anonymous, The Housewife Who Drank At Home

03 November 2023

There are days when I seemingly don’t get my own way, and I just have to bite the bullet. When that happens, I stop, and I say a little line from Psalm 46: Be still and know that I am God. That puts me back into the proper frame of reference, back into the right values, back into accepting the reality I could not accept for so many years.

Hal Marley

04 November 2023

Since I gave my will over to AA, whatever AA has wanted of me I’ve tried to do to the best of my ability. When I’m asked to go out on a call, I go. I’m not going; AA is leading me there.

Alcoholics Anonymous, The Housewife Who Drank At Home

05 November 2023

That life for me is lived one day at a time, letting the problems of the future rest with the future. When the time comes to solve them, God will give me strength for that day.

Alcoholics Anonymous, The Housewife Who Drank At Home

06 November 2023

Without God, I can’t. Without me, He won’t.

Hal Marley

07 November 2023

For myself, I have an absolute proof of the existence of God. I was sitting in my office one time after I had operated on a woman. It had been a long four- or five-hour operation, a large surgical procedure, and she was on her ninth or tenth post-operative day. She was doing fine, she was up and around, and that day her husband phoned me and said, “Doctor, thanks very much for curing my wife,” and I thanked him for his felicitations, and he hung up. And then I scratched my head and said to myself, “What a fantastic thing for a man to say, that I cured his wife. Here I am down at my office behind my desk, and there she is out at the hospital. I am not even there, and if I was there the only thing I could do would be to give her moral support, and yet he thanks me for curing his wife.” I thought to myself, “What is curing that woman? Yes, I put in those stitches. The Great Boss has given me diagnostic and surgical talent, and He has loaned it to me to use for the rest of my life. It doesn’t belong to me. He has loaned it to me, and I did my job, but that ended nine days ago. What healed those tissues that I closed? I didn’t.” This to me is the proof of the existence of a Somethingness greater than I am. I couldn’t practise medicine without the Great Physician. All I do in a very simple way is to help Him cure my patients.

Alcoholics Anonymous, Physician, Heal Thyself

08 November 2023

What is this power that AA possesses? This curative power? I don’t know what it is. I suppose the doctor might say, “This is psychosomatic medicine.” I suppose the psychiatrist might say, “This is benevolent interpersonal relations.” I suppose others would say, “This is group psychotherapy.” To me it is God.

Alcoholics Anonymous, Physician, Heal Thyself

09 November 2023

Old rule of physics. Two things can’t occupy the same place at the same time. So, if I had a heart full of gratitude, there’s be no room in my heart, for the whole of my life, for anger, fear, guilt, remorse, or resentment. All those things that drive the alcoholic back to the bottle.

Hal Marley

10 November 2023

When he asked why I had avoided AA, I told him it was because I didn’t think I had hit bottom. Somehow, he didn’t laugh but said, “You hit bottom when you stop digging.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, Student of Life

11 November 2023

You explained the Big Book had no chapters titled “Into Thinking” or “Into Feeling”—only “Into Action.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, Crossing The River Of Denial

12 November 2023

This programme is about killing self. I have to kill my self every day for the rest of my life.

Hal Marley

13 November 2023

You said as long as I put AA first in my life, everything that I put second would be first class.

Alcoholics Anonymous, Crossing The River Of Denial

14 November 2023

I was told that I must want sobriety for my own sake, and I am convinced this is true. There may be many reasons that bring one to AA for the first time, but the lasting one must be to want sobriety and the AA way of living for oneself.

Alcoholics Anonymous, It Might Have Been Worse

15 November 2023

Humility is the recognition of the all-ness of God and the nothingness of self. Of myself I am nothing. It’s a matter of record.

Hal Marley

16 November 2023

The explanation that alcoholism was a disease of a two-fold nature, an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind, cleared up a number of puzzling questions for me. The allergy we could do nothing about. ... The why is not important; the fact is that one drink will set up a reaction in our system that requires more, that one drink is too much, and a hundred drinks are not enough.

Alcoholics Anonymous, It Might Have Been Worse

17 November 2023

Over a period of time, he has built up self-pity and resentments toward anyone or anything that interferes with his drinking. Dishonest thinking, prejudice, ego, antagonism toward anyone and everyone who dares to cross him, vanity, and a critical attitude are character defects that gradually creep in and become a part of his life. Living with fear and tension inevitably results in wanting to ease that tension, which alcohol seems to do temporarily. It took me some time to realize that the Twelve Steps of AA were designed to help correct these defects of character and so help remove the obsession to drink.

Alcoholics Anonymous, It Might Have Been Worse

18 November 2023

A willingness to do whatever I was told to do simplified the program for me.

Alcoholics Anonymous, It Might Have Been Worse

19 November 2023

Making amends is sometimes doing what we are capable of doing but failed to do because of alcohol—carrying out community responsibilities such as community funds, Red Cross, educational and religious activities in proportion to our abilities and energy.

Alcoholics Anonymous, It Might Have Been Worse

20 November 2023

“First Things First.” Solve our immediate problems before we try to solve all the others and get muddled in our thinking and doing.

Alcoholics Anonymous, It Might Have Been Worse

21 November 2023

“Easy Does It.” Relax a little. Try for inner contentment. No one individual can carry all the burdens of the world. Everyone has problems. Getting drunk won’t solve them.

Alcoholics Anonymous, It Might Have Been Worse

22 November 2023

“Twenty-four hours a day.” Today is the day. Doing our best, living each day to the fullest is the art of living. Yesterday is gone, and we don’t know whether we will be here tomorrow. If we do a good job of living today, and if tomorrow comes for us, then the chances are we will do a good job when it arrives—so why worry about it?

Alcoholics Anonymous, It Might Have Been Worse

23 November 2023

In the hospital I hung on to the idea I’d had most of my life: that if I could just control the external environment, the internal environment would then become comfortable. ... And life keeps getting simpler and easier as we try to reverse my old idea, by taking care of the internal environment via the Twelve Steps, and letting the external environment take care of itself.