Recovery Reflections: April 5, 2017
Hello everyone! My name is Bianka. I would like to give you another warm welcome to Detox to Rehab’s Recovery Reflections. Please join us and listen to the experience, strength and hope shared by Corey, Brandon, and Madison.
We will pre-record readings from Alcoholics Anonymous: Daily Reflections. We express how this reading has helped our recovery or how it has impacted us. We thank you and hope we can inspire your recovery journey!
Alcoholics Anonymous
April 5, 2017: True Brotherhood
We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society. Always we tried to struggle to the top of the heap, or to hide underneath it. This self-centered behavior blocked a partnership relation with any one of those about us. Of true brotherhood, we had small comprehension.
– Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 53
This message contained in Step Four was the first one I heard loud and clear; I hadn’t seen myself in print before! Prior to my coming into A.A., I knew of no place that could teach me how to become a person among persons. From my very first meeting, I saw people doing just that and I wanted what they had. One of the reasons that I’m a happy, sober alcoholic today is that I’m learning this most important lesson.
Daily Reflections: http://www.justfortodaymeditations.com/daily-recovery-readings-april-5/
Happiness in Your Recovery Journey
“I had to be taught (happiness). I was taught by the example that people set before me,” Brandon said.
When we are out in active addiction most of our happiness was taken away from our drug of choice. For me, when I was using, I forgot what it was like to smile. I was so depressed and unwilling to learn a better way of life. That was until I came into the 12-step fellowship. When I walked into my first meeting I still didn’t know what it was like to smile because I had not been happy in so long. Just like Brandon, I had to be taught what true happiness is. The people who were involved into the 12-step fellowship before me offered a helping hand and proved to me that there is a way out of the miserable hole addiction takes you down. But, this doesn’t mean all individual involved in the 12-step fellowship are happy, joyous, and free.
“Not everybody who is an addict or alcoholic is happy,” Madison said.
Just because you say you are in a 12-step fellowship doesn’t mean you are working the steps and following the guidelines that make us the happy people we are today. If you want true happiness you must work the steps, make it to meetings, and have a relationship with your Higher Power or God. Happiness is an internal thing and you must work for it; it doesn’t just come to us when we ask our Higher Power for it.
“Being happy and content doesn’t mean I am always going to get my way or get what I want,” Corey said.
When we ask our Higher Power for happiness and work for it, it doesn’t mean things are always going to go our way. God works in mysterious ways and sometimes the things we want in life is not what God has in store for us. We may be upset for the time being when we don’t get our way but we have to look at the bigger picture- it was just not meant to be and we will find out why when it comes to surface.
“It always circles back to, A: remembering the things in my life I should be grateful for, and acting on that, like showing my gratitude for those things,” Corey said.
When things don’t go our way and we don’t get what we want is a perfect time to look back and count our blessings. We are alive, clean, and sober. What is better than that? We came from a dark place that not many people make it out of and if God did that for us why would he try and cause harm. So just remember, when things don’t go your way it is for a reason.
When I went to jail, I was not happy. Things were not going in my favor. I was upset with my Higher Power and didn’t understand why He couldn’t just give me a chance to make it right without doing time in jail. Over time, while I was sitting in my cell, I realized God saved me. He saved me from my addiction and who knows where I would be if the police didn’t pick me up that day. I am now working a 12-step program and couldn’t be happier with the way my life has turned out. Don’t forget to count your blessings and remember: everything happens for a reason.
