rfaep6

The speaker begins by wishing everyone a happy Monday and a happy Fourth of July. They share a quote about freedom and the importance of being oneself. They discuss the freedom that comes with recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction. The speaker then reflects on the role of faith and a higher power in their recovery journey. They mention how God speaks to them through people and emphasize the importance of staying sober. The speaker expresses sadness about a video they saw where people were unaware of basic American history facts. They discuss the significance of Independence Day and the sacrifices made by men and women in the military. They urge people to come together as Americans and focus on logic rather than emotion when it comes to political matters. The speaker shares their belief that most people are in the middle and just want to live their lives and provide for their families. They caution against getting caught up in resentments and emphasize the importance of working on Good morning everybody. Happy Monday. Welcome to Recovery is F'n Awesome. Happy Fourth of July. Happy Birthday America. Hope everybody is doing well. Today is July 4th and in one of the readings I have a quote from Ira Einstein. It says, Freedom means the right to be different. The right to be oneself. It goes on to say, There is no recipe that prescribes exactly what kind of men we should be. Because we are free, it is our creative task to discover what it means to be honest, masculine, contributing men with our particular circumstances. We don't get a list of directions for each day, only guidelines for progress. Through groups and friendships, we develop in our own ways and learn to respect each other's freedom. I am grateful for the freedom to be uniquely and fully myself. How awesome is that? America's birthday, let's talk about freedom. We've got the freedom of choice. Those in recovery have freedom from alcohol. If we are sober today, which means we have broken free from the shackles of alcoholism and drug addiction. We can pretty much do whatever we want to do. We should make good choices every day, obviously. Try to be better than we were yesterday. The Daily Reflections comes from page 55 of the hymnal, called The Natural Faith. It says, Deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental ideal of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a power greater than ourselves and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives are facts as old as man himself. Member goes on to write, I have seen the workings of the unseen God in a 12-step program, rooms across the country. Miracles of recovery are everywhere in evidence. I now believe that God is in these rooms and in my heart. Today, faith is as natural to me, a former agnostic, as breathing, eating, and sleeping. The 12 steps have helped change my life in many ways, but none is more effective than the acquisition of a higher power. Isn't that the truth? You know, looking back, I could see difference in many examples of where God was working in my life. You know, and today I understand and I realize that God speaks to me through people. You know, and there's plenty of examples where, you know, I'm just doing my day-to-day rat killing and then somebody shows up and says the exact thing that I need to hear at that exact time and it is awesome. It is absolutely awesome. It's spiritual in nature more than a religious for me. Those of you who know me know I don't go to church. You know, growing up I did, but, you know, they kept telling me that God is everywhere, so, you know, I don't have to go pay to talk to him. It's kind of the way I look at it. You know, I talk to him all day. He's a friend. You know, we have conversations just like I would, you know, a normal friend. You know, and it's an awesome thing to know that, you know, no matter what, as long as I stay sober, you know, my God has got me. You know, we are, he is in control. He is number one. I am second. You know, I saw something on Facebook this morning and it just, it made me a little sad and disheartened and I don't know if this is true. If it is, it wouldn't surprise me, but there was a lady, this is a video, a lady on a beach interviewing people or asking people questions and, you know, age ranges from, you know, college age to, you know, middle age, all races, you know, denominations, whatever. She asked very simple questions, right? It's July 4th and it was, what year did America gain its independence? Who was the first president of the United States? What was the war called that gave us our independence and who do we defeat? And she interviewed probably 20, 25 people and not one of them got any of those answers right. You know, we defeated the British in the Revolutionary War in 1776 and the first president of the United States was George Washington. Anybody who has taken an elementary history class ought to know that. And again, I don't know if it was, if it was set up like most of the stuff on social media is with all the videos and stuff, but it was very disheartening to see that, you know, surely, surely people can't, can't be that stupid. Okay. Let me rephrase that. Surely people can't be that ignorant. Not nice to call people stupid. But seriously, you cannot be that big of a dumbass to not know at least one of those. Take a basic history lesson and you'll, uh, you know, you'll figure it out. Uh, but it is the 4th of July. Everybody, you know, thinks it's about cookouts and pool parties and barbecue or hot dogs and apple pie and you'll watch fireworks at night and you know, and, and, and, and that's all well and good. Right. But it's, it's more than that. You know, there are men and women who are serving now. Um, and my daughter Reagan is one of them, you know, protecting the freedom that we, you know, take for granted every day. You know, the freedom to get up and go to the grocery store, the freedom to go to work, the freedom to go to the park, the freedom to go to the beach, freedom, you know, have people over at your house. You know, the, the basic freedoms that we enjoy, um, that a lot of us take for granted, you know, but men and women in the military have fought and died to protect that freedom. Um, you know, and, and, you know, today's more about, um, remembering why we are blessed to live in this country. You know, whatever your political affiliation, whatever you think about what's going on in, in DC, um, you know, understand that we're Americans. You know, I would, I would absolutely love that. Uh, you know, we all came together like we did on, uh, September 12th, 2001. You know, if y'all were alive then and y'all have a cognitive thought, um, and can remember, you know, it's like we were, that was probably, probably since December 8th of 1941, the closest we were all to being, uh, one, one unit, um, so to speak, you know, cause we were, we were all Americans that day, right? Politics went out the window, um, and that lasted about, oh, I don't know, four or five days. Um, you know, and then we got, we began infighting again, you know, and, and, you know, I'm not, this isn't a political thing. Um, you know, this is about living comfortably sober, you know, but you see that stuff and, and, you know, some of us get wrapped around the wheel and get, and get sucked down in that rabbit hole and, you know, get pulled to one side or the other. You know, we all, we all have free will, which is awesome. You know, just cause we're sober doesn't mean we, you know, still don't believe in a certain way. Um, but what I have had to learn how to do is look at things logically rather than emotionally, you know, cause when I was drinking, man, I'd ran off emotion. I would see one thing, didn't get the whole story cause you know, like it or not, mainstream media didn't give us the whole story. Um, you know, this gives us a little headline and then, you know, we have already formed our opinion about the situation and we are, you know, off to the races, right? And it's, you know, the, the thing that gets me is, is the only people who are really getting all the media coverage are the people on the way far left and the people on the way far right. You know, but I believe in my heart that the majority of Americans and the majority of people in this country are somewhere in the middle. You know, they just want to wake up, do the best they can provide for their family. Um, and you know, that's it. Enjoy their life. You know, it's these wackos on, you know, the far side of the spectrum, you know, they get all the noise and uh, they make all the noise and get all the coverage. And then, you know, we paint or the media paints everybody who, who, uh, looks similar to that or may believe at least a little part of that. You know, they paint it with a broad brush, which, which is not right and it's not fair, you know, and it's, it's, it's mind numbing. If, if you let it be, uh, you can get, you know, wrapped around the axle and get all twisted and been out of shape and then a serenity level goes down and then, you know, we get resentments in the, you know, the, the handle tells us page 64, resentments number one offender. It will destroy alcoholics more than anything else. You know, that's, it's not number two, it's number one, you know, and, and cause we were mentally and physically ill, but we were spiritually sick. But when a spiritual malady of the spiritual sickness is fixed, then we straighten out mentally and physically. So as long as I am working on my spiritual stuff, understand that I am not running the show. There are things that I cannot control. There are things that I cannot change and I need to be smart enough and recognize and honest with myself enough to, to know, you know, I have no control. I have absolutely no control and I wake up every morning, do the best I can with what I got, uh, try to love everybody equally. Doesn't mean I have to like them, just means I have to love them. Um, sometimes it's best to love people from afar, um, you know, and be the best person I can be today. And, uh, my goal is to be better than I was yesterday. So y'all have a wonderful day. If you are having people over, um, enjoy yourself. If you are, uh, going to watch fireworks, have fun. And if you're shooting off fireworks, please, um, be careful cause if you start off the morning with 10 digits, it'd be nice to go to bed tonight with 10 digits. All right guys, that's it for me today. Y'all stay sober. Again, I appreciate you guys sticking with me, uh, supporting everything that I do. It is humbling and I am absolutely grateful for you guys. I love you guys. Happy birthday America and y'all stay sober cause remember, recovery is fucking awesome.