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Everything is funny as long as it happening to someone else. —Will Rogers— We laugh when others do something silly. We’re amused when something funny happens to them. But if the same happens to us and people laugh, we might give them the evil eye. Yet, when others laugh, it can free us. It frees […]
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Believe more deeply. Hold your face up to the light, even though for the moment you do not see… —Bill W.— At times, we’ll go through pain and hardship, At times, we’ll have doubts. At times, we’ll get angry and think we just don’t care anymore. These things can spiritually blind us. But this normal. […]
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“We.”—First word of the Twelve Steps— We. This little word says a lot about the Twelve Steps. Our addiction made us lonely. The “we” of the program makes us whole again. It makes us a member of a living, growing group of people. Our addiction isolated us from others. We couldn’t be honest. We felt […]
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The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. —Chinese proverb—
Life holds so many choices now that we are sober. We’d like to go so many places. We’d like to see so many things. We have so much to do. We are slowly learning how to trust our dreams and reach for them. Our program teaches us that we live One Day at a Time. We make progress by doing First Things First. Easy Does It. Our dreams may seem very big and far away. We wonder if we’ll ever get there. But our faith tells us to go for it. And we know how: one step at a time.
PRAYER: Higher Power, help me know this gentle truth: my life matters. Help me set goals that I can grow toward, one step at a time.
ACTION: Today, I’ll think about one of my goals. I will list ten little steps that will help me get there
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He who is swift to believe is swift to forget. —Abraham Joshua Herschel— Life is full of questions. Many people tell us they have the answers. We have to be careful of who and what we believe. Other people’s ideas may not fit us. The program doesn’t tell us much about what to believe. It […]
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Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. —Unknown— As we work Step One, we accept that alcohol and other drugs are poison to us. We accept our limits. This means we know that hanging around our using “buddies” can remind us of “the good old days.” Hanging around “slippery places” means we could “slip” back into […]
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…our lives had become unmanageable. —Second half of Step One— The First Step tells us a lot about our addiction. We were out of control. Our addiction was in control. Addiction managed everything. It managed our relationships. It managed how we behaved with our families. As Step One says, “…our lives had become unmanageable.” But […]
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We admitted we were powerless over alcohol… —First part of Step One— In Step One, we accept our powerlessness over alcohol and other drugs. But we are powerless over many parts of life. We are powerless over other people. We are powerless over what our HP has planned for us. Before recovery, we only believed […]
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Leave yourself alone. —Jenny Janacek— We often pick on ourselves. We put ourselves down. But doing this isn’t part of our recovery. In fact, it goes against our program. Our program is based on loving care. We have turned our lives over to a caring, loving Higher Power who will give us the answers. We […]
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One is happy as the result of one’s own efforts. —George Sand— Happiness is not an accident. It comes from following the spiritual voice found in each of us. This isn’t always easy. Sometimes, the voice tells us to do things we’re afraid of. For Example, if we’re lonely and the voice tells us to […]