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Go outside, to the fields, enjoy nature and the sunshine, go out and try to recapture happiness in yourself and in God. —Anne Frank— Many of us look at the joy and beauty of the program with caution. It was different from our addictive joy. Was it to be trusted? When we started working the […]
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Pray without resentment in your heart. —The Little Red Book— Resentment is anger that we don’t want to turn over to our Higher Power. Sometimes we want to keep our anger. Maybe we want to “get even.” it’s hard to be spiritual and full of anger at the same time. When we hold on to […]
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Rest is the guardian of health. —Melba Colgrave— Now that we are sober, we’re feeling better than we have in years. We’re busy too. We attend meetings and visit friends. We have work, school, families, and homes to keep up with. It’s easy to forget to rest. We forgot that our bodies and minds need […]
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To know all things is not permitted. —Horace— In recovery, we give up trying to be perfect. We give up trying to know everything. We work at coming to know and accept our short-comings. In Step Four and Five, we look at our good points and our bad points. In Step Six, we become ready […]
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Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. —Step Four of Alcoholics Anonymous— We avoid the Fourth Step. We put it off. We’re scared of what we will find inside of us. We may find out we’re mean, angry, selfish, afraid. We might see how badly we’ve acted to others, to ourselves. We have […]
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You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself. —Ethel Barrymore… There was a time when we wouldn’t let anyone laugh at us—even ourselves. We had to much shame. We had to much pain. We took the world too seriously. If we laughed it was at others—not at ourselves. Over time, […]
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Spirituality is…the awareness that survival is a savage fight between you and yourself.—Lisa S. — As recovering people, we’re getting stronger each day. We go to meetings to learn how to be better people. But we also go to remind ourselves of the beast inside us—our addiction. This beast is waiting for us to slip—to […]
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Whatever is in the heart will come up to the tongue.—Persian proverb— During our illness, we wouldn’t let people get close to us. We spoke of what was in our heart. And much of what filled our heart was sadness, anger, and hopelessness. Those who want to be close to us heard what was in […]
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God is not a cosmic bellboy. —Harry Emerson Fosdick— We have to laugh when we look back at the times we treated God like our servant. Who did we think we were, ordering God to do something for us? But we got away with it. God even did some of the things we asked. Now […]
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The secret success is constancy of purpose. —Benjamin Disraeli— In Twelve Step meetings, we don’t talk about counseling, treatment centers, or non-program reading. Many of us have been helped in these ways, but we shouldn’t confuse them with Twelve Step programs. We must keep our Twelve Step programs pure, no matter what is in style […]