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Today's thought is: May 24, 2004
Reflection for the Day
The Program is a road, not a resting place. Before we came to The Program -- and, for some of us, many times afterward -- most of us looked for answers to our living problems in religion, philosophy, psychology, self-help groups, and so on. Invariably, these fields held forth the goals that were precisely what we wanted; they offered freedom, calm, confidence and joy. But there was one major loophole: They never gave us a workable method of getting there. They never told us how to get from where we were to where we were supposed to be. Do I truly believe that I can find everything that I need and really want through the Twelve Steps?
Today I Pray
May I know that, once through the Twelve Steps, I am not on a plane surface. For life is not a flat field, but a slope upward. And those flights of steps must be taken over and over and remembered. May I be sure that once I have made them totally familiar to me, they will take me anywhere I want to go.
Today I Will Remember
The Steps are a road, not a resting place.
Reading from the book:
A Day at a Time (Softcover) by Anonymous
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So many people don't seem to realize that once you get to Step "Whatever" the journey isn't over, it is a process. It doesn't stop at Step Twelve. It doesn't stop at Step Three because we don't want to do a Step Four. It doesn't end at Step Four because we don't want to tell a living soul. It doesn't stop at Steps Six because I know my defects, I am suppose to find a willingness and a desire to let them go. I can't stop without doing an amend to myself, my God, my friends and family.
Steps Ten, Eleven and Twelve are maintenance steps. You have to do the others to be able to have something to maintain. They are steps to be worked, just in today. As we get honest, as we heal, as we grow, the process goes on, and the road continues. We may make some detours along the way, but God willing, we will get back on the road and follow a path to recovery.
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Real like the first line
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The Program is a road, not a resting place
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We are on a journey, one we take one day at a time. We get out of it what we put into it. We have a choice between sober and sobriety (soundness of mind). Sobriety isn't just for alcoholics. I am an addict, and I need to work on my emotional sobriety every day.
When we are new in recovery, things are new to us and they become ingrained in us I think. They become a part of our lives. Sometimes when I am going through rough patches, I go back to basics, do the things I did when I first came into recovery, and I think most of those things are still in place, except for the fact that I don't get out to meetings like I did then. The people at the recovery sites I go to are my recovery family.
There is a program if we choose to use it. My first boyfriend in recovery, celebrated his one year and he had a priest speak at his anniversary. The priest didn't become a priest until he had been in recovery for a few years.
I said to him, after he told me that he had never had more than 11 months, but he kept going back out. I said, "You didn't have a program." He said, "Yes, I had a program, I chose not to use it.
We have freedom of choice. Just for today, I choose to be clean and sober. I choose the freedom of sobriety, instead of hanging on by my finger tips.
Like this little guy, I opened my arms and soaked it all up. I was very sick, and each day was just a little bit more healing, of my mind, body, and spirit.
