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Loneliness vs. Being Alone

Just for Today - May 30

"Sharing with others keeps us from feeling isolated and alone."

Basic Text, p. 81

There is a difference between being alone and being lonely. Being lonely is a state of the heart, an emptiness that makes us feel sad and sometimes hopeless. Loneliness is not always alleviated when we enter into relationships or surround ourselves with others. Some of us are lonely even in a room full of people.

Carry Me

Just for Today - May 29

"We believe that our Higher Power will take care of us" Basic Text, p. 55

We all have times when it seems as though our lives are falling apart. There are days, or even weeks, when it seems that everything that can go wrong is going wrong. Whether it's the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, or the end of a relationship, we doubt that we'll survive the changes taking place in our lives.

As We Understand

Just for Today - May 28

"We examined our lives and discovered who we really are. To be truly humble is to accept and honestly try to be ourselves."

Basic Text, p. 35

As using addicts, the demands of our disease determined our personality. We could be whoever or whatever we needed to be in order to get our "fix." We were survival machines, adapting easily to every circumstance of the using life.

Meeting the Day's Challenge

Just for Today - May 27

"...the decision to ask for God's help is our greatest source of strength and courage." Basic Text, p. 26

A challenge is anything that dares us to succeed. Things new and unfamiliar serve as challenges, whether those things appear good or bad to us. We are challenged by obstacles and opposition from within ourselves and from without. New and difficult things, obstacles and opposition, all are a part of "life on life's terms" Living clean means learning to meet challenge.

The Power in The Group

Just for Today - May 26

"Our understanding of a Higher Power is up to us.... We can call it the group, the program, or we can call it God."

Basic Text, p. 24

"Good" And "Bad" Feelings

Just for Today - May 25

"A lot happens in one day, both negative and positive. If we do not take time to appreciate both, perhaps we will miss something that will help us grow."

IP No. 8, "Just for Today"

Risking Vulnerability

Just for Today - May 24

"As we grow, we learn to overcome the tendency to run and hide from ourselves and our feelings."

Basic Text, p. 81

Amends and Sponsors

Just for Today - May 23

"We want to be free of our guilt, but we don't wish to do so at the expense of anyone else."

Basic Text, p. 39

Symptoms of a Spiritual Awakening

Just for Today - May 22

"The steps lead to an awakening of a spiritual nature. This awakening is evidenced by changes in our lives."

Basic Text, p. 48

Keep Coming Back!

Just for Today - May 21

"Meetings keep us in touch with where we've been, but more importantly with where we could go in our recovery."

Basic Text, p. 54

Coming Out Of Isolation

Just for Today - May 20

"We find ourselves doing and enjoying things that we never thought we would be doing."

Basic Text, p. 98

A Growth Inventory

Just for today - May 19

"We review our past performance and our present behavior to see what we want to keep and what we want to discard."

Basic Text, p. 29

Friends and Amends—Keeping It Simple

Just for Today - May 18

"We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."

Step Nine

"Defects"

Step: 
Step 6

May 17 - Just for Today

"We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character."

Step Six

After taking the Fifth Step, many of us spend some time considering "the exact nature of our wrongs" and the part they'd played in making us who we were. What would our lives be like without, say, our arrogance?

Our Higher Power's Will

May 16 - Just for Today

"God's will for us becomes our own true will for ourselves."

Basic Text, p. 46

The Twelve Steps are a path to spiritual awakening. This awakening takes the form of a developing relationship with a loving Higher Power. Each succeeding step strengthens that relationship. As we continue to work the steps, the relationship grows, becoming ever more important in our lives.

Fear of the Fourth Step

Step: 
Step 1

May 15 – Just for today

"As we approach this step, most of us are afraid that there is a monster inside of us that, if released, will destroy us."

Basic Text, p. 27

Most of us are terrified to look at ourselves, to probe our insides. We're afraid that if we examine our actions and motives, we'll find a bottomless black pit of selfishness and hatred. But as we take the Fourth Step, we'll find that those fears were unwarranted. We're human, just like everyone else—no more, no less.

Oops!

May 14 – Just for today

"Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results."

Basic Text, p. 23

Mistakes! We all know how it feels to make them. Many of us feel that our entire lives have been a mistake. We often regard our mistakes with shame or guilt—at the very least, with frustration and impatience. We tend to see mistakes as evidence that we are still sick, crazy, stupid, or too damaged to recover.

Powerlessness, Personal Responsibility

"Through our inability to accept personal responsibilities, we were actually creating our own problems."
Basic Text, p. 13

God's Gift

Just for Today - March 23

"We do the footwork and accept what's being given to us freely on a daily basis."
Basic Text pg. 46

From Rude Awakening To Spiritual Awakening

Just for Today - March 5
"When a need arises for us to admit our powerlessness, we may first look for ways to exert power against it. After exhausting these ways, we begin sharing with others and find hope." Basic Text, p. 79

Keep Coming Back

May 31

"We don't have to be clean when we get here but, after the first meeting, we suggest that newcomers keep coming back and come back clean. We don't have to wait for an overdose or a jail sentence to get help from Narcotics."

Basic Text, p. 10

Very few of us arrive in NA brimming with willingness. Some of us are here because we are court-ordered to attend. Some have come to save our families. Some come in an effort to salvage a career teetering on the brink of ruin. It doesn't matter why we are here. It only matters that we are.

The Process

Just for Today - March 4

"This program has become a part of me.... I understand more clearly the things that are happening in my life today I no longer fight the process."
Basic Text, p. 162

That One Special Person

Just for Today - March 13

"A sponsor is not necessarily a friend, but may be someone in whom we confide. We can share things with our sponsor that we might not be comfortable sharing in a meeting."
IP No. 11, "Sponsorship, Revised"

Sick As Our Secrets

Just for Today - February 25

"It would be tragic to write [out an inventory only to] shove it in a drawer These defects grow in the dark and die in the light of exposure."
Basic Text, p. 31

An Awakening of the Spirit

Just for Today - February 15

"The last thing we expected was an awakening of the spirit"

Basic Text, p. 48

Few of us came to our first Narcotics Anonymous meeting aching to take a personal inventory or believing that a spiritual void existed in our souls. We had no inkling that we were about to embark on a journey which would awaken our sleeping spirits.

Feeling a "Part Of"

Just for Today - March 15

"The get-togethers after our meetings are good opportunities to share things that we didn't get to discuss during the meeting."
Basic Text p. 29

Fun!

Just for Today - February 10

"In recovery our ideas of fun change"

Basic Text, p. 102

In retrospect, many of us realize that when we used, our ideas of fun were rather bizarre. Some of us would get dressed up and head for the local club. We would dance, drink and do other drugs until the sun rose. On more than one occasion, gun battles broke out. What we then called fun, we now call insanity.

Our Own True Will

Just for Today - March 29

"God's will for us consists of the very things we most value. God's will... becomes our own true will for ourselves."
Basic Text p. 46

The Recovery Partnership

"As long as I take it easy and make a commitment with my Higher Power to do the best I can, I know I will be taken care of today" Basic Text, p. 120

A New Vision

"Do we really want to be rid of our resentments, our anger, our fear?"
Basic Text p. 33

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