Business people speak of “cutting their losses” when it becomes clear that a venture is going sour. As recovering alcoholics, we need to practice the same principle when we’re obviously on the wrong track.
If a resentment is developing, for example, the sooner we spot it and clear it out, the less damage we suffer. In the same way, we may be engaging in selfish but destructive behavior, or perhaps something that borders on being
illicit or dishonest. We minimize our losses by admitting the wrong and getting back to our basic principles of living.
In cutting our losses, the usual barriers are pride and self-deception. While these shortcomings will probably always dog us, we at least have experience in dealing with them, or we wouldn’t have made any progress in sobriety.
If a course of thought or action isn’t working out well, perhaps it’s time today to cut my loses in order to get back on the right track.
None of us has gotten where we are solely by pulling ourselves up from our own bootstraps. We got here because somebody bent down
and helped us.
–Thurgood Marshall
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
–Albert Einstein
It’s always risky when a recovering person gets too busy for meetings.
It’s also dangerous when business and personal concerns crowd out interest in the program.
We should never deceive ourselves by thinking that we’re somehow safe just because our time is filled with useful and interesting work.
Many of us have a tendency to become addicted to “busy-ness”.
Though less destructive than drinking, this serves as an escape, just as alcohol did.
The danger is that when the work no longer satisfies us, we’ll find our lives becoming empty again. We could then be very vulnerable to taking a drink.
We should never be too busy for the wonderful, constructive work of the program.
Far from taking time away from our other actives, work in the program will enhance everything we do.
I’ll try to balance my activities today, making sure that I have time for the program.
When I get “too busy” for my recovery, I am at my highest risk of relapse.
I’ve seen the gifts that recovery has brought to people bring them back out time and time again.
For me, these are stark reminders of why I need to continue to stay close to my recovery. I’ve also personally found over the years that when I’ve distanced myself from my recovery program, I start to get squirrely-and I know where that leads…No where good.
Sometimes I do find myself just going through the motions at times, but now I stay and I keep doing it because it keeps me sober. It may ebb and flow, but I get to stay as long as I keep my recovery my focus. I find the more honest I am about this with my sponsor and others in recovery, the quicker I can really connect to my program so the motions don’t last long.
I’m grateful for all of this today, because I’m still sober and finding new opportunities for growth within my recovery.
Often the test of courage is not to die but to live.—Vittorio Alfiert
What brave people we are! We have chosen life. Okay, maybe we had a little push, or maybe a big push from our family, police, or the pain of our disease.
But still, we’ve chosen recovery. We choose daily to let our Higher Power run our lives. What trust! What faith! What courage!
We work hard at recovery. We meditate. We look for ways to serve others.
Each one of us is building a miracle. We can be proud of this.
Prayer for the Day: I pray that I’ll have the courage to love myself. High Power,
teach me to pat myself on the back when I deserve it.
Action for the Day: I will list three ways I am brave in recovery and share them with my group.
If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass
this way again.
–William Penn
I have learned that my actions are far more important than my thoughts.
–Unknown
This opening quote reminds me of the saying, “Yes-most of us would die for our kids…But would we actually LIVE for them too?”
That one struck me hard in sobriety. I realized I not only hadn’t been the great role model I thought I was being (because actions speak far louder than words), I also wasn’t truly living life. I was avoiding it, drinking and smoking it away.
I was doing all the things I’d never want for someone else-let alone the kids I love so much. I was influencing them by my actions and not in a good way.
In recovery, I’ve been able to turn this around and really begin to live my life, on lifes terms no less. I don’t hide and run, I still am full of fear-but I face it today. I have beautiful souls in my life that also work this program I can turn to-I don’t need to do it alone. And I shouldn’t-because being left to my own devices was never a good thing.
I get to change. I get to live today. And this is because of sobriety and recovery. Life doesn’t have to be perfect or easy to be worth experiencing. I’m grateful for this today.
If our recovery program is working properly, an amazing thing can happen. Instead of being the bad actors of society, we become people who can be considered solid citizens in every way..
So square that we might even have sharp corners. We might then start becoming critical of the world in general. “I’ve recovered, so why does the rest of the world have to be the way it is?” A person might say, “Why don’t other people do something about their resentments and fears, just as I have?”
In asking such a question, we’re already in danger of becoming self-righteous.
We can remember, however, that our Higher Power has the same concern for others that was shown to us. By the grace of God, and in God’s own good time, the world can and will recover.
I’ll remember today that God is in charge of the world and will set all things straight, just as I was brought to recovery.
I was thinking about this actually this morning in the shower-that is often when my higher power starts speaking to me for the day as it’s one of the first things I do when I get up.
We are in a whole new world. We have never in history had the ability to communicate so quickly and so vastly with people. The world of social media is new, and we don’t always know how to handle it.
I was thinking about how often we use it to shout allllll the ways other people are wrong. Which, is how we put ourselves on a pedestal-thinking we know better than them.
I’ve done this in my own life in the past too.
The thing is, I’m not god. I don’t know what’s best. I don’t know what experiences others or even the world needs to have. Thank god for that! Because my way isn’t always the right way. My path isn’t one everyone else should walk-it is mine and mine alone. I can share my journey and some may share parts of that path, but it isn’t always for everyone.
And honestly? I think that’s kind of worth celebrating. How cool is it that we all get to have our own experiences? Life would be SO boring if we were all the same.
“I cannot give you the formula
for success, but I can give you
the formula for failure, which is
trying to please everybody.”
– Herbert Bayard Swope
Part of my recovery is not that I never “people-please” but that I know when I am doing it . . . and I am doing it less!
My low self-esteem was revealed in the way I would say what I felt you wanted to hear, do what you wanted to do, go where you wanted to go – and for years I missed me. For years I missed my life because I was preoccupied with other people. And I wasn’t honest. I hated being that way but I wouldn’t admit it.
Now I see that my guilt around my addiction led me into this sick cycle, and recovery is taking me out of it. Today I say “I don’t want to go.” “I don’t agree with what you are saying.” “I refuse to do that.”
My dignity is being discovered in my straight forwardness.
God, may I have the courage to share my true feelings.
