February 17
Acceptance
Our basic recovery concept that never loses its power to work miracles is the concept called acceptance.
We do not achieve acceptance in a moment. We often have to work through a mirage of feelings—sometimes anger, outrage, shame, selfpity, or sadness. But if acceptance is our goal, we will achieve it.
What is more freeing than to laugh at our weaknesses and to be grateful for our strengths? To know the entire package called "us"—with all our feelings, thoughts, tendencies, and history—is worthy of acceptance and brings healing feelings.
To accept our circumstances is another miraculous cure. For anything to change or anyone to change, we must first accept ourselves, others, and the circumstance exactly as they are. Then, we need to take it one step further. We need to become grateful for ourselves or our circumstances. We add a touch of faith by saying, "I know this is exactly the way it's supposed to be for the moment"
No matter how complicated we get, the basics never lose their power to restore us to sanity.
Today, God, help me practice the concept of acceptance in my life. Help me accept myself, others, and my circumstances. Take me one step further, andhelp me feel grateful.
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Recovery is not about being right; it's about allowing ourselves to be who we are and accepting others as they are.
That concept can be difficult for many of us if we have lived in systems that functioned on the "rightwrong" justice scale. The person who was right was okay; the person who was wrong was shamed. All value and worth may have depended on being right; to be wrong meant annihilation of self and selfesteem.
In recovery, we are learning how to strive for love in our relationships, not superiority. Yes, we may need to make decisions about people's behavior from time to time. If someone is hurting us, we need to stand up for ourselves. We have a responsibility to set boundaries and take care of ourselves. But we do not need to justify taking care of ourselves by condemning someone else. We can avoid the trap of focusing on others instead of ourselves.
In recovery, we are learning that what we do needs to be right only for us. What others do is their business and needs to be right only for them. It's tempting to rest in the superiority of being right and in analyzing other people's motives and actions, but it's more rewarding to look deeper.
Today, I will remember that I don't have to hide behind being right. I don't have to justify what I want and need with saying something is "right" or
"wrong." I can let myself be who I am.
February 19
Our Path
I just spent several hours with someone from my group, and I feel like I'm losing my mind. This woman insisted that the only way I would make progress in my program was to go toher church and succumb to her religious rules. She
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pushed and insisted, and insisted and pushed. She's been in the program so much longer than I have. I kept thinking that she must know what she's talking about. But it didn't feelright. And now I feel crazy, afraid, guilty, and ashamed.
—Anonymous
The spiritual path and growth promised to us by the Twelve Steps does not depend on any religious belief. They are not contingent upon any denomination or sect.
They are not, as the traditions of Twelve Step programs state, affiliated with any religious denomination or organization.
We do not have to allow anyone to badger us about religion in recovery. We do not have to allow people to make us feel ashamed, afraid, or lessthan because we do not subscribe to their beliefs about religion.
We do not have to let them do it to us in the name of God, love, or recovery.
The spiritual experience we will find as a result of recovery and the Twelve Steps will be our own spiritual experience. It will be a relationship with God, a Higher Power as we understand God.
Each of us must find our own spiritual path. Each of us must build our own relationship with God as we understand God. Each of us needs a Power greater than ourselves. These concepts are critical to recovery.
So is the freedom to choose how to do that.
Higher Power, help me know that I don't have to allow anyone to shame or badger me into religious beliefs. If they confuse that with the spiritualityavailable in recovery, help me give their issue back to them. Help me discover and develop my own spirituality, a path that works for me. Guide me, withDivine Wisdom, as I grow spiritually.
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February 20
Setting Our Own Course
We are powerless over other people's expectations of us. We cannot control what others want, what they expect, or what they want us to do and be.
We can control how we respond to other people's expectations.
During the course of any day, people may make demands on our time, talents, energy, money, and emotions. We do not have to say yes to every request. We do not have to feel guilty if we say no. And we do not have to allow the barrage of demands to control the course of our life.
We do not have to spend our life reacting to others and to the course they would prefer we took with our life.
We can set boundaries, firm limits on how far we shall go with others. We can trust and listen to ourselves. We can set goals and direction for our life. We can place value on ourselves.
We can own our power with people.
Buy some time. Think about what you want. Consider how responding to another's needs will affect the course of your life. We live or own life by not letting other people, their expectations, and their demands control the course of our life. We can let them have their demands and expectations; we can allow them to have their
