Have I found something that I had lost

Thought for the Day

My relationships with my children have greatly improved. Those children who saw me drunk and were ashamed, those children who turned away in fear and even loathing have seen me sober and like me, have turned to me in confidence and trust and have forgotten the past as best they could. They have given me a chance for companionship that I had completely missed. I am their father or their mother now. Not just "that person that Mom or Dad married and God knows why." I am a part of my home now. Have I found something that I had lost?

Meditation for the Day

I have learned how to be honest

Thought for the Day

Third, I have learned how to be honest. What a relief! No more ducking or dodging. No more tall tales. No more pretending to be what I am not. My cards are on the table for the entire world to see. "I am what I am," as Popeye used to say in the comics. I have had an unsavory past. I am sorry, yet. But it cannot be changed now. All that is yesterday and is done. But now my life is an open book. Come and look at it, if you want to. I'm trying to do the best I can. I will fail often, but I won't make excuses. I will face things as they are and not run away. Am I really honest?

Meditation for the Day

Peace with the Past

Holding on to the past, either through guilt, longing, denial, or resentment, is a waste of valuable energy - energy that can be used to transform today and tomorrow.

"I used to live in my past," said one recovering woman. "I was either trying to change it, or I was letting it control me. Usually both.

"I constantly felt guilty about things that had happened. Things I had done; things others had done to me - even though I had made amends for most everything, the guilt ran deep. Everything was somehow my fault. I could never just let it go.

"I held on to anger for years, telling myself it was justified. I was in denial about a lot of things. Sometimes, I'd try to absolutely forget about my past, but I never really stopped and sorted through it; my past was like a dark cloud that followed me around, and I couldn't shake clear of it. I guess I was scared to let it go, afraid of today, afraid of tomorrow.

Learn and change

We may think that forgetting the past is essential for growth and peace of mind. It’s a tempting idea: we’ll start over again, we think, fresh and new. But if we lose that old pain, we’ll also lose all that we learned. We may repeat our mistakes, or make even worse ones next time. Dwelling on the past is equally dangerous. We began recovery to build a better life.

To find and maintain our balance, each area of our lives needs attention. A healthy mind in a healthy body is free to find God. And, with God’s help, we can learn to recognize and forgive our past mistakes, while we keep the remarkable lessons we learned from life.

Honor the past and enhance the future

To use the past without being controlled by it - that is our responsibility to history. Because the past is irrecoverably vanished, it's sometimes tempting to forget it or to falsify it. But being true to ourselves means being true to our history.

Past cruelties can remain powerful in our lives - yet to take possession of our history means to free ourselves of bondage to past events. Nothing can ever change them.

The past is gone

A.A. Thought for the Day
Alcoholics are unable or unwilling, during their addiction to alcohol, to live in the present. The result is that they live in a constant state of remorse and fear because of their unholy past and its morbid attraction, or the uncertain future and its vague foreboding. So the only real hope for the alcoholic is to face the present. Now is the time. Now is ours. The past is beyond recall. The future is as uncertain as life itself. Only the now belongs to us. Am I living in the now?

Meditation for the Day

To find and maintain our balance

We may think that forgetting the past is essential for growth and peace of mind. It's a tempting idea: we'll start over again, we think, fresh and new. But if we lose that old pain, we'll also lose all that we learned. We may repeat our mistakes, or make even worse ones next time. Dwelling on the past is equally dangerous. We began recovery to build a better life.