Happiness is something we all deserve

I believe that a sign of maturity is accepting deferred gratification.
  —Peggy Cahn

It's okay to want to feel good all the time. Happiness is something we all deserve. However, there are often preparatory steps we need to take, a number of which will not bring joy, before we arrive at a place of sustained happiness.

The level of our pain at any particular moment has prompted us to seek short-term highs. And with each attempt at a quick "fix," we will be reminded that, just as with our many former attempts, the high is very short-term.

Stopping Victimization

Stopping Victimization

Before recovery, many of us lacked a frame of reference with which to name the victimization and abuse in our life. We may have thought it was normal that people mistreated us. We may have believed we deserved mistreatment; we may have been attracted to people who mistreated us.

We need to let go, on a deep level, of our need to be victimized and to be victims. We need to let go of our need to be in dysfunctional relationships and systems at work, in love, in family relationships, in friendships. We deserve better. We deserve much better. It is our right. When we believe in our right to happiness, we will have happiness.

Don't borrow from tomorrow.

Reflection for the Day

Before I came to The Program, I hadn't the faintest idea of what it was to "Live In The Now." I often became obsessed with the things that happened yesterday, last week, or even five years ago. Worse yet, many of my waking hours were spent clearing away the "wreckage of the future." "To me," Walt Whitman once wrote, "every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle." Can I truly believe that in my heart?

Will Power And Choice

 
“We A.A.’s know the futility of trying to break the drinking obsession by will power alone. However, we do know that it takes great willingness to adopt A.A.’s Twelve Steps as a way of life that can restore us to sanity.

“No matter how grievous the alcohol obsession, we happily find that other vital choices can still be made. For example, we can choose to admit that we are personally powerless over alcohol; that dependence upon a ‘Higher Power’ is a necessity, even if this be simply dependence upon an A.A. group. Then we can choose to try for a life of honesty and humility, of selfless service to our fellows and to ‘God as we understand Him.’

“As we continue to make these choices and so move toward these high aspirations, our sanity returns and the compulsion to drink vanishes,”

As Bill Sees It Letter, 1966 p. 88

Just for today

 
Pocket Sponsor Book
There is no right way to do the wrong thing. Whatever you were thinking of doing, you can not rationalize it into ‘right’ action by saying, ‘yes but this’ or ‘no but that.’ You know what’s right and you know what’s wrong-that gut feeling guides you.
When things go wrong, I don’t go with them.

“Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book” Book
Just because you’re having a bad day doesn’t mean you’re having a bad life.

Time for Joy Book
I am listening to the voice of truth and love today.

Alkiespeak Book
An attitude of gratitude cuts through analysis paralysis. – James A.

Hour To Hour Book
Putting pen to paper can be a pain, reading new material can be frustrating, making numerous phone calls can be an annoyance, getting to a lot of meetings can seem boring, BUT this is the way we start. We must remember what circumstances brought us here in the first place. Was that such a pleasure?
My I place one foot in front of the other to reach my destination of sobriety.