Change your attitude

So many times I forget that I didn't get sick overnight, that I don't get well overnight. Recovery is not a quick fix. It is a process.

So much of my recovery, has been my conscious contact with my Higher Power. Developing a relationship that works. Not something that happens when I am needy or call on when I have been greedy and need to make an amend.

It is someone to call on preferable, before the fact instead of after.

How many times I have heard, well I thought of you but did it anyway. I can remember saying to my spiritual adviser,

I BELONG

“We are not saints.” Alcoholics Anonymous, page 60

“May God be merciful and bless us.” Psalm 67:1

For what it's worth: Who would love me? I was a drunken mess of defects, self-absorption, and rage. For years my heart was empty and I was alone until I found love in a room full of sober drunks in Alcoholics Anonymous.
 
 Looking back, I realize now I felt love in the way those kind folks welcomed me as a part of themselves just as the mess I was.

Challenges

All we are asked to bear we can bear. That is a law of the spiritual life. The only hindrance to the working of this law, as of all benign laws, is fear.
  —Elizabeth Goudge

There is no problem too difficult to handle with all the help available to us. Let's not be overwhelmed. The program tells us to "Let go and let God," to turn it over. And that's where the solution lies.

Our challenges, the stumbling blocks in our way, beckon us toward the spiritual working-out of the problem which moves us closer toward being the women we are meant to be.

Negotiating Conflicts

Recovery is about more than walking away. Sometimes it means learning to stay and deal. It's about building and maintaining relationships that work.
  —Beyond Codependency

Problems and conflicts are part of life and relationships - with friends, family, loved ones, and at work - problem-solving and conflict negotiation are skills we can acquire and improve with time.

Not being willing to tackle and solve problems in relationships leads to unresolved feelings of anger and victimization, terminated relationships, unresolved problems, and power plays that intensify the problem and waste time and energy.

Not being willing to face and solve problems means we may run into that problem again.

One day at a time

One day at a time - this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone.
 —Ida Scott Taylor

It's not always easy to understand that the day stretching before us is all that counts. Daydreaming about the party last week, or getting upset all over again about a fight we had yesterday with a friend doesn't help us right now. When our minds are on the past, we miss out on the conversation or the activity that is going on around us.