Tell yourself:
Just for today, my thoughts will be on my recovery, living and enjoying life without the use of drugs.
Just for today, I will have faith in someone in NA who believes in me and wants to help me in my recovery.
Just for today, I will have a program. I will try to follow it to the best of my ability.
Just for today, through NA, I will try to get a better perspective on my life.
Just for today, I will be unafraid. My thoughts will be on my new associations, people who are not using and who have found a new way of life. So long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear.
When we came into the program of Narcotics Anonymous, we made a decision to turn our lives over to the care of a Higher Power. This surrender relieves the burden of the past and fear of the future. The gift of today is now in proper perspective. We accept and enjoy life as it is right now. When we refuse to accept the reality of today, we are denying our faith in our Higher Power. This can only bring more suffering.
February 01, 2026 |
Hardships |
| Page 33 |
| "We felt different... Only after surrender are we able to overcome the alienation of addiction." |
| Basic Text, p. 22 |
| "But you don't understand!" we spluttered, trying to cover up. "I'm different! I've really got it rough!" We used these lines over and over in our active addiction, either trying to escape the consequences of our actions or avoid following the rules that applied to everyone else. We may have cried them at our first meeting. Perhaps we've even caught ourselves whining them recently. So many of us feel different or unique. As addicts, we can use almost anything to alienate ourselves. But there's no excuse for missing out on recovery, nothing that can make us ineligible for the program--not a life-threatening illness, not poverty, not anything. There are thousands of addicts who have found recovery despite the real hardships they've faced. Through working the program, their spiritual awareness has grown, in spite of--or perhaps in response to--those hardships. Our individual circumstances and differences are irrelevant when it comes to recovery. By letting go of our uniqueness and surrendering to this simple way of life, we're bound to find that we feel a part of something. And feeling a part of something gives us the strength to walk through life, hardships and all. |
| Just for Today: I will let go of my uniqueness and embrace the principles of recovery I have in common with so many others. My hardships do not exclude me from recovery; rather, they draw me into it. |
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