One Day At A Time - 2nd August 2025

CONTROL


“I know God will not give me anything I cannot handle. I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

-Mother Teresa
There was a time when I asked God to handle only the impossible. How dare I ask someone as busy and important as God to help me with a simple thing like food? After all, this was just a matter of using a little will-power … of pushing myself back from the table. Or so I had been told.

As I began to trust my Twelve Step program more and more, I found myself turning over to God the issues which triggered my compulsive eating. It was with great relief that I began to surrender my food and other problems to Him. It was with enormous gratitude that I realized what a gift it is to finally be able to give up control and put my life in my Higher Power’s hands.

One Day at a Time …

I relinquish control of my food.
I relinquish control of people.
I relinquish control of my life.

~ Mari      

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DAILY REFLECTIONS #essentialsofrecovery

I DON’T RUN THE SHOW

When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn’t. What was our choice to be?

~ ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 53 

Today my choice is God. He is everything. For this I am truly grateful. When I think I am running the show I am blocking God from my life. I pray I can remember this when I allow myself to get caught up into self. The most important thing is that today I am willing to grow along spiritual lines, and that God is everything. When I was trying to quit drinking on my own, it never worked; with God and A.A., it is working. This seems to be a simple thought for a complicated alcoholic.

Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc 

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One Day At A Time

CONTROL


“I know God will not give me anything I cannot handle. I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

-Mother Teresa
There was a time when I asked God to handle only the impossible. How dare I ask someone as busy and important as God to help me with a simple thing like food? After all, this was just a matter of using a little will-power … of pushing myself back from the table. Or so I had been told.

As I began to trust my Twelve Step program more and more, I found myself turning over to God the issues which triggered my compulsive eating. It was with great relief that I began to surrender my food and other problems to Him. It was with enormous gratitude that I realized what a gift it is to finally be able to give up control and put my life in my Higher Power’s hands.

One Day at a Time …

I relinquish control of my food.
I relinquish control of people.
I relinquish control of my life.

~ Mari     

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Keep It Simple #essentialsofrec #Recovery

We grow small trying to be great.

–  Unknown

We dreamed of being great. Trying to be great is about control. We’ve caused a lot of trouble trying to control things. We’ve been afraid to just let things happen, We’re not very trusting. Many of us have good reasons not to trust. Whatever the reasons, we had put our trust in getting drunk or high. We thought that was one thing we could control. What really happened? We got sick.

Recovery is based on trust. We must learn to trust that it’s best for us to give up control. It will seem strange at first. But letting go and trusting can become a way of life. The Steps, our groups, our sponsor, and our Higher Power—here, we find love and caring. We can trust them.

Prayer for the Day: I pray that day by day, I’ll put more trust in my program and in my Higher Power.

Action for the Day: I’ll list five reasons why I can trust my Twelve Step program. 

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As Bill Sees It #essentialsofrec #Recovery

Boomerang, p. 185

When I was ten, I was tall and gawky, and smaller kids could push me around in quarrels.
I remember being very depressed for a year or more, and then I began to develop fierce
resolve to win.

One day, my grandfather came along with a book about Australia and told me, “This
books says that nobody but an Australian bushman knows how to make and throw a
boomerang.”

“Here’s my chance,” I thought. “I will be the first man in America to make and throw a
boomerang.” Well, any kid could have a notion like that. It might have lasted two days
or two weeks. But mine was a power drive that kept on for six months, till I made a
boomerang that swung around the church yard in front of the house and almost hit my
grandfather in the head when it came back.

Emotionally, I had begun the fashioning of another sort of boomerang, one that almost
killed me later on. 

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Keep It Simple #essentialsofrec #Perfection #Control

The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.

–Stanley J. Randall

Trying to be perfect get us into trouble. Trying to be perfect means we’re trying to control things.

We may be trying to cover up something. Maybe we aren’t facing our pain. Maybe we’ve hurt someone and we need to make amends.

We need to practice being human. Humans aren’t perfect. In Steps Six and Seven, we face our human limits and our shortcomings. We then start the lifelong job of letting them go. To accept our human limits leads us to our Higher Power. We see how we need a guide in life. Our Higher Power makes a perfect guide.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me accept that I can’t be perfect. Help me be a good human being.

Action for the Day: Today, I’ll list my shortcoming. I’ll talk with a friend about them. I’ll ask my friend to tell me what my good qualities are.

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The Eye Opener #essentialsofrec #Control

When the wife would take me to task in my drinking days, I would soon show her who was boss of the establishment. I would tell her in no uncertain terms that, “When I ceased being Captain of the ship, I would sink it.”

Oh, yes, I was Captain, but somehow the ship was continually on the rocks. It wasn’t my fault, understand; the wind and the waves were always against me.

Now I have resigned my commission as Captain, I have a new Navigator and my ship keeps pretty well on its course. I’m only a deck hand now, but I’m happier with less responsibility and I am confident it’s much safer.

Hazelden Foundation

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One Day At A Time #essentialsofrec #overeaters #OA #Willingness

 Willingness 

I cannot change what I am unwilling to face.

–James Baldwin

Before I found this program I was locked in a battle with myself. I knew I was eating too much, and I couldn’t help myself. I tried to control my eating, and for a while, I was able to keep the upper hand. Then something would happen in my life, and I’d lose that control.

I couldn’t face the fact that I was a compulsive eater. I couldn’t bear to think that I had a disease that kept me in bondage to food. So during the time I was in denial about my eating, I continued sinking deeper into my disease of compulsion. I sought comfort in food, and did some serious damage to my body, to my self-esteem, and to my relationships.

It was only after I hit bottom that I realized that I had to face the facts. I had a disease that had me in a death grip, and there wasn’t one thing I could do about it. When I found this program, I found hope. I discovered a Higher Power who could help me do what I’d never been able to do before. I slowly began to see the changes I’d tried all my life to effect on my own. But it didn’t happen until I became willing to face the truth, until I became willing to ask God for help.

One Day at a Time . . .
I am willing to face my disease and let my Higher Power help me overcome it.

~ Jeff ~

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Walk in Dry Places #essentialsofrec #Control #Happiness

Deserving Happiness
Emotional Control

Somewhere in the course of living sober, we should realize that we can deserve to be happy. If happiness is eluding us, the fault may lie in a peculiar guilt from our past. In a perverse way, we may be using unhappiness as penance for our past wrongs.

We deserve to be happy if we are doing the things that should bring happiness to ourselves and others. Thinking and living rightly is a path to happiness. Meeting our obligations to society and others contributes to personal happiness. Placing the overall responsibility for our lives in God’s hands is yet another route to happiness.

We can also learn from our experience. Did any of us ever meet a truly happy person who was totally self-seeking? Do we remember any happy, serene people among our drinking companions? Did any of our temporary successes and victories bring permanent happiness?

AA experience gives us the answers we need. Happiness is always in the direction of love and service, never in anything selfish. We deserve to be happy, but we must plant seeds of happiness by our thoughts and actions.

I’ll be happy today. If I’m worrying about something, I’ll suspend the worry and let myself be happy in spite of it. I deserve to be happy and I am usually the person who is responsible for this happiness.

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One Day At A Time #essentialsofrec #overeaters #Knowledge #OA

SELF KNOWLEDGE

We’re our own dragons as well as our own heroes and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.

Tom Robbins

I always tried to do my best in everything I did. Studies, school, and managing my own family are some good
examples. Being in control made it seem as though I always did as I was told, but I had a very difficult time Being on
my own and thinking for myself. The talent I was born with gave me a good start at being an artist, but I couldn’t seem
to make a successful career out of it. I was scared and shy and didn’t dare be on the forefront of making this talent
into what I wanted it to be.

When I started on my path to Recovery, I found that I was being too much of a perfectionist. I was always told to do
things perfectly and I tried and tried but never seemed to satisfy my parents or the god of my childhood. So when I
grew up I was so hard on myself that I lost the creativity I was born with. Creativity can’t thrive in a hostile environment.

One day while reading an author I liked, I read that I had to “get out of my own way”. I was a dragon trying to do
something creative and it didn’t work. I have to learn to “rescue myself from myself” so I can do my art with the talents
that are God-given.

One day at a time … I realize that if I want to see myself as I really am,I cannot stand in my own shadow.


~ Myrlene

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A WOMAN’S SPIRIT #essentialsofrec #Recovery #Women #Control

The more I force things, the tougher my life.

~ Helen Neujahr 

Are we driven to control? Perhaps we wonder if trying to control other people is part of the human condition. We’ve probably surrounded ourselves with controlling people, particularly if our friends share our disease. However, not every person alive has to control, and that means we can lessen our stranglehold. But how?

Understanding where our need to control came from is a beginning. Most of us, at least before recovery, were insecure. We wanted to protect ourselves from abandonment, ridicule, physical and emotional harm. The only way we knew to do that was to insist others fulfill our needs. We strengthened, day by day, a trait that hinders us now.

What can save us is acceptance of the first three Steps. Ultimately, we can’t control others, so why try? Turning to our Higher Power can relieve us of our obsession, and that Power, if we’ll let it, will direct our every move. The solution is simple— simple, that is, if we’re not too complicated to follow it!

I don’t need to control anyone today. I am not insecure just as long as I let my Higher Power take charge of my affairs.

© 1994 by Hazelden Foundation

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One Day At A Time

CONTROL


“I know God will not give me anything I cannot handle. I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

-Mother Teresa
There was a time when I asked God to handle only the impossible. How dare I ask someone as busy and important as God to help me with a simple thing like food? After all, this was just a matter of using a little will-power … of pushing myself back from the table. Or so I had been told.

As I began to trust my Twelve Step program more and more, I found myself turning over to God the issues which triggered my compulsive eating. It was with great relief that I began to surrender my food and other problems to Him. It was with enormous gratitude that I realized what a gift it is to finally be able to give up control and put my life in my Higher Power’s hands.

One Day at a Time …

I relinquish control of my food.
I relinquish control of people.
I relinquish control of my life.

~ Mari    

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Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery

One Day At A Time

CONTROL


“I know God will not give me anything I cannot handle. I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

-Mother Teresa
There was a time when I asked God to handle only the impossible. How dare I ask someone as busy and important as God to help me with a simple thing like food? After all, this was just a matter of using a little will-power … of pushing myself back from the table. Or so I had been told.

As I began to trust my Twelve Step program more and more, I found myself turning over to God the issues which triggered my compulsive eating. It was with great relief that I began to surrender my food and other problems to Him. It was with enormous gratitude that I realized what a gift it is to finally be able to give up control and put my life in my Higher Power’s hands.

One Day at a Time …

I relinquish control of my food.
I relinquish control of people.
I relinquish control of my life.

~ Mari   

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Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery

Walk In Dry Places #essentialsofrecovery

Let it Happen
Easy Does it.

Student pilots learn a simple method for getting an airplane out of a stall; Release the stick forward, and the airplane rights itself. Continue to hold the stick back, and you cause a fatal spin.

Many times, we cling too tightly to conditions that could simply right themselves if we would only let go. Situations often work themselves out when we stop pushing and pulling too hard.

If we’re living on a spiritual basis and following our 12 Step program, lots of unpleasant conditions will clear up without any strain or struggle on our part. The secret, then, is to do our part and act prudently, but also to be willing to let things happen.

I’ll remember today not to push or pull too hard to get my way. Things might work themselves out if I simply let natural forces work properly in every situation.

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WALK IN DRY PLACES #essentialsofrecovery

DESERVING HAPPINESS

Emotional Control

Somewhere in the course of living sober, we should realize that we can deserve to be happy. If happiness is eluding us, the fault may lie in a peculiar guilt from our past. In a perverse way, we may be using unhappiness as penance for our past wrongs.

We deserve to be happy if we are doing the things that should bring happiness to ourselves and others. Thinking and living rightly is a path to happiness. Meeting our obligations to society and others contributes to personal happiness. Placing the overall responsibility for our lives in God’s hands is yet another route to happiness.

We can also learn from our experience. Did any of us ever meet a truly happy person who was totally self-seeking? Do we remember any happy, serene people among our drinking companions? Did any of our temporary successes and victories bring permanent happiness?

AA experience gives us the answers we need. Happiness is always in the direction of love and service, never in anything selfish. We deserve to be happy, but we must plant seeds of happiness by our thoughts and actions.

I’ll be happy today. If I’m worrying about something, I’ll suspend the worry and let myself be happy in spite of it. I deserve to be happy and I am usually the person who is responsible for this happiness.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. 

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One Day At A Time

CONTROL


“I know God will not give me anything I cannot handle. I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

-Mother Teresa
There was a time when I asked God to handle only the impossible. How dare I ask someone as busy and important as God to help me with a simple thing like food? After all, this was just a matter of using a little will-power … of pushing myself back from the table. Or so I had been told.

As I began to trust my Twelve Step program more and more, I found myself turning over to God the issues which triggered my compulsive eating. It was with great relief that I began to surrender my food and other problems to Him. It was with enormous gratitude that I realized what a gift it is to finally be able to give up control and put my life in my Higher Power’s hands.

One Day at a Time …

I relinquish control of my food.
I relinquish control of people.
I relinquish control of my life.

~ Mari  

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Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery

One Day At A Time

CONTROL


“I know God will not give me anything I cannot handle. I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

-Mother Teresa
There was a time when I asked God to handle only the impossible. How dare I ask someone as busy and important as God to help me with a simple thing like food? After all, this was just a matter of using a little will-power … of pushing myself back from the table. Or so I had been told.

As I began to trust my Twelve Step program more and more, I found myself turning over to God the issues which triggered my compulsive eating. It was with great relief that I began to surrender my food and other problems to Him. It was with enormous gratitude that I realized what a gift it is to finally be able to give up control and put my life in my Higher Power’s hands.

One Day at a Time …

I relinquish control of my food.
I relinquish control of people.
I relinquish control of my life.

~ Mari

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Surrender Meditation | A Spoken guided visualization (Letting go of control)

WALK IN DRY PLACES #essentialsofrecovery

A NEW FRAME OF MIND

Mood Control

Long after AA was started, the term mood-altering drug came into vogue. Though this originally was applied to hard drugs, it is also true of alcohol.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to alter one’s mood. None of us really wants to be depressed, anxious, or fearful. We’re all looking for ways to stay happy and high-spirited.

The problem with all mood-altering drugs, alcohol included, is that they provide temporary highs while bringing on long-term destruction and enslavement. We would love to have those highs if they did not carry such a terrible price.

But we can seek a new frame of mind in sober living that will give us better moods without destroying us. This is “the peace that passes all understanding,” and it comes only from living the right way and listening to our Higher Power. This is the only mood control that really works.

I want to be in a good mood today, but it must be as a result of having a healthy frame of mind. I have no desire for the false highs that were killing me.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation

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One Day At A Time #essentialsofrecovery

CONTROL


“I know God will not give me anything I cannot handle. I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

Mother Teresa

There was a time when I asked God to handle only the impossible. How dare I ask someone as busy and important as God to help me with a simple thing like food? After all, this was just a matter of using a little will-power … of pushing myself back from the table. Or so I had been told.

As I began to trust my Twelve Step program more and more, I found myself turning over to God the issues which triggered my compulsive eating. It was with great relief that I began to surrender my food and other problems to Him. It was with enormous gratitude that I realized what a gift it is to finally be able to give up control and put my life in my Higher Power’s hands.

One Day at a Time . . .
I relinquish control of my food.
I relinquish control of people.
I relinquish control of my life.

~ Mari 

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