Daily Reflections

MAKING AMENDS

Above all, we should try to be absolutely sure that we are not delaying because we are afraid. 

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 87

To have courage, to be unafraid, are gifts of my recovery. They empower me to ask for help and to go forth in making my amends with a sense of dignity and humility. Making amends may require a certain amount of honesty that I feel I lack, yet with the help of God and the wisdom of others, I can reach within and find the strength to act. My amends may be accepted, or they may not, but after they are completed I can walk with a sense of freedom and know that, for today, I am responsible.   

Principle Of Step 4 - COURAGE - Dr. David

Walk in Dry Places - May 28 2026

Everyday risks…. Courage

We have to take certain risks if we hope to achieve anything. Applying for a job entail a risk of reject. Saving money carries a risk of losing it. Falling in love can result in heartbreak.
We have to take such risks because life is ordered that way. We are hear to learn, and learning includes pressing into unknown situations where we could fail.
God could have created us in such a way we could either avoid risks or not unduly concerned about the. Animals, for example, live with risks but do no seem to worry about them.
We must accept risk as part of God’s plan for us. We also are given tools for working with uncertainties. We have our innate intelligence and a capacity for prudent, reasoned action. We have friends who will help us. Above all, we have our Higher Power, who guides and directs
us through all sorts of risky conditions.

I cannot face life without also facing uncertainties. Today I’ll accept risk as a prt of ordinary living.

Just For Today May 27 2026

 Meeting The Day’s Challenge

“…the decision to ask for God’s help is our greatest source of strength and courage.” 

Basic Text, p. 26

A challenge is anything that dares us to succeed. Things new and unfamiliar serve as challenges, whether those things appear good or bad to us. We are challenged by obstacles and opposition from within ourselves and from without. New and difficult things, obstacles and opposition, all are a part of “life on life’s terms” Living clean means learning to meet challenge.

Many of us, consciously or unconsciously, took drugs to avoid meeting challenge. Many of us were equally afraid of failure and success. Each time we declined the day’s challenge, we suffered a loss of self-esteem. Some of us used drugs to mask the shame we felt. Each time we did that, we became even less able to meet our challenges and more likely to use.

By working the NA program, we’ve found the tools we need to successfully meet any challenge. We’ve come to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, a Power that cares for our will and our lives. We’ve asked that Power to remove our character defects, those things that made our lives unmanageable. We’ve taken action to improve our conscious contact with that Higher Power. Through the steps, we’ve been given the ability to stop using drugs and start living.

Each day, we are faced with new challenges. And each day, through working our program of recovery, we are given the grace to meet those challenges.

Just for today: I will ask my Higher Power to help me squarely meet today’s challenge.

Today’s Gift. - May 19 2016

As we learn we always change, and so our perception. This changed perception then becomes a new Teacher inside each of us. 

–Hyemeyohsts Storm

Hyemeyohsts Storm’s book, Seven Arrows, tells the stories of one of the Indian tribes in this country before most of its members were killed. They believed that change was important for growth. Change is sometimes frightening. We usually prefer the familiar, no matter how uncomfortable, over taking a chance on the unknown.
When fear gets in the way of making healthy changes, we talk to fear, inviting it along with us on our course of action. Getting to know fear allows us to ask it for a gift: the courage to walk with fear by our side and learn from it as we go. It allows us to learn which fear is blocking our progress and which fear is healthy–cautioning us against actions that might be harmful.


What fear might I make a friend of today?

A Day At A Time - May 14 2026

Reflection For The Day

“A very popular error — having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack upon one’s convictions,” wrote Nietzsche. The Program is helping me to get rid of my old ideas by sharing with others and working the Twelve Steps. Having made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself; having admitted too God, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs; and having become entirely ready to have God remove all my defects of character — I will humbly ask Him to remove my shortcomings. Am I trying to follow The Program just as it is?

Today I Pray

I pray that I may continue to practice the Twelve Steps, over and over again, if need be. The Program has worked for hundreds and hundreds of recovering chemically dependent people the world over. It can work for me. May I pause regularly and check to see if I am really practicing The Program, as it is set forth.

Today I Will Remember

Step By Step. Day By Day.

A Day At A Time - May 12 2026

Reflection For The Day

My courage must come each day, as does my desire to avoid a single drink, a single tranquilizer, a single addictive act. It must be a continuing courage, without deviations and procrastination, without rashness, and without fear of obstacles. This would seem like a large order indeed, were it not for the fact that it is confined to this one day, and that within this day much power is given to me. Do I extend the Serenity Prayer to my entire life.

Today I Pray

May each new morning offer me a supply of courage to last me during the day. If my courage is renewed each day and I know that I need just a day’s worth, that courage will always be fresh and the supply will not run out. May I realize, as days pass, that what I feared during the earliest days of my recovery I no longer fear, that my daily courage is now helping me cope with bigger problems.

Today I Will Remember

God Give Me Courage – Just For Today.

A Day At A Time - May 11 2026

Reflection For The Day

Now that I know I can’t use bottled courage, I seek and pray for 24-hour courage to change the things I can. Obviously, this isn’t the kind of courage that will make me a strong and brave person for life, able to handle any and all situations courageously. Rather, what I need is a persistent and intelligent courage, continuing each day into the next one — but doing today only what can be done today and avoiding all fear and worry with regard to the final results. What does courage mean to me today?

Today I Pray

May I tackle only those things which I have a chance of changing. And change must start with me, a day at a time. May I know that acceptance often is a form of courage. I pray not for super-bravery, but just for persistence to meet what life brings to me without being overcome by it.

Today I Will Remember

Courage is meeting A Day At A Time.

One Day At A Time - May 11 2026

COURAGE

“The courage of life is often less a dramatic spectacle
than the courage of the final moment;
but it is no less than a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.”

John F. Kennedy

As a little girl, I often daydreamed of a knight in shining armor who would ride bravely into my life and rescue me from my fears and insecurities. This knight would be fearless; un-phased by fire-breathing dragons, deep dark caves, or howling winds. He would have courage where I had only fear.

The knight never came. I began to look for other rescuers in my friends, rolemodels, teachers, and church. Still I could not find what I sought. My fears continued to scream in my soul … and I felt so weak. I turned to food in an attempt to silence the monsters in my belly.

Sometimes my fear and hopelessness were so desperate that I almost ended my life – yet something inside of myself stopped me from doing so. Something inside of me clung to life and eventually brought me to The Recovery Group.

In this group of amazing people I immediately noticed the courage they exhibited in confronting the challenges in their lives and in choosing to learn and grow from every failure and every success. I marvel at the courage with which they keep moving towards more and more healing, in spite of their fears.

They have courage in spite of their fears.

The open, honest sharing of dear friends in recovery has taught me that even I had courage all along. Courage is not the absence of fear;
if there were no fear, there’d be no need for courage.

Courage means making the choice to move forward in spite of our fears.

One Day at a Time . . .

I will honor the courage I have. I will thank God for giving me the strength to move forward in spite of fear. I will celebrate the courage I see in my friends and I will encourage them on their journey.

~ Lisa V.

A Day At A Time - May 9 2026

Reflection For The Day

“Perfect courage,” wrote La Rochefoucauld, “means doing witnessed what we would be capable of with the world looking on.” As we grow in The Program, we recognize persistent fear for what it is, and we become able to handle it. We begin to see each adversity as a God-given opportunity to develop the kind of courage which is born of humility, rather than of bravado. Do I realize that whistling to keep up my courage is merely good practice for whistling?

Today I Pray

May I find courage in my Higher Power. Since all things are possible through Him, I must be able to overcome the insidious fears that haunt me — so often fears of losing someone or some thing that has become important in my life. I pray for my own willingness to let go of those fears.

Today I Will Remember

Praying is more than whistling in the dark.

Today's Gift April 23 2026

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear not absence of fear. –Mark Twain
It is not unusual to feel afraid. It is unusual, however, to hear anyone admit to feeling afraid. Sometimes we think there are some people who are so cool and calm that they never feel afraid. This may make us think we’re not as good because we know how often we feel afraid. This is why it is important to think about what courage really is. It is not the absence of fear. Courage is not letting fear stop us from doing what we need to do.

We might have to get up in front of a group to give a speech. We could give in to our fear and not give the speech, or we could admit our fear to those who love us, and then go ahead and do the best we can. To go ahead in the face of fear is courage.


What am I afraid of?

JUST FOR TODAY - April 21 2026

Fear

“We have found that we had no choice except to completely change our old ways of thinking or go back to using.”

~ Basic Text, p. 21 ~

Many of us find that our old ways of thinking were dominated by fear. We were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to get our drugs or that there wouldn’t be enough. We feared discovery, arrest, and incarceration. Further down the list were fears of financial problems, homelessness, overdose, and illness. And our fear controlled our actions.

The early days of recovery weren’t a great deal different for many of us; then, too, fear dominated our thinking. “What if staying clean hurts too much?” we asked ourselves. “What if I can’t make it? What if the people in NA don’t like me? What if NA doesn’t work?” The fear behind these thoughts can still control our behavior, keeping us from taking the risks necessary to stay clean and grow. It may seem easier to resign ourselves to certain failure, giving up before we start, than to risk everything on a slim hope. But that kind of thinking leads only to relapse.

To stay clean, we must find the willingness to change our old ways of thinking. What has worked for other addicts can work for us—but we must be willing to try it. We must trade in our old cynical doubts for new affirmations of hope. When we do, we’ll find it’s worth the risk.

Just for today: I pray for the willingness to change my old ways of thinking, and for the ability to overcome my fears.

© 1991 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services Inc. 

Daily Zen - April 14 2026

Adverse circumstances test our courage, our strength of mind, and the depth of our conviction in the Dharma. There is nothing exceptional about practicing Dharma in a 

good environment and atmosphere. The true test is if we can maintain our practice in adverse conditions. (i.e. - easy to work the Program in the Rooms)

-Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, "Advice >From a Spiritual Friend 

One Day At A Time - April 6 2026

~ Courage ~

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.

Erma Bombeck

I remember first starting my Twelve Step program. I had lots of expectations and dreams, but I couldn’t talk to anyone about them. I thought my dreams were stupid and that nobody there really cared about who I was or what I wanted to achieve.

This is a big problem with all of us compulsive overeaters. We all have hopes and dreams of losing our impulse to eat all the time, and of losing our excess weight. Thinking we’re not worth anyone’s time keeps us strong in our addiction.

As we work through the Steps and learn to trust our new family of choice, we get the courage to begin to open up and share our dreams and hopes. We all find our hidden courage by praying and trusting our Higher Power. We find the courage to tell people about ourselves and trust that nobody will put us down for our past or for the future we dream of achieving. Our dreams have no time limit; they don’t have to happen immediately. They may happen immediately, or it may take a long time of struggling, but as long as we have hope and courage, they will become a reality in Higher Power’s time.

One Day at a Time . . .

I remember that we learn that, together, things become much easier. As we share our experience, strength and dreams with others, they will help us learn how we can work with a special program and plan. With Higher Power and our recovery friends, our courage grows stronger, and we find we can and will succeed.

~ Jeanette ~ 

ONE DAY AT A TIME - 16th December 2025

COURAGE

“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.”

~ Raymond Linquist 

(For many years, the pastor at the Hollywood Presbyterian Church in Hollywood, California)

A sponsor once asked me what I had against feeling good. I had no answer. I now see that in my sickness and ignorance I hung onto the familiar, what I perceived to be truth. Fear kept me from trying something new until I hurt bad enough to beg God for the courage to try a different way. I am amazed at how long I put up with a miserable existence, not even recognizing my fear of change. I understand now that, although physically full-grown, I am spiritually still growing and becoming.

One Day at a Time . . .

Do I have the courage to change? To even look at change?

~ Jeremiah       

One Day At A Time - 25th October 2025

Courage


“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

–Winston Churchill

Recovery work takes great courage. Everyone who tells you differently has not explored themselves in great depth.

It takes great courage for many of us to get up each morning to face a day of physical challenge. Others feel the pull of emotions, job, or family issues.

If but for today, reach inside and give yourself a big hug for being willing to hang on one minute longer. That minute will turn into moments, and before you know it, you will have lived out the Program message, “One day at a time.”

One day at a time…
I will honor and celebrate the courage shown in working this program.

~ January K.

Walk In Dry Places - 17th October 2025

Driven by Fear
Finding courage.

During any group discussion of fear, someone usually points out that it serves a protective purpose by keeping us out of harm’s way.

With the type of fear that drove us, however, we more often fled into further harm while trying to avoid the threats at hand. No person whose fear reaches a panic stage can effectively control his or her actions.

We cannot expect sobriety alone to make us exempt from fear. What it can do is give us an ability to handle our fear constructively.

There are steps to doing this. FIRST, we should not be too prideful to admit that fear can come to us. SECOND, we should admit it when we do feel fear. THIRD, we can discuss our fear with others while turning it over to our Higher Power.

It would be wonderful if these steps then lifted us above any sense of fear. Even if this doesn’t happen completely, we’ve succeeded in mastering our problems if we don’t let fear drives us to work against ourselves. If I am afraid to give a presentation for work or go for a job interview, for example, I am being driven into inaction. This must no be allowed to happen.

I can find courage today in the Twelve Step program. This will enable me to act properly and responsibly, even if I’m a bit queasy with fear.   

Father Leo’s - September 19th 2025

SUICIDE


“Often the test of courage is not to die but to live.”

– Conte Vittorio Alfieri

There are many ways of committing suicide. The obvious way is to take your life — the ultimate escape. One can reach that point in life when there seems no hope, no purpose in living and death is attractive. Many alcoholics and addicts reach this point of despair.

However, there is a more subtle way of “suicide”, which is to kill yourself slowly — by a sick behavior and a negative attitude. I was “dying” in a lifestyle that revolved around alcohol. All I wanted to do was drink — I didn’t want to go anywhere, be with anyone or enjoy the thousand and one pleasures that life offers. I was dying in my life. I was becoming a “walking zombie”. I was committing suicide by degrees!

Today I can see this and I am glad I had the courage to live. My act of courage began with my “no” to alcohol.

Let me continue to live in my life.   

Daily Reflections - 11 th September 2025

MAKING AMENDS

Above all, we should try to be absolutely sure that we are not delaying because we are afraid. 

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 87

To have courage, to be unafraid, are gifts of my recovery. They empower me to ask for help and to go forth in making my amends with a sense of dignity and humility. Making amends may require a certain amount of honesty that I feel I lack, yet with the help of God and the wisdom of others, I can reach within and find the strength to act. My amends may be accepted, or they may not, but after they are completed I can walk with a sense of freedom and know that, for today, I am responsible.    

AS BILL SEES IT #essentialsofrecovery

~ Page 91 ~

Courage and Prudence

When fear persisted, we knew it for what it was, and we became able to handle it. We began to see each adversity as a God-given opportunity to develop the kind of courage which is born of humility, rather than of bravado.

<< << << >> >> >>

Prudence is a workable middle ground, a channel of clear sailing between the obstacles of fear on the one side and of recklessness on the other. Prudence in practice creates a definite climate, the only climate in which harmony, effectiveness, and consistent spiritual progress can be achieved. 

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