Twenty-Four Hours A Day - May 19 2016

A.A. Thought For The Day

Fellowship is a big part of staying sober. The doctors call it group
therapy. We never go to an A.A. meeting without taking something
out of it. Sometimes we don’t feel like going to a meeting and we think
of excuses for not going. But we usually end up by going anyway and
we always get some lift out of every meeting. Meetings are part of
keeping sober. And we get more out of a meeting if we try to contribute
something to it. Am I contributing my share at meetings?

Meditation For The Day

“He brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set
my feet upon a rock and established my goings.” The first part, “He
brought me up out of a horrible pit,” means that by turning to God and
putting my problems in His hands, I am able to overcome my sins and
temptations. “He set my feet upon a rock” means that when I trust
God in all things, I have true security. “He established my goings”
means that if I honestly try to live the way God wants me to live, I will
have God’s guidance in my daily living.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that my feet may be set upon a rock. I pray that I may rely on
God to guide my comings and goings.

Twenty-Four Hours A Day - April 28 2026

A.A. Thought For The Day

We’re so glad to be free from liquor that we do something about
it. We get into action. We come to meetings regularly. We go out
and try to help other alcoholics. We pass on the good news
whenever we get a chance. In a spirit of thankfulness to God,
we get into action. The A.A. program is simple. Submit yourself
to God, find release from liquor, and get into action. Do these
things and keep doing them and you’re all set for the rest of
your life. Have I got into action?

Meditation For The Day

God’s eternal quest must be the tracking down of souls. You
should join Him in His quest. Through briars, through waste
places, through glades, up mountain heights, down into valleys.
God leads you. But ever with His leadership goes your helping
hand. Glorious to follow where the Leader goes. You are seeking
lost sheep. You are bringing the good news into places where it
has not been known before. You may not know which soul you will
help, but you can leave all results to God. just go with Him in
His eternal quest for souls.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may follow God in His eternal quest for souls.
I pray that I may offer God my helping hand.

A DAY AT A TIME - April 22 2026

Reflection for the Day

As I attend meetings of the Program, may eyes open wider and wider. Other people’s problems make mine look small, yet they are facing them with courage and confidence. Others are trapped in situations as bad as mine, but they bear their troubles with more fortitude. By going to meetings, I find many reasons to be grateful. My load has begun to lighten. Do I expect easy solutions to my problems? Or do I ask only to be guided to a better way?

Today I Pray

Make the Program my way of life. Its goals are my goals. Its members are my truest friends. May I pass along the skills for coping I have learned there. May my turnabout and the resulting transformation in my life inspire others, as others have inspired me.

Today I Will Remember

May I be grateful.

© 1989 by Hazelden Foundation 

JUST FOR TODAY - April 17 2026

Priority: Meetings

“I initially felt that it would be impossible to attend more than one or two meetings a week. It just wouldn’t fit in with my busy schedule. I later learned that my priorities were [180] degrees reversed. It was the everything else that would have to fit into my meeting schedule.”

~ Basic Text p. 204 ~

Some of us attended meetings infrequently when we first came to Narcotics Anonymous, then wondered why we couldn’t stay clean. What we soon learned was that if we wanted to stay clean, we had to make meeting attendance our priority.

So we began again. Following our sponsor’s suggestion, we made a commitment to attend ninety meetings in ninety days. We identified ourselves as newcomers for our first thirty days so that others could get to know us. At our sponsor’s direction, we stopped talking long enough to learn to listen. We soon began to look forward to meetings. And we began to stay clean.

Today, we attend meetings for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we go to meetings to share our experience, strength, and hope with newer members. Sometimes we go to see our friends. And sometimes we go just because we need a hug. Occasionally we leave a meeting and realize that we haven’t really heard a word that’s been said—but we still feel better The atmosphere of love and joy that fills our meetings has kept us clean another day. No matter how hectic our schedule, we make meeting attendance our priority.

Just for today: In my heart, I know that meetings benefit me in all kinds of ways. Today, I want what’s good for me. I will attend a meeting.

© 1991 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services Inc

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY - April 17 2026

A.A. Thought for the Day

Every time we go to an AA. meeting, every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, every time we have a quiet time before breakfast, we’re paying a premium on our insurance against taking that first drink. And every time we help another alcoholic, we’re making a large payment on our drink insurance. We’re making sure that our policy doesn’t lapse. Am I building up an endowment in serenity, peace, and happiness that will put me on easy street for the rest of my life?

Meditation for the Day

I gain faith by my own experience of God’s power in my life. The constant, persistent recognition of God’s spirit in all my personal relationships, the ever- accumulating weight of evidence in support of God’s guidance, the numberless instances in which seeming chance or wonderful coincidence can be traced to God’s purpose in my life. All these things gradually engender a feeling of wonder, humility, and gratitude to God. These in turn are followed by a more sure and abiding faith in God and His purposes.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that my faith may be strengthened every day. I pray that I may find confirmation of my life in the good things that have come into my life.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation

The 12 STEP PRAYER BOOK - April 15 2026

Meeting Prayer No. 3

God bless this meeting and the members gathered here tonight.

Help us to make this group a haven of strength and comfort, giving to all who seek help here the beauty and friendliness of home, which shall be as a shield against temptation of all kinds and against loneliness and despair.

Bless those who are going forth from this house to fight the gallant fight, to know suffering, and bless those who come here to rest, those who must readjust themselves to face life once more.

© 2004 by Hazelden Foundation

A DAY AT A TIME - 3rd April 2026

Reflection for the Day
In almost every instance, the returned slipper says, “I stopped going to meetings,” or “I got fed up with the same old stories and the same old faces,” or “My outside commitments were such that I had to cut down on meetings,” or “I felt I’d received the optimum benefits from the meetings, so I sought further help from more meaningful activities.” In short, they simply stopped going to meetings. A saying I’ve heard in the Program hits the nail on the head: “Them which stops going to meetings are not present at meetings to hear about what happens to them that stops going to meetings.” Am I going to enough meetings for me?

Today I Pray
God keep me on the track of the Program. May I never be too tired, too busy, too complacent, too bored to go to meetings. Almost always those complaints are reversed at a meeting if I will just get myself there. My weariness dissipates in serenity. My busyness is reduced to its rightful proportion. My complacency gives way to vigilance again. And how can I be bored in a place where there is so much fellowship and joy?

Today I Will Remember
Attend the meetings.

© 1989 by Hazelden Foundation

A WOMAN’S SPIRIT - 3rd April 2026

If there were no others to share ourselves with, life would be meaningless.
~ Carlotta Posz ~
We often hear at meetings and from sponsors the saying “There are no accidents.” But what does it mean? That wars are necessary? That a suffering parent is God’s will? That our disease is our destiny? We can worry ourselves sick over the answers, or we can accept these mysteries and try instead to appreciate the lessons they offer us. It’s the lessons that aren’t accidental.

We are here for a purpose. We may not yet understand what our contribution was yesterday or will be today, but we can come to believe that the people we’re living among are necessary to the contribution that is ours to make.

We grow and change through our acceptance of the unexplainable in our lives. The more willing we are to let God be in charge, the more meaning we’ll see in the small details of our lives. Finally, we’ll come to understand the depth of meaning in those four simple words “There are no accidents.”

I can trust that God is part of every detail of my life today. I can either be peaceful about what happens or hr resistant and miss my opportunity to contribute.

© 1994 by Hazelden Foundation

Just For Today - 6th September 2025

Regular Meeting Attendance

“We have learned from our group experience that those who keep coming to our meetings regularly stay clean.” 

Basic Text p.9

The NA program gives us a new pattern of living. One of the basic elements of that new pattern is regular meeting attendance. For the newcomer, living clean is a brand new experience. All that once was familiar is changed. The old people, places, and things that served as props on the stage of our lives are gone. New stresses appear, no longer masked or deadened by drugs. That’s why we often suggest that newcomers attend a meeting every day. No matter what comes up, no matter how crazy the day gets, we know that our daily meeting awaits us. There, we can renew contact with other recovering addicts, people who know what we’re going through because they’ve been through it themselves. No day needs to go by without the relief we get only from such fellowship.

As we mature in recovery, we get the same kinds of benefits from regular meeting attendance. Regardless of how long we’ve been clean, we never stop being addicts. True, we probably won’t immediately start using mass quantities of drugs if we miss our meetings for a few days. But the more regularly we attend NA meetings, the more we reinforce our identity as recovering addicts. And each meeting helps put us that much further from becoming using addicts again.

Just for today: I will make a commitment to include regular meeting attendance as a part of my new pattern of living.    

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrecovery

A.A. Thought for the Day

When you come into an A. A. meeting, you’re not just coming into a meeting, you’re coming into a new life. I’m always impressed by the change I see in people after they’ve been in A.A. for a while. I sometimes take an inventory of myself, to see whether I have changed, and if so, in what way. Before I met A.A., I was very selfish. I wanted my own way in everything. I don’t believe I ever grew up. When things went wrong, I sulked like a spoiled child and often went out and got drunk. Am I still all “get” and no “give”?

Meditation for the Day

There are two things that we must have if we are going to change our way of life. One is faith, the confidence in things unseen, the fundamental goodness and purpose in the universe. The other is obedience: that is, living according to our faith, living each day as we believe that God wants us to live, with gratitude, humility, honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. Faith and obedience, these two, will give us all the strength we need to overcome sin and temptation and to live a new and more abundant life.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may have more faith and obedience. I pray that I may live a more abundant life as a result of these things.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation 

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrecovery

A.A. Thought for the Day

A.A. also helps us to hang onto sobriety By having regular meetings so that we can associate with other alcoholics who have come through that same door in the wall, by encouraging us to tell the story of our own sad experiences with alcohol, and by showing us how to help other alcoholics, A.A. keeps us sober. Our attitude toward life changes from one of pride and selfishness to one of humility and gratitude. Am I going to step back through that door in the wall to my old helpless, hopeless, drunken life?

Meditation for the Day

Withdraw into the calm of communion with God. Rest in that calm and peace. When the soul finds its home of rest in God, then it is that real life begins. Only when you are calm and serene can you do good work. Emotional upsets make you useless. The eternal life is calmness and when you enter into that, then you live as an eternal being. Calmness is based on complete trust in God. Nothing in this world can separate you from the love of God.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may wear the world like a loose garment. I pray that I may keep serene at the center of my being.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation 

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrecovery

A.A. Thought for the Day

We must go to A.A. meetings regularly. We must learn to think differently. We must change from alcoholic thinking to sober thinking. We must re-educate our minds. We must try to help other alcoholics. We must cooperate with God by spending at least as much time and energy on the A.A. program as we did on drinking. We must follow the A.A. program to the best of our ability. Have I turned my alcoholic problem over to God and am I cooperating with Him?

Meditation for the Day

The joy of true fellowship shall be mine in full measure. I will revel in the joy of real fellowship. There will come back a wonderful joy, if I share in fellowship now. Fellowship among spiritually minded people is the embodiment of God’s purpose for this world. To realize this will bring me a new life-joy. If I share in humanity’s joy and travail, a great blessing will be mine. I can truly live a life not of earth, but a heaven- life here and now.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may be helped and healed by true spiritual fellowship. I pray that I may sense His presence in spiritual fellowship with His children.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation 

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrecovery

A.A. Thought for the Day

I go to the A.A. meetings because it helps me in my business of keeping sober. And I try to help other alcoholics when I can, because that’s part of my business of keeping sober. I also have a partner in this business and that’s God. I pray to Him every day to help me to keep sober. As long as I keep in mind that liquor can never be my friend again, but is now my deadly enemy, and as long as I remember that my main business is keeping sober and that it’s the most important thing in my life, I believe I’ll be prepared for that crucial moment when the idea of having a drink pops into my mind. When that idea comes, will I be able to resist it and not take that drink?

Meditation for the Day

I will be more afraid of spirit-unrest, of soul- disturbance, of any ruffling of the mind, than of earthquake or fire. When I feel the calm of my spirit has been broken by emotional upset, then I must steal away alone with God, until my heart sings and all is strong and calm again. Uncalm times are the only times when evil can find an entrance. I will beware of unguarded spots of unrest. I will try to keep calm, no matter what turmoil surrounds me.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that no emotional upsets will hinder God’s power in my life. I pray that I may keep a calm spirit and a steady heart.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation 

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JUST FOR TODAY #essentialsofrec #Recovery #NA #Meetings

Keep Coming Back!

“We are grateful that we were made so welcome at meetings that we felt comfortable.”

~ Basic Text p. 80 

Remember how scared we were when we walked into our first NA meeting? Even if we walked in with a friend, most of us recall how difficult it was to attend that first meeting. What was it that kept us coming back? Most of us have grateful memories of the welcome we were given and how comfortable that made us feel. When we raised our hand as a newcomer, we opened the door for other members to approach us and welcome us.

Sometimes the difference between those addicts who walk back out the door of their first meeting, never to return to NA, and the addicts who stay to seek recovery is the simple hug of an NA member. When we have been clean awhile, it’s easy to step back from the procession of newcomers—after all, we’ve seen so many people come and go. But members with some clean time can make the difference between the addict who doesn’t return and the addict who keeps coming back. By offering our phone numbers, a hug, or just a warm welcome, we extend the hand of Narcotics Anonymous to the addict who still suffers.

Just for today: I remember the welcome I was given when I first came to NA. Today, I will express my gratitude by offering a hug to a newcomer.

© 1991 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services Inc

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WALK IN DRY PLACES #essentialsofrecovery

WHY DO YOU NEED THOSE MEETINGS?

Staying Active

Friends and relatives are often grateful when they witness an alcoholic’s dramatic recovery after years of horror and pain. However, they sometimes fail to understand the importance of meetings after the alcoholic has been sober for months or years. “Do you have to go to another meeting this week?” a spouse might say. “Aren’t you overdoing it a bit?” Or a friend might say, “You’re sober now. Why do you need those people?”

Some AA members probably do use the meetings simply as a social outlet and attend more than they need. But no other person can really determine what you or I need to maintain sobriety. Moreover, even in sobriety, we are always dealing with alcohol, which can come back into our lives with stunning force if we ever become careless or foolish. It is much better to go to more meetings than we need than to attend too few or none at all.

There is another side as well. The meetings need us. By attending meetings, we are carrying the AA message and providing a haven for desperate newcomers who need our help.

However, we should be tolerant and under-standing when others are critical of our zealous attendance of meetings. It is not necessary that they understand our need. It is only necessary that we understand!

I will remember today that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I don’t want to change anything—including meeting attendance—that is necessary for my continued sobriety.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation 

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Just For Today #essentialsofrecovery

Regular Meeting Attendance

“We have learned from our group experience that those who keep coming to our meetings regularly stay clean.” 

Basic Text p.9

The NA program gives us a new pattern of living. One of the basic elements of that new pattern is regular meeting attendance. For the newcomer, living clean is a brand new experience. All that once was familiar is changed. The old people, places, and things that served as props on the stage of our lives are gone. New stresses appear, no longer masked or deadened by drugs. That’s why we often suggest that newcomers attend a meeting every day. No matter what comes up, no matter how crazy the day gets, we know that our daily meeting awaits us. There, we can renew contact with other recovering addicts, people who know what we’re going through because they’ve been through it themselves. No day needs to go by without the relief we get only from such fellowship.

As we mature in recovery, we get the same kinds of benefits from regular meeting attendance. Regardless of how long we’ve been clean, we never stop being addicts. True, we probably won’t immediately start using mass quantities of drugs if we miss our meetings for a few days. But the more regularly we attend NA meetings, the more we reinforce our identity as recovering addicts. And each meeting helps put us that much further from becoming using addicts again.

Just for today: I will make a commitment to include regular meeting attendance as a part of my new pattern of living.      

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Just For Today #essentialsofrec #NA #God

 The “G” Word

“It is important for you to know that you will hear God mentioned at NA meetings. What we are referring to is a Power greater than ourselves that makes possible what seems impossible.”

 IP No.22, “Welcome to NA”

Most of us come to Narcotics Anonymous with a variety of preconceptions about what the word “God” means, many of them negative. Yet the “G” word is used very regularly in NA, if not constantly. It occurs 92 times in the first 103 pages of our Basic Text, and appears prominently in a third of our Twelve Steps. Rather than sidestep the sensitivity many of us feel toward the word, let’s address it head on.

It’s true that Narcotics Anonymous is a spiritual program. Our Twelve Steps offer a way to find freedom from addiction through the help of a spiritual Power greater than we are. The program, however; doesn’t tell us anything about what we have to think about that Power. In fact, over and over again, in our literature and our steps and our meetings, we hear it said, “the God of our understanding” – whatever that understanding may be.

We use the word “God” because it’s used in our Basic Text and because it communicates most effectively to most people a basic understanding of the Power underlying our recovery. The word, we use for the sake of convenience. The Power behind the word, however, we use for more than convenience. We use that Power to maintain our freedom from addiction and to ensure our ongoing recovery.

Just for today: Whether I believe in “God” or not, I will use the Power that keeps me clean and free. 

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A DAY AT A TIME #essentialsofrec #courage #confidence

Reflection for the Day

As I attend meetings of the Program, may eyes open wider and wider. Other people’s problems make mine look small, yet they are facing them with courage and confidence. Others are trapped in situations as bad as mine, but they bear their troubles with more fortitude. By going to meetings, I find many reasons to be grateful. My load has begun to lighten. Do I expect easy solutions to my problems? Or do I ask only to be guided to a better way?

Today I Pray

Make the Program my way of life. Its goals are my goals. Its members are my truest friends. May I pass along the skills for coping I have learned there. May my turnabout and the resulting transformation in my life inspire others, as others have inspired me.

Today I Will Remember

May I be grateful.

© 1989 by Hazelden Foundation

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As Bill Sees It #spiritual #essentialsofrec

“The Spiritual Angle”, p. 101

How often do we sit in A.A. meetings and hear the speaker declare,
“But I haven’t yet got the spiritual angle.” Prior to this statement, he
has described a miracle of transformation which has occurred in
him–not only his release from alcohol but a complete change in his
whole attitude toward life and the living of it.

It is apparent to everyone else present that he has received a great gift,
and that this gift is all out of proportion to anything that may be
expected from simple A.A. participation. So we in the audience smile
and say to ourselves, “Well, that guy is just reeling with the spiritual
angle–except that he doesn’t seem to know it yet!”

Grapevine, July 1962

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrec #meetings #Inventory

A.A. Thought for the Day
When you come into an A. A. meeting, you’re not just coming into a meeting, you’re coming into a new life. I’m always impressed by the change I see in people after they’ve been in A.A. for a while. I sometimes take an inventory of myself, to see whether I have changed, and if so, in what way. Before I met A.A., I was very selfish. I wanted my own way in everything. I don’t believe I ever grew up. When things went wrong, I sulked like a spoiled child and often went out and got drunk. Am I still all “get” and no “give”?

Meditation for the Day
There are two things that we must have if we are going to change our way of life. One is faith, the confidence in things unseen, the fundamental goodness and purpose in the universe. The other is obedience: that is, living according to our faith, living each day as we believe that God wants us to live, with gratitude, humility, honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. Faith and obedience, these two, will give us all the strength we need to overcome sin and temptation and to live a new and more abundant life.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may have more faith and obedience. I pray that I may live a more abundant life as a result of these things.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation

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