Just For Today - May 14 2026

Oops!

“Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.”

Basic Text, p. 23

Mistakes! We all know how it feels to make them. Many of us feel that our entire lives have been a mistake. We often regard our mistakes with shame or guilt—at the very least, with frustration and impatience. We tend to see mistakes as evidence that we are still sick, crazy, stupid, or too damaged to recover.

In truth, mistakes are a very vital and important part of being human. For particularly stubborn people (such as addicts), mistakes are often our best teachers. There is no shame in making mistakes. In fact, making new mistakes often shows our willingness to take risks and grow.

It’s helpful, though, if we learn from our mistakes; repeating the same ones may be a sign that we’re stuck. And expecting different results from the same old mistakes—well, that’s what we call “insanity!” It just doesn’t work.

Just for today: Mistakes aren’t tragedies. But please, Higher Power, help me learn from them!

Keep It Simple - April 29 2026

I’m as pure as the driven slush.

~ Tallulad Bankhead

The Steps are filled with words and phrases like shortcomings, exact nature of our wrongs, persons we had harmed, and when we were wrong. The Steps help us accept all parts of who we are.
Our program asks us to share these parts of ourselves with others. We heal by doing this.
It’s hard to talk about how wrong we can be, but we must. It’s part of how we recover.
Remember, all of us have bad points. At times, we act like jerks. When we can talk about our mistakes, we end up having less shame inside of us.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to love and accept myself—as You love and accept me. Give me the courage to share all my secret wrongs.


Action for the Day: Today, I’ll review my Fourth Step. If I haven’t done this Step, I’ll start today.

WALK IN DRY PLACES - April 18 2026

MISTAKES ARE FOR LEARNING

Personal growth

One sign of an alcoholic’s immaturity is revealed in responses to personal mistakes. We take each simple mistake as further proof of our inadequacy. As one person observed, “I can handle a general catastrophe, but running my nylons can ruin my day.”

Some of us may feel we’re victims of past conditioning – a parent, for example, who berated us when the slightest thing went wrong. But we’re at fault if we continue to let ourselves be victimized by such experience. We should give no person – past, present, or future – the right to set the level of our self-esteem.

Properly viewed, all mistakes are for learning purposes. We often have to make a few mistakes before we can learn anything. Sometimes a mistake can occur simply to teach us one basic lesson – that we are human and cannot be perfect in everything we do.

Above, all, we should never condemn ourselves for the countless mistakes that occurred while we were drinking. Our alcoholism, a terrible mistake in the sight of many, led to the deep learning we find in AA. Nothing that brings us this far can really be a mistake in the sight of God.

In sobriety, I’m learning tolerate the shortcomings and mistakes of others. I will extend the same grace to myself today if I make a simple mistake.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved.

ELDER'S MEDITATION OF THE DAY #essentialsofrecovery

The old people say, `Learn from your mistakes’. So I try to accept everything for what it is and to make the best of each situation one day at a time.”

~ Dr. A.C. Ross (Ehanamani), LAKOTA ~

The Creator did not design us to beat ourselves up when we make mistakes. Mistakes are our friends. It is from mistakes that we learn. The more mistakes we learn from, the faster we gain wisdom. The faster we gain wisdom, the more we love. The more we love, the fewer our mistakes. Therefore, mistakes help us to learn love. God is love. Mistakes are sacred and help us learn about God’s will for ourselves.

Great Spirit, help me, today, to learn from my mistakes. 

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Walk In Dry Places #essentialsofrec #Acceptance #Mistakes

Accepting and correcting mistakes.
Mature living.

Being in error now and then is part of our human existence. Many of us, however, feel unbearable self-reproach when we make a mistake. Some compulsive people even blame themselves for errors beyond their control.

But the worst mistake is the refusal, or denial, of responsibility for mistakes. This comes from a strange belief that we can erase the mistake by refusing to accept it. It may stem from the belief that we should be above mistakes. This is immature thinking.

We are learning and growing when we accept our mistakes graciously and immediately move to correct them. Most of the time, when this is done, the distress passes quickly and we can go on to other matters.

I’ll take full responsibility for all of my actions today, and I’ll move quickly to correct any of my mistakes. 

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Emmet Fox - Cease Weeping #Emmet #Fox #Mistakes

Cease weeping over the mistakes of yesterday and steadfastly holding the face of the great and divine Reality, walk in that Light wherein there is no darkness. Say:

I know that every negative condition of the past is swept aside.
I refuse to see it or to think about it.
Yesterday is no longer here, tomorrow has not yet arrived.
Today is God's day.
God's day is my day.

Today, bright with hope and filled with promise, is mine.
Today my heart is without fear.
I have implicit confidence in the good, the enduring and the true.
Today I shall guard my thought and speech; I shall keep my consciousness steadfast with the realization that there is a spiritual Power upon which I may rely.
I shall turn resolutely to that Divine Source which knows no confusion, to that spiritual Center which knows no fear.

The Spirit is not afraid of anything; the Divine has no enemies; the Spirit knows no opposites.
Consciously, I draw close to my Divine Center, the Source of all that is; I feel the warmth of Its presence.
I enter into a faith made perfect through love and confidence, an assurance made complete by the abandonment of myself to good.

Acknowledging good in all my ways, desiring only the good for others, I rest in calm assurance.
I open my consciousness to the realization that all the Power and Presence there is clothes me in Its eternal embrace; that the Spirit forever imparts Its life to me.

I believe in myself because I believe in God.
I believe in my destiny because I know that the Law of good is operating through me.
I have confidence in the future and enthusiastic expectation of good things to come.
Therefore, I accept the fullness of life this moment.

This Thing Called you. 

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ELDER MEDITATION #essentialsofrec #Lakota #Mistakes #Native

“The old people say, `Learn from your mistakes’. So I try to accept everything for what it is and to make the best of each situation one day at a time.”

~ Dr. A.C. Ross (Ehanamani), LAKOTA ~

The Creator did not design us to beat ourselves up when we make mistakes. Mistakes are our friends. It is from mistakes that we learn. The more mistakes we learn from, the faster we gain wisdom. The faster we gain wisdom, the more we love. The more we love, the fewer our mistakes. Therefore, mistakes help us to learn love. God is love. Mistakes are sacred and help us learn about God’s will for ourselves.

Great Spirit, help me, today, to learn from my mistakes.

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KEEP IT SIMPLE #essentialsofrec #Fear #Mistakes

We lose the fear of making
decisions, great and small,
as we realize that should
our choice prove wrong we
can, if we will, learn from
the experience.

~ Bill W. ~

As our disease grew, we often felt like any decision we made was wrong. We felt like wrong people. We lost self-respect, because deep inside we knew that, for us, using alcohol and other drugs was wrong. We went against our spirit.

Now we go with our spirit. We follow what we think our Higher Power wants for us. Now we learn from our mistakes. Another wonderful gift has been given back to us: the gift of learning. From this gift, we stop playing God. How free it feels!

Prayer for the Day Higher Power

You have taken away my illness and replaced it with many wonderful gifts. I thank You for everything, even my mistakes.

Action for the Day Today

I’ll share with a friend my mistakes of the past week.

Copyright © 1988 by Hazelden Foundation

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Father Leo’s Daily Meditation #essentialsofrec #Recovery #Failure

MISTAKES


“Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure.”

– William Saroyan

Today I am able to learn from my mistakes because I can see that they really were mistakes! I was trying to play the game of life without a full deck. My big mistake in life was trying to drink alcohol like a non-alcoholic. I couldn’t do it.

Drugs do not think; they react. They always work, and for me they worked against me. Most of my failures in life stemmed from a fundamental misconception — alcoholics cannot drink like non-alcoholics! This I now accept. And in a strange way that is difficult to explain, I am a stronger person for having lived through my alcoholism. God has become more real, the world is more comprehensible, my life is more understandable because of the pain.

If a part of “goodness” is knowing that you are not perfect, then on a daily basis I am becoming a good person.

God, who has created a world in which there is pain and failure, help me to accept both as vehicles to wisdom.

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Father Leo’s Daily Meditation #essentialsofrec #FrLeo #PREJUDICE

PREJUDICE


“The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.”

— Rene Descartes

During the past few years I have begun to recognize how many of my prejudices were planted in childhood. Family, teachers, priests and “the neighborhood” passed on to me prejudices: ” The Jews are bad because they killed Jesus.” “Blacks are inferior to white people — but you should be kind to them.” “Women should obey the man of the house.” “Gays are child molesters.” “People who do not accept Jesus will not go to Heaven.” “Sex is for having babies and you should not enjoy it.”

Today I live with the problem of knowing that these statements are untrue but a part of me is still affected by them.

Today my spiritual program demands that I expose prejudice for the “hate-mail” that it is, and try to pass on to the next generation the joy that comes from love, acceptance and freedom.

Let the children grow in freedom.

© 2008 Leo Booth

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ONE DAY AT A TIME #essentialsofrec #Recovery #Mistakes #Admission

ADMITTING MISTAKES

“A man should never be ashamed
to own he has been in the wrong,
which is but saying, in other words,
that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”
~ Alexander Pope 

Most of my life I had spent in blaming others for all the bad things that happened in my life, and I never learned to take responsibility for my part in anything. I thought that life had treated me unfairly, but mostly it was because someone else had wronged me. I wallowed in self-pity and justifiable anger, and not surprisingly, I found comfort in food so I could get through the pain of being treated so badly by others.

When I came into the program and began working the steps, I was horrified to learn that I was expected to do a searching and fearless inventory of my wrongdoings, for after all wasn’t it others who had harmed me and not the other way around? Slowly I realised that I had a part to play in all the events in my life, and that only by clearing up the wreckage of my past and keeping my side of the street clean, did I have any hope of recovery. I had to swallow my pride and admit when I was wrong, and when I did that, miracles began to happen. Instead of feeling hard done by and bad about myself as I had thought I would, the exact opposite happened, and I started on a journey of growth and increasing self esteem that never ceases to surprise me. When I am able to admit that I’m wrong and apologise for my part in any conflict or misunderstanding, without expectation of anything back from the other person, I strengthen my recovery in this program.

One day at a time …

I will admit my mistakes whether I believe that the fault is mine or not, because that is the way that I grow in my recovery.

~ Sharon 

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AROUND THE YEAR WITH EMMET FOX #essentialsofrec #emmet #Fox

CLAIMING OUR DAILY BREAD

The common mistake, of course, is to suppose that a formal recognition of God is sufficient, or that that talking about divine things is the same as possessing them; but this is exactly on a par with supposing that looking at a tray of food, or discussing the chemical composition of sundry foodstuffs, is the same thing as actually eating a meal. It is this mistake that is responsible for the fact that people sometimes pray for a thing for years without any tangible results. If prayer is a force at all, it cannot be possible to pray without something happening. Pray regularly and quietly—then presently, the realization will come.

Another reason why the symbol of bread for the experience of the Presence of God is such a telling one, is that the act of eating food is essentially a thing that must be done for oneself. No one can assimilate food for another. In the same way, the realization of the Presence of God is a thing that no one can have for us.

For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness (Psalm 107:9).

© 1931 by Emmet Fox

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AROUND THE YEAR WITH EMMET FOX #essentialsofrec #Emmet #Fox #Recovery

THE GIVER OF OUR BREAD

People think of their supply as coming from certain investments, or from a business, or from an employer, perhaps; whereas these are merely the channels through which it comes, God being the Source. A particular channel is likely to change, because change is the cosmic law for manifestation. Stagnation is really death; but as long as you realize that the Source of your supply is the one unchangeable Spirit, all is well. The fading out of one channel will be but the signal for the opening of another.

In its inner and most important meaning, our daily bread signifies the realization of the Presence of God—an actual sense that #God exist not merely in a nominal way, but as the great reality; we can rely upon Him to supply all that we need to have; teach us all the we need to know; and guide our steps so that we shall not make mistakes. This is Emanuel, or God with us.

But my God shall supply all you need . . . (Phillipians 4:19).

© 1931 by Emmet Fox

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ONE DAY AT A TIME #essentialsofrec #OA #Blessings #Recovery

BLESSINGS

There are no mistakes, no coincidences.
All events are blessings given to us to learn from.

~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross 

I certainly never had a charmed life as a child, and when I was told to count my blessings, I never thought that I had that much to shout about. I was a shy and lonely child, always self-conscious about my shape and size, and everyone else seemed to be far better off than I was. When life started to deal out blows that were far more than I thought I could handle, I wondered why bad things always seemed to happen to me. I would hardly recover from one traumatic event when another one was upon me. I felt life was definitely unfair. Using food seemed to be the only way that I knew to cope.

I was looking for a solution, for some way to make my life a happier one. Fortunately, I was finally brought to my knees by the pain of my compulsive overeating. In working the Steps of this wonderful program, I have come to some amazing realizations. All the time I had railed against my misfortunes, I was being brought to some new understanding.

With the growing openness I now have, I can more clearly see why certain things in my life had to happen, and even why I became a compulsive overeater. Unlike the past, when I used to hate this disease, I now see it as a blessing, from which I can learn and grow. If it were not for this disease, I would not have needed to look at my life, nor would I have had to work at trying to make myself into a better person. I most certainly would not have needed to find a God of my understanding, nor would I have met so many wonderful new friends, who always love and support me.

One Day at a Time . . .
I will remember that the events in my life are not dealt out to me as a form of punishment, but rather as motivating factors in my life, that spur me on to grow and change as a person.

~ Sharon S. 

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DAILY ZEN #essentialsofrecovery

By amending our mistakes, we get wisdom.
By defending our faults, we betray an unsound mind.

-The Sutra of Hui Neng

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WALK IN DRY PLACES #essentialsofrecovery

MISTAKES ARE FOR LEARNING

Personal growth

One sign of an alcoholic’s immaturity is revealed in responses to personal mistakes. We take each simple mistake as further proof of our inadequacy. As one person observed, “I can handle a general catastrophe, but running my nylons can ruin my day.”

Some of us may feel we’re victims of past conditioning – a parent, for example, who berated us when the slightest thing went wrong. But we’re at fault if we continue to let ourselves be victimized by such experience. We should give no person – past, present, or future – the right to set the level of our self-esteem.

Properly viewed, all mistakes are for learning purposes. We often have to make a few mistakes before we can learn anything. Sometimes a mistake can occur simply to teach us one basic lesson – that we are human and cannot be perfect in everything we do.

Above, all, we should never condemn ourselves for the countless mistakes that occurred while we were drinking. Our alcoholism, a terrible mistake in the sight of many, led to the deep learning we find in AA. Nothing that brings us this far can really be a mistake in the sight of God.

In sobriety, I’m learning tolerate the shortcomings and mistakes of others. I will extend the same grace to myself today if I make a simple mistake.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. 

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day #essentialsorec

A.A. Thought For The Day

There are two days in every week about which we should not worry, two days that should be kept from fear and apprehension. One of these days is yesterday, with its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control. All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday.  We cannot undo a single act we performed. We cannot erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone beyond recall. Do I still worry about what happened yesterday?

Meditation For The Day

“God will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able, but with the temptation He will also find a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” If you have enough faith and trust in God, He will give you all the strength you need to face every temptation and to overcome it. Nothing will prove too hard for you to bear. You can face any situation. “Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.” You can overcome any temptation with God’s help. So fear nothing.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may face every situation without fear. I pray that nothing will prove too hard for me to bear. 

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A DAY AT A TIME #essentialsofrecovery

Reflection for the Day

Some of us in the Program are inclined to make the mistake of thinking that the few moments we spend in prayer and meditation—in “talking with God”—are all that count. The truth is that the attitude we maintain throughout the entire day is just as important. If we place ourselves in God’s hands in the morning, and throughout the day hold ourselves ready to accept His will as it is made known through the events of our daily life, our attitude of acceptance becomes a constant prayer. Can I try to cultivate an attitude of total acceptance each day?

Today I Pray

May I maintain contact with my Higher Power all through my day, not just check in for a prayer now and then. May my communion with God never become merely a casual aside. May I come to know that every time I do something that is in accord with God’s will I am living a prayer.

Today I Will Remember
Prayer is an attitude.

© 1989 by Hazelden Foundation

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Keep It Simple #essentialsofrecovery

You’re only human, you’ve suppose to make mistakes.

—Billy Joel

Listen to the kind voice inside. Listen to the voice that tells you you’re good enough. Listen to the voice that tells you it’s okay to make mistakes—you’ll learn from them. Listen to the voice that tells you to go to your meeting even though it’s cold outside and you’re tired. Listen and let this voice become more and more clear. Listen, and welcome it in your heart. Talk with the voice.

Ask it questions and seek it out when you need a friend. This voice is your Higher Power. Listen as your Higher Power speaks to you. Listen as your Higher Power tells you what a great person you are.

Prayer for the Day: I pray to the gentle, loving voice that lives in me. Higher Power, You’ve always been kind to me. You’ve always loved me. Help me to remember You’re always there—inside me.

Action for the Day: I will take time from my busy day to listen and talk with the loving voice that lives inside me.

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Walk In Dry Places #essentialsofrecovery

Accepting and correcting mistakes.
Mature living.

Being in error now and then is part of our human existence. Many of us, however, feel unbearable self-reproach when we make a mistake. Some compulsive people even blame themselves for errors beyond their control.

But the worst mistake is the refusal, or denial, of responsibility for mistakes. This comes from a strange belief that we can erase the mistake by refusing to accept it. It may stem from the belief that we should be above mistakes. This is immature thinking.

We are learning and growing when we accept our mistakes graciously and immediately move to correct them. Most of the time, when this is done, the distress passes quickly and we can go on to other matters.

I’ll take full responsibility for all of my actions today, and I’ll move quickly to correct any of my mistakes.

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