Step by Step May 25 2026

“The remorse, horror and hopelessness of the next morning are unforgettable. The courage to do battle was not there. (The) brain raced uncontrollably and there was a terrible sense of impending calamity. …(A) mental fog settled down. Gin would fix that. So two bottles, and – oblivion.” 

– Alcoholics Anonymous, Third Edition, 1976, Ch 1, p 6.

Today, I can be grateful that I awoke to a day without the remorse of what I might have done or said the night before, without a sense of dread of what this new day will bring and without the fear of some unknown and unidentified pending disaster that feels like a bomb is about to explode and I don’t know where to hide. Today, I have clarity of all I said and did last night, no dread of what these 24 Hours will serve and no need to run from a non-existent fear. My AA Program has empowered me with faith and trust in a Higher Power who, in turn, has graced me with confidence and safety in the 12 Steps and, above all, with sobriety. But I cannot take for granted that I awoke to this day sober and with a sense of purpose. My reprieve from all those morning after’s of so many yesterdays is only for this day, and this day I must continue to work toward awakening to the next 24 Hours without “remorse, horror and hopelessness.” And our common journey continues. 

Step by step. – Chris M., 2013

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Remorse

“The Eighth Step offers a big change from a life dominated by guilt and remorse.”

~ Basic Text, p. 38 ~

Remorse was one of the feelings that kept us using. We had stumbled our way through active addiction, leaving a trail of heartbreak and devastation too painful to consider. Our remorse was often intensified by our perception that we couldn’t do anything about the damage we had caused; there was no way to make it right.

We remove some of the power of remorse when we face it squarely. We begin the Eighth Step by actually making a list of all the people we have harmed. We own our part in our painful past.

But the Eighth Step does not ask us to make right all of our mistakes, merely to become willing to make amends to all those people. As we become willing to clean up the damage we’ve caused, we acknowledge our readiness to change. We affirm the healing process of recovery.

Remorse is no longer an instrument we use to torture ourselves. Remorse has become a tool we can use to achieve self-forgiveness.

Just for today: I will use any feelings of remorse I may have as a stepping-stone to healing through the Twelve Steps.

© 1991 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services Inc 

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A.A. Thought for the Day

When we were drinking, we used to be ashamed of the past. Remorse is terrible mental punishment: ashamed of ourselves for the things we've said and done, afraid to face people because of what they might think of us, afraid of the consequences of what we did when we were drunk. In A.A. we forget about the past. Do I believe that God has forgiven me for everything I’ve done in the past, no matter how black it was, provided I’m honestly trying to do the right thing today?

Meditation for the Day

God’s spirit is all about you all day long. You have no thoughts, no plans, no impulses, no emotions, that He does not know about. You can hide nothing from Him. Do not make your conduct conform only to that of the world and do not depend on the approval or disapproval of others. God sees in secret, but He re-wards openly. If you are in harmony with the Divine Spirit, doing your best to live the way you believe God wants you to live, you will be at peace.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may always feel God’s presence. I pray that I may realize this Presence constantly all through the day.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation

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Don’t Look Back


“The steps offer a big change from a life dominated by guilt and remorse. Our futures are changed because we don’t have to avoid those who we have harmed. As a result… we receive a new freedom that can end isolation.”

Basic Text p.31

Many of us come to Narcotics Anonymous full of regrets about our past. Our steps help us begin to resolve those regrets. We examine our lives, admit our wrongs, make amends for them, and sincerely try to change our behavior. In doing so, we find a joyous sense of freedom.

No longer must we deny or regret our past. Once we’ve made our amends, what’s done is truly over and gone. From that point on, where we come from ceases to be the most important thing about us. It’s where we are going that counts.

In NA, we begin to look forward. True, we live and stay clean just for today. But we find that we can begin to set goals, dream dreams, and look ahead to the joys a life in recovery has to offer. Looking forward keeps us centered in where we are going, not remorseful or regretful about our past. After all, it is hard to move forward if we are looking back.

Just for today: The steps have freed me from regrets over my past. Today, I look forward to my new life in recovery.

pg. 251

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Reflection For The Day

A friend in The Program taught me to look at excessive guilt in an entirely new way, suggesting that guilt was nothing but a sore of reverse pride.  A decent regret for what has happened is fine, he said.  But guilt, no.  I’ve since learned that condemning ourselves for mistakes we’ve made is just as bad as condemning others for theirs.  We’re not really equipped to make judgments, not even of ourselves.  Do I still sometimes “beat myself to death” when I appear to be failing?

Today I Pray

May I be wary of keeping my guilty role alive long after I should have left it behind.  May I know the difference between regret and guilt.  May I recognize that long-term guilt may infer an exaggerated idea of my own importance, as well as present self-righteousness.  May God alone be my judge.

Today I Will Remember

Guilt may be pride in reverse. 

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22
April

Today, I will stop running from the pain of regret, shame, guilt, loss and all other anguish that my drinking days evoked. While I cannot and will not embrace my pain, I must finally come to terms and reconciliation with it. By taking each step in the Program with absolute honesty and the wisdom of my Higher Power’s will for myself, I will look instead to the lessons to be learned from my actions that eventually pooled together to create the pain I may still carry. Regret and shame might be eased by perhaps the single strongest amend I can make: by not drinking today. I can release guilt by learning from the mistakes of my behavior that bred it, and the sense of loss might be less painful if I can be grateful that I even had what I lost and accept that I might not have been ready to be responsible for what I had and lost. Today, I will work on weakening the hurt of pain not by running from or denying it, but by confronting it and find the comfort in it – and even in pain, there is comfort. But, in the end, if I deny or do not allow myself to feel and deal with the hurt, the good might not feel as good as it might otherwise. And our common journey continues.

Step by step. – Chris M., 2014

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 5
April

Today, I will live just for today. While I cannot and should not ignore my past, I don’t live there anymore, nor can I bring into today yesterday’s regrets or guilt that no longer serve any useful purpose. Nor can I look into tomorrow and anticipate or fret over its uncertainty and if it will bring something I may not want to deal with. To the extent that my past has any use today, it is to learn from its mistakes so they are not repeated today. As for tomorrow, what I might anticipate may never develop – and I will have wasted today dreading what may never come. And if it does, I will deal with it in its own time – tomorrow. But today requires my immediate attention. And our common journey continues. 

Step by step. – Chris M.

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27
March

Reflection For The Day

Storing up grievances is not only a waste of time, but a waste of life that could be lived to greater satisfaction. If I keep a ledger of “oppressions and indignities,” I’m only restoring them to painful reality.
“The horror of that moment” the King said, “*I shall never, never forget.”
“You will though,” said the Queen, “if you don’t make a memorandum of it.”
(Lewis Carroll. Through The Looking Glass)

Am I keeping a secret storehouse for the wreckage of my past?

Today I Pray

God keep me from harboring the sludge from the past — grievances, annoyances, grudges, oppressions, wrongs, injustices, putdown,s slights, hurts. They will nag at me and consume my time in rehashing what I “might have said” or done until I face each one, name the emotion it produced in me, settle it a best I can — and forget it. May I empty my storehouse of old grievances.

Today I Will Remember

Don’t rattle old bones.

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 26
February 

Remorse


“The Eighth Step offers a big change from a life dominated by guilt and remorse.”

Basic Text, p. 38

Remorse was one of the feelings that kept us using. We had stumbled our way through active addiction, leaving a trail of heartbreak and devastation too painful to consider. Our remorse was often intensified by our perception that we couldn’t do anything about the damage we had caused; there was no way to make it right.

We remove some of the power of remorse when we face it squarely. We begin the Eighth Step by actually making a list of all the people we have harmed. We own our part in our painful past.

But the Eighth Step does not ask us to make right all of our mistakes, merely to become willing to make amends to all those people. As we become willing to clean up the damage we’ve caused, we acknowledge our readiness to change. We affirm the healing process of recovery.

Remorse is no longer an instrument we use to torture ourselves. Remorse has become a tool we can use to achieve self-forgiveness.

Just for today: I will use any feelings of remorse I may have as a stepping-stone to healing through the Twelve Steps.

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