Daily Reflections

THE HEART OF TRUE SOBRIETY

We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable.

-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 570

Am I honest enough to accept myself as I am and let this be the “me” that I let others see? Do I have the willingness to go to any length, to do whatever is necessary to stay sober? Do I have the open-mindedness to hear what I have to hear, to think what I have to think, and to feel what I have to feel?

If my answer to these questions is “Yes,” I know enough about the spirituality of the program to stay sober. As I continue to work the Twelve Steps, I move on to the heart of true sobriety: serenity with myself, with others, and with God as I understand Him.

Just For Today

Keeping Recovery Fresh

“Complacency is the enemy of members with substantial clean time. If we remain complacent for long, the recovery process ceases.”

 Basic Text, p.80

After the first couple of years in recovery, most of us start to feel like there are no more big deals. If we’ve been diligent in working the steps, the past is largely resolved and we have a solid foundation on which to build our future. We’ve learned to take life pretty much as it comes. Familiarity with the steps allows us to resolve problems almost as quickly as they arise.

Once we discover this level of comfort, we may tend to treat it as a “rest stop” on the recovery path. Doing so, however, discounts the nature of our disease. Addiction is patient, subtle, progressive, and incurable. It’s also fatal-we can die from this disease, unless we continue to treat it. And the treatment for addiction is a vital, ongoing program of recovery.

The Twelve Steps are a process, a path we take to stay a step ahead of our disease. Meetings, sponsorship, service, and the steps always remain essential to ongoing recovery. Though we may practice our program somewhat differently with five years clean than with five months, this doesn’t mean the program has changed or become less important, only that our practical understanding has changed and grown. To keep our recovery fresh and vital, we need to stay alert for opportunities to practice our program.

Just for today: As I keep growing in my recovery, I will search for new ways to practice my program.

Walk in Dry Places May 22 2026

Emotional sobriety may be elusive
Serenity

It is easy to know when one is maintaining sobriety as far as alcohol is concerned. Emotional sobriety is more difficult to measure, because is it usually gauged by our behavior and feelings in response to people and situations.

If we lack emotional sobriety, we are likely to end up in “dry drunks”. This means we lose emotional control under pressure or when threatened. We may think we have this control, yet find ourselves falling apart when seemingly small problems come up.

Maybe we have to accept that we will never have all the emotional control that we admire in others. This emotional sensitivity may even be part of our alcoholism. Most important, we must ensure that emotional binges do not become binges involving real booze.

Nor should we judge ourselves too harshly when we undergo another emotional binge, or “dry drunk.” Such judgmental attitudes, even toward ourselves, may be a form of false pride.

Today I’ll seek all the serenity I can find. If I lose my cool temporarily, I’ll accept it as part of my general problem and get back to orderly thinking as quickly as possible.

Daily Reflections - May 18 2026

FREEDOM TO BE ME

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development,
we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are
going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p 83

My first true freedom is the freedom not to have to take
a drink today. If I truly want it, I will work the Twelve
Steps and the happiness of this freedom will come to me
through the Steps – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
Other freedoms will follow, and inventorying them is a
new happiness. I had a new freedom today, the freedom to
be me. I have the freedom to be the best me I have ever been.

Angie P. - "Strength in Sobriety for Women"

Twenty-Four Hours A Day - May 7 2026

A.A. Thought For The Day

It’s very important to keep in a grateful frame of mind, if we want to
stay sober. We should be grateful that we’re living in a day and age
when alcoholics aren’t treated as they often used to be treated before
Alcoholics Anonymous was started. In the old days, every town had its
town drunk who was regarded with scorn and ridiculed by the rest of
the townspeople. We have come into A.A. and found all the sympathy,
understanding, and fellowship that we could ask for. There’s no other
group like A.A. in the world. Am I grateful?

Meditation For The Day

God takes our efforts for good and blesses them. God needs our efforts.
We need God’s blessing. Together, they mean spiritual success. Our
efforts are necessary. We cannot merely relax and drift with the tide.
We must often direct our efforts against the tide of materialism around
us. When difficulties come, our efforts are needed to surmount them. But
God directs our efforts into the right channels and God’s power is
necessary to help us choose the right.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may choose the right. I pray that I may have God’s blessing
and direction in all my efforts for good.

Walk in Dry Places - - April 26 2026

Never withholding ourselves.
Living Sober.

We may have let ourselves believe that we’re supposed to display an attitude that expresses our opinions of others. If a person is crude and boorish, we should be cool and defensive for our self-protection. If a person is warm and friendly, we should respond in warm and friendly ways.
If we have believed these things, then we’re actually letting others control our attitudes and behavior. We are letting personalities interfere with the high principles we are learning in AA. We are not living at the best possible level.

In reality, we should always display an attitude that reflects kindness, optimism, friendliness, and concern. There other person’s disposition, whether it’s sour or sweet, should have nothing to do with our being what we want to be. We should never withhold the fine inner qualities that develop and grow as we continue to live the program.

In time, we begin to learn that this attitude always comes back to us in the form of greater peace and happiness. And what’s great about iti s that it’s always under our direct control.
As I go about my business today, I will express a kindliness and concern toward everybody. Nobody’s behavior can make me adopt a suspicious or defensive attitude.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation

The Eye Opener - April 23 2026

The reasoning of the practicing alcoholic is in such foul shape that he is apt to take any attitude on the drinking question and usually does.

It is unreasonable to expect them to view their own or anyone else’s sobriety in a rational way. Naturally plain common sense is not possible in the midst of an alcoholic fog, but why – oh, why – do so many practicing alcoholics, including slipees, invariably persist in looking for the most insecure member of AA in their quest for a drinking partner?

If you are homesick for the gutter, go on back to it. But don’t take anyone with you.

Hazelden Foundation

DAILY REFLECTIONS - April 23 2026

A.A. IS NOT A CURE-ALL

It would be a product of false pride to claim that A.A. is a cure-all,
even for alcoholism.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 285

In my early years of sobriety I was full of pride, thinking that A.A. was
the only source of treatment for a good and happy life. It certainly
was the basic ingredient for my sobriety and even today, with over
twelve years in the program, I am very involved in meetings,
sponsorship and service. During the first four years of my recovery, I
found it necessary to seek professional help, since my emotional health
was extremely poor. There are those folks too, who have found
sobriety and happiness in other organizations. A.A. taught me that I
had a choice: to go to any lengths to enhance my sobriety. A.A. may
not be a cure-all for everything, but it is the center of my sober living.

opyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc -

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY - April 19 2026

A.A. Thought for the Day

Since I’ve been putting sobriety into my life, I’ve been taking out a lot of good things. I can describe it best as a kind of quiet satisfaction. I feel good. I feel right with the world, on the right side of the fence. As long as I put sobriety into my life, almost everything I take out is good. The satisfaction you get out of living a sober life is made up of a lot of little things. You have the ambition to do things you didn’t feel like doing when you were drinking. Am I getting satisfaction out of living a sober life?

Meditation for the Day

It is a glorious way—the upward way. There are wonderful discoveries in the realm of the spirit. There are tender intimacies in the quiet times of communion with God. There is an amazing, almost incomprehensible understanding of the other person. On the up-ward way, you can have all the strength you need from that Higher Power. You cannot make too many demands on Him for strength. He gives you all the power you need, as long as you are moving along the upward way.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may see the beautiful horizons ahead on the upward way. I pray that I may keep going forward to the more abundant life.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation

WALK IN DRY PLACES - April 19 2026

WHO PUSHES MY BUTTONS?

Personal Relations

AA old-timers would be mystified today to hear program members talk about people “pushing their buttons.” (They can’t get your goat if they don’t know where it is tied) This expression wasn’t around when the early AA members pulled themselves out of the swamp and began their long journey to sobriety.

But they had their buttons pushed aplenty. Dr. Bob, treating alcoholics at St. Thomas Hospital; heard snide comments from other physicians who resented giving bed space to drunks. Bill W. struggling to launch a worldwide movement, took most every alcoholic, then and now, gets some heavy kidding from the world of drinkers.

What is the real problem in these instances? Are others pushing our buttons, or do we set ourselves up for this by being sensitive and vulnerable? Nobody could push our buttons if we didn’t have buttons to push.

We no longer have to worry about button-pushers if we accept them as they are, realizing that we don’t need their approval and can’t really be hurt by anything they do or say. Our serenity in the face of such problems may actually serve to attract people to AA.

Nobody can push my buttons unless I let them. Today I’ll be serene and clam no matter what others say and do. Thanks to the program, I’ll not worry about certain individuals who try to get under my skin.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved.

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY - April 12 2026

A.A. Thought for the Day
This sober world is a pleasant place for an alcoholic to live in. Once you’ve gotten out of your alcoholic fog, you find that the world looks good. You find real friends in A.A. You get a job. You feel good in the morning. You eat a good breakfast and you do a good day’s work at home or outside. And your family loves you and welcomes you because you’re sober. Am I convinced that this sober world is a pleasant place for an alcoholic to live in?

Meditation for the Day
Our need is God’s opportunity. First we must recognize our need. Often this means helplessness before some weakness or sickness and an admission of our need for help. Next comes faith in the power of God’s spirit, available to us to meet that need. Before any need can be met, our faith must find expression. That expression of faith is all God needs to manifest His power in our lives. Faith is the key that unlocks the storehouse of God’s resources.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may first admit my needs. I pray that then I may have faith that God will meet those needs, in the way which is best for me.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation

WALK IN DRY PLACES - April 10 2026

WALK IN DRY PLACES

Protecting Sobriety

Though AA members never criticize drinking customs, we do tell newcomers that it’s wise to avoid situations involving alcohol. Even this is not an absolute, because we also concede that it’s sometimes necessary to attend a cocktail reception or to lunch with a friend in a bar. So how do we distinguish between what’s safe and what’s likely to lead to trouble.

The litmus test is always to look at our own motives and spiritual guidance. A drink has no power over us unless we want to take the drink. If we are not deliberately seeking out drinking situations, our motives are probably good. If our spiritual house is in order, our Higher Power will also protect us in any situation.

Wherever we go, however, we should also make our sobriety the first priority of business. Whatever the importance of any social event, it is insignificant compared with the importance of sobriety. Keep sobriety at the top of your list, and the other decisions will follow in proper order. We should hole the additional thought that “walking in dry places” is really thinking of ourselves as always being in dry places under God’s guidance.

Today I will focus on the sober world I want to enjoy and share. The world of drinking has nothing for me. I may encounter situations involving casual drinking today, but I will not be part of them in mind and spirit. I will think and walk in dry places.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. 

THE EYE OPENER - April 7 2026

Many of us, when we get over the Big Trouble, whiskey, sit back complacently and begin to enjoy our sobriety.

To work the Program successfully, we must remember that whiskey is only the first. There are many other conflicts ahead and we must press on to successive victories over our many character defects to achieve a new way of living.

The conflict will never end until you arrive at perfection, or still more probably, the grave.

When you began to rest complacently on your oars, you will find your boat is drifting downstream.

Published by Hazelden 

As Bill Sees It - April 4 2026

. . .In All Our Affairs, p. 94

The chief purpose of A.A. is sobriety. We all realize that without sobriety we have nothing.

However, it is possible to expand this simple aim into a great deal of nonsense, so far as the individual member is concerned. Sometimes we hear him say, in effect, “Sobriety is my sole responsibility. After all, I’m a pretty fine chap, except for my drinking. Give me sobriety, and I’ve got it made!’

As long as our friend clings to this comfortable alibi, he will make so little progress with his real life problems and responsibilities that he stands in a fair way to get drunk again. This is why A.A.’s Twelfth Steps urges that ‘we practice these principles in all our affairs.’ We are not living just to be sober; we are living to learn, to serve, and to love.

Letter, 1966 

A Day At A Time - 13th Jan 2026

Reflection For The Day

The Program and my friends in the fellowship have provided me with a whole new set of tools for living. Even the slogans that once seemed so trite and corny are now becoming an important part of my daily life: Easy Does It; First Things First; This, Too, Will Pass. If I use all of my tools regularly and well, they’ll also help rid me of such negative feelings as guilt, anxiety, rebellion and pride. When I’m feeling depressed, do I use the tools that have been proven effective? Or do I grit my teeth and suffer in painful silence.

Today I Pray

I praise my wonder-working Higher Power for giving me the tools for recovery, once I admitted I was powerless over alcohol or other drugs or addictions and gave myself over to the will of God as I understand Him. I give thanks for the Twelve Steps, and for the fellowship of the group, which can help me see myself honestly. I give thanks for those words and phrases which become, as we understand them more completely, banners in our celebration of sobriety.

Today I Will Remember

Pass on the passwords to recovery.

Walk In Dry Places - 12th Jan 2026

IF IT FEELS GOOD. . .

Facing Other Excesses

In the drinking life, one of the flippant sayings we heard was, “If it feels good, do it!” We hear that often in sobriety, although it sometimes appears on a bumper sticker or as casual comment. And if we’ve learned anything in sobriety, we know that this remark is really a permit for disaster. We drank to feel good, but we often ended up feeling terrible.

Yet the same slogan, properly understood, can be useful for the recovering alcoholic. We all want to feel good. But a drink means temporary pleasure followed by pain, guilt, remorse, and ruin. This is not really feeling good. It is a nightmare of the worst feeling we can imagine.

Happy sobriety does feel good, even though it may include short-term discomfort or temporary boredom. The long-run tendency of sobriety is toward having peace of mind, feeling good about ourselves, and using our talents and opportunities wisely. This is the mature way to feel good, but we achieve it only by thinking and acting in the right ways. Perhaps our slogan could be, “If it will make you feel good now and in the future, do it!” Today I will pass up anything that seems pleasurable in the short run but will make me guilty and unhappy later on.

Step by Step #essentialsofrecovery.com #Recovery #AA

 Today, in the throes of all the demands on me at work and in my personal life, I must strengthen my resolve to my recovery by remembering how I got here – and why. I must ask myself honestly if I have experienced the fundamental change in emotion and psyche that is required in recovery. I must not permit any of those destructive influences in my yesterdays to sabotage my today and, probably, my tomorrow. I must acknowledge any subconscious seed that might be planting a slip or relapse. And if that seed exists, I know I’m in trouble with Steps One, Two and Three. Those Steps – of total admission, surrender and submission of all I cannot control – are the building blocks of my Program. I must be on guard if I feel a crack in any of them. Today, I am an alcoholic, and I cannot – and do not want to – drink. Sweet and simple. And our common journey continues. Step by step. – Chris M.

Daily Reflections 11th Jan 2026

THE 100% STEP

“Only Step One, where we made the 100% admission we were powerless over alcohol, can be practiced with absolute perfection.”

 —TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 68

Long before I was able to obtain sobriety in A.A., I knew without a doubt that alcohol was killing me, yet even with this knowledge, I was unable to stop drinking. So, when faced with Step One, I found it easy to admit that I lacked the power to not drink. But was my life unmanageable? Never! Five months after coming into A.A., I was drinking again and wondered why. Later on, back in A.A. and smarting from my wounds, I learned that Step One is the only Step that can be taken 100%. And that the only way to take it 100% is to take 100% of the Step. That was many 24 hours ago, and I haven’t had to take Step One again.

Father Leo’s 11th Jan 2026

 11
January 

PHILOSOPHY


“To teach men how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing philosophy can do.”

—Bertrand Russell

I suppose the “Twelve Steps” are a practical philosophy of how to live positively with the disease of alcoholism: (a) Don’t drink. (b) Find a God in your life that is understandable. (c) Begin to make positive choices in attitudes and behaviours. (d) Let “never forget” be an essential part of the message.

The miracle of this philosophy is that it reaches out to so many who suffer with addictive compulsions and teaches us how to live with being imperfect. I believe the Twelve Steps are the answer to “The Fall” of man—we are going home to God. Let me see beyond the logic to Your loving energy.