The Eye Opener - May 28 2026

Life has been hard on us, but most of it was made hard by ourselves. The hard life, however, taught us much: it strengthened our muscles; it broadened our experiences. We are better men because of it. We have known much of hunger, pain, defeat, mental anguish, despair and shame. Only the good survived this ordeal, and we can alleviate the sufferings of the world all the better because we have suffered also.

God was not punishing us …He was conditioning us.

Hazelden Foundation

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.

Angie P. - "Strength in Sobriety for Women"

Twenty-Four Hours a Day - May 15 2026

AA Thought for the Day

In AA, we find a new strength and peace from the realization that there must be a Power greater than ourselves which is running the universe and which is on our side when we live a good life. So the AA Program really never ends. You begin by overcoming drink and you go on from there to many new opportunities for happiness and usefulness.

Am I really enjoying the full benefits of AA?

Meditation for the Day

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” We should not seek material things first, but seek spiritual things first and material things will come to us as we honestly work for them. Many people seek material things first and think they can then grow into knowledge of spiritual things. You cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time. The first requisites of an abundant life are the spiritual things: honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. Until you have these qualities, quantities of material things are of little real use to you.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may put much effort into acquiring spiritual things. I pray that I may not expect good things until I am right spiritually.

Hazelden Foundation

As Bill Sees It - May 9 2026

The Way Of Strength, p. 129

We need not apologize to anyone for depending upon the Creator.
We have good reason to disbelieve those who think spirituality is the
way of weakness. For us, it is the way of strength.

The verdict of the ages is that men of faith seldom lack courage.
They trust their God. So we never apologize for our belief in Him.
Instead, we try to let Him demonstrate, through us, what He can do.

Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 68

Just For Today 11th Jan 2026

Faith

“As we develop faith in our daily lives, we find that our Higher Power supplies us with the strength and guidance that we need.”

—Basic Text, p. 91
Some of us come into recovery very frightened and insecure. We feel weak and alone. We are uncertain of our direction and don’t know where to go for answers. We are told that if we find some faith in a Power greater than ourselves, we will find security and guidance. We want that feeling of safety and strength. But faith doesn’t come overnight. It takes time and effort to grow.

The seed is planted when we ask our Higher Power for help and then acknowledge the source of our help when it comes. We nurture the tiny seed of faith with the sunlight of our prayers each day. Our faith grows, a reward for living life on its own terms. One day we realize our faith has become like a huge spreading tree; it doesn’t stop the storms of life, but we know that we are safe in its shelter. Just for today: I know that faith in my Higher Power will not calm the storms of life, but it will calm my heart. I will let my faith shelter me in times of trouble.

Twenty-Four Hours A Day 11th Jan 2026

A.A. Thought For The Day

When we were drinking, most of us never thought of helping others. We liked to buy drinks for people, because that made us feel like bigshots. But we only used others for our own pleasure. To really go out and try to help somebody who needed help never occurred to us. To us, helping others looked like a sucker’s game. But when we came into A.A., we began to try to help others. And we found out that helping others made us happy and also helped us to stay sober. Have I learned that there is happiness in helping others?

Meditation For The Day

I will pray only for strength and that God’s will be done. I will use God’s unlimited store of strength for my needs. I will seek God’s will for me. I will strive for consciousness of God’s presence, for He is the light of the world. I have become a pilgrim, who needs only marching orders and strength and guidance for this day.

Prayer For The Day

 I pray that I may seek God’s guidance day by day. I pray that I may strive to abide in God’s presence.

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrecovery

A.A. Thought for the Day

Strength comes also from working with other alcoholics. When you are trying to help a new prospect with the program, you are building up your own strength at the same time. You see the other person in the condition you might be in yourself and it makes your re-solve to stay sober stronger than ever. Often, you help yourself more than the other person, but if you do succeed in helping the prospect to get sober, you are stronger from the experience of having helped another person. Am I receiving strength from working with others?

Meditation for the Day

Faith is the bridge between you and God. It is the bridge that God has ordained. If all were seen and known, there would be no merit in doing right. Therefore God has ordained that we do not see or know directly. But we can experience the power of His spirit through our faith. It is the bridge between us and Him, which we can take or not, as we will. There could be no morality without free will. We must make the choice ourselves. We must make the venture of belief.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may choose and decide to cross the bridge of faith. I pray that by crossing this bridge I may receive the spiritual power I need.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation 

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrecovery

A.A. Thought for the Day

Strength comes from honestly telling your own experiences with drinking. In religion, they call it confession. We call it witnessing or sharing. You give a personal witness, you share your past experiences, the troubles you got into, the hospitals, the jails, the break-up of your home, the money wasted, the debts, and all the foolish things you did when you were drinking. This personal witness lets out the things you had kept hidden, brings them out into the open, and you find release and strength. Am I receiving strength from my personal witnessing?

Meditation for the Day

We cannot fully understand the universe. The simple fact is that we cannot even define space or time. They are both boundless, in spite of all we can do to limit them. We live in a box of space and time, which we have manufactured by our own minds and on that de-pends all our so-called knowledge of the universe. The simple fact is that we can never know all things, nor are we made to know them. Much of our lives must be taken on faith.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that my faith may be based on my own experience of the power of God in my life. I pray that I may know this one thing above all else in the universe.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation 

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DAILY REFLECTIONS #essentialsofrecovery

NO MORE STRUGGLE. . .

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone— even alcohol.

~ ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 84 ~

When A.A. found me, I thought I was in for a struggle, and that A.A. might provide the strength I needed to beat alcohol. Victorious in that fight, who knows what other battles I could win. I would need to be strong, though. All my previous experience with life proved that. Today I do not have to struggle or exert my will. If I take those Twelve Steps and let my Higher Power do the real work, my alcohol problem disappears all by itself. My living problems also cease to be struggles. I just have to ask whether acceptance—or change—is required. It is not my will, but His, that needs doing.

Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc 

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrecovery

A.A. Thought for the Day

We’re all looking for the power to overcome drinking. When we alcoholics come into A.A., our first question is: “How do I get the strength to quit?” At first it seems to us that we will never get the necessary strength. We see older members who have found the power we are looking for, but we don’t know the process by which they got it. This necessary strength comes in many ways. Have I found all the strength I need?

Meditation for the Day

You cannot have a spiritual need that God cannot supply. Your fundamental need is a spiritual need, the need for power to live the good life. The best spiritual supply is received by you when you want it to pass on to other people. You get it largely by giving it away. God gives you strength as you pass it on to another person. That strength means increased health; in-creased health means more good work, and more good work means more people helped. And so it goes on, a constant supply to meet all spiritual needs.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that my every spiritual need will be supplied by God. I pray that I may use the power I receive to help others.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation 

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrecovery

A.A. Thought for the Day

There are two important things we have to do if we want to get sober and stay sober. First, having admitted that we’re helpless before alcohol, we have to turn our alcoholic problem over to God and trust Him to take care of it for us. This means asking Him every morning for the strength to stay sober that day and thanking Him every night. It means really leaving the problem in God’s hands and not reaching out and taking the problem back to ourselves. Second, having given our drink problem to God, we must cooperate with Him by doing something about it ourselves. Am I doing these two things?

Meditation for the Day

I must prepare myself by doing each day what I can to develop spiritually and to help others to do so. God tests me and trains me and bends me to His will. If I am not properly trained, I cannot meet the test when it comes. I must want God’s will for me above all else. I must not expect to have what I am not prepared for. This preparation consists of quiet communion with God every day and gradually gaining the strength I need.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may really try to do God’s will in all my affairs. I pray that I may do all I can to help cithers find God’s will for them.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation 

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DAILY ZEN #essentialsofrecovery

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" 

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AS BILL SEES IT #essentialsofrecovery

~ Page 49 ~

Out of Defeat . . . Strength

If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol.

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

Such is the paradox of A.A. regeneration: strength arising out of complete defeat and weakness, the loss of one’s old life as a condition for finding a new one.

~ 1. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, P. 33 ~
~ 2. A.A. COMES OF AGE, P. 46 ~

© 1967 by Alcoholics Anonymous ® World Services, Inc

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As Bill Sees It #essentialsofrec #Strength

Source of Strength, p. 200

When World War II broke out, our A.A. dependence on a Higher Power had its first major test. A.A.’s entered the services and were scattered all over the world.

Would they be able to take discipline, stand up under fire, and endure the monotony and misery of war? Would the kind of dependence they had learned in A.A. carry them through?

Well, it did. They had even fewer alcoholic lapses or emotional binges than A.A.’s safe at home did. They were just as capable of endurance and valor as any other soldiers. Whether in Alaska or on the Salerno beachhead, their dependence upon a Higher Power worked.

Far from being a weakness, this dependence was their chief source of strength.

12 & 12, pp. 38-39 

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Today’s Gift #essentialsofrec #Nature #Lessons

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
—Rachel Carson

Beauty is everywhere. It is in the daisies, in the lavender wildflowers, in the new green grass of spring. As we walk through life, noticing such beauty strengthens us. It reminds us of the spiritual creative force alive in this world. On better days, we can feel our own creativity gaining power from such beauty. On harder days, nature’s sunset can help us step out of our suffering for a moment to be comforted and inspired by its splendor.

Even storms, in their wild and angry way, show us a power greater than ourselves. Such awesome beauty is beyond our understanding, and yet it is part of the earth we live on.

What lessons will nature teach me today?

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day #essentialsofrec #Strength #God

A.A. Thought For The Day
When I came into A.A., I found men and women who had been through the same things I had been through. But now they were thinking more about how they could help others than they were about themselves. They were a lot more unselfish than I ever was. By coming to meetings and associating with them, I began to think a little less about myself and a little more about other people. I also learned that I didn’t have to depend on myself alone to get out of the mess I was in. I could get a greater strength than my own. Am I now depending less on myself and more on God?

Meditation For The Day
You cannot help others unless you understand the person you are trying to help. To understand the problems and temptations of others, you must have been through them yourself. You must do all you can to understand others. You must study their backgrounds, their likes and dislikes, their reactions and their prejudices. When you see their weaknesses, do not confront the person with them. Share your own weaknesses, sins, and temptations and let other people find their own convictions.

Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may serve as a channel for God’s power to come into the lives of others. I pray that I may try to understand them.

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WALK IN DRY PLACES #essentialsofrec #Guidance #HigherPower

THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES

Guidance

Here’s an exercise that can strengthen your belief in a Higher Power:

Review your life for seemingly insignificant things that were actually
major turning points. A chance meeting, for example, may have resulted
in an astonishing career opportunity for lifelong romance. Such
surprises come to everybody, and people often wonder what their lives
would have been like without these “coincidences.”

The founding of AA also seemed to be a series of coincidences and chance
happenings. The message reached Bill W. by a circular route, and then
an unexpected business opportunity took him to Akron, Ohio, where he
finally met Dr. Bob. The unusual aspect was that Akron just “Happened”
to have stalwart members of the Oxford Group, the same fellowship that
had helped Bill W.

People with strong spiritual foundations in AA have come to see these
happenings not as coincidences but as the guidance of a Higher Power.
This Higher Power was…and is… continuously working through inspired
people.

We’ll find similar chance happenings for good in our own lives. We
don’t control them except by keeping our own house in order. This
assures us that the outcome of any “coincidence” will be favorable.

I’ll carry on my activities today without trying to second-guess what my
Higher Power has in mind for me. At the same time, I’ll know that a
superior intelligence is directing my affairs in wonderful ways.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved.

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrec #Strength #Faith

A.A. Thought for the Day

Strength comes also from working with other alcoholics. When you are trying to help a new prospect with the program, you are building up your own strength at the same time. You see the other person in the condition you might be in yourself and it makes your re-solve to stay sober stronger than ever. Often, you help yourself more than the other person, but if you do succeed in helping the prospect to get sober, you are stronger from the experience of having helped another person. Am I receiving strength from working with others?

Meditation for the Day

Faith is the bridge between you and God. It is the bridge that God has ordained. If all were seen and known, there would be no merit in doing right. Therefore God has ordained that we do not see or know directly. But we can experience the power of His spirit through our faith. It is the bridge between us and Him, which we can take or not, as we will. There could be no morality without free will. We must make the choice ourselves. We must make the venture of belief.

Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may choose and decide to cross the bridge of faith. I pray that by crossing this bridge I may receive the spiritual power I need.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrec #Strength

A.A. Thought for the Day

Strength comes from coming to believe in a Higher Power that can help you. You can’t define this Higher Power, but you can see how it helps other alcoholics. You hear them talk about it and you begin to get the idea yourself. You try praying in a quiet time each morning and you begin to feel stronger, as though your prayers were heard. So you gradually come to believe there must be a Power in the world outside yourself, which is stronger than you and to which you can turn for help. Am I receiving strength from my faith in a Higher Power?

Meditation for the Day

Spiritual development is achieved by daily persistence in living the way you believe God wants you to live. Like the wearing away of a stone by steady drops of water, so will your daily persistence wear away all the difficulties and gain spiritual success for you. Never falter in this daily, steady persistence. Go forward boldly and unafraid. God will help and strengthen you, as long as you are trying to do His will.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may persist day by day in gaining spiritual experience. I pray that I may make this a lifetime work.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation

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