Daily Reflections

SURRENDER AND SELF-EXAMINATION


My stability came out of trying to give, not out of demanding that I receive. Thus I think it can work out with emotional sobriety. If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. Let us, with God’s help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love; we may then be able to Twelfth Step ourselves and others into emotional sobriety.

-THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEART, p. 238

Years of dependency on alcohol as a chemical mood-changer deprived me of the capability to interact emotionally with my fellows. I thought I had to be self-sufficient, self-reliant, and self-motivated in a world of unreliable people. Finally I lost my self-respect and was left with dependency, lacking any ability to trust myself or to believe in anything. Surrender and self-examination while sharing with newcomers helped me to ask humbly for help.

A Day At A Time

Reflection For The Day

Once we surrendered and came to The Program, many of us wondered what we could do with all the time on our hands.  All the hours we’d previously spent planning, hiding, alibiing, getting loaded, coming down, getting “well,” juggling our accounts — and all the rest — threatened to turn into empty chunks of time that somehow had to be filled.  We needed new energy previously absorbed by our addictions.  We soon realized that substituting a new and different activity is far easier than just stopping the old activity and putting nothing in its place.  Am I redirecting my mind and energy?

Today I Pray

I pray that, once free of the encumbrance of my addiction.  I may turn to my Higher Power to discover for me how to fill my time constructively and creatively.  May that same Power that makes human paths cross and links certain people to specific situations, lead me along good new roads into good new places.

Today I Will Remember

Happenstance may be more than chance. 

Step by Step - May 5 2026

” …our problems were of our own making. Bottles were only a symbol.” – Alcoholics Anonymous, Third Edition, 1976, p 103

Today, I surrender to the reality that I and I alone am responsible for my problems, that I and I alone am responsible for being addicted to my substance of choice and that I and I alone can identify and correct the “symbol” on which my addiction is based. If I lost a job or a spouse or partner because of drinking or any reason and I continued drinking or began to drink to “cope” with resentment or a sense of loss, the problem is my handling of those feelings, not the situations themselves. Anger and resentment, then, are the “symbol” of my addictive character, and it is that defect which I must identify in my Fourth and hand over to my Higher Power in the Sixth and Seventh Steps. Something must replace the void when anger and resentment are relinquished, however, and the service edict of the 12th Step – carrying the message to other alcoholics – suffices in turning my attention from myself and to others who need and want the message. Today, I accept that I am responsible for my problems and that I and I alone am responsible to their consequences. And our common journey continues. 

Step by step. – Chris M., 2014

Daily Reflections - 2nd February 2026

RESCUED BY SURRENDERING


Characteristic of the so-called typical alcoholic is a narcissistic egocentric core, dominated by feelings of omnipotence, intent on maintaining at all costs its inner integrity…. Inwardly the alcoholic brooks no control from man or God. He, the alcoholic, is and must be the master of his destiny. He will fight to the end to preserve that position.

A.A. COMES OF AGE, p.311

The great mystery is: “Why do some of us die alcoholic deaths, fighting to preserve the ‘independence’ of our ego, while others seem to sober up effortlessly in A.A.?” Help from a Higher Power, the gift of sobriety, came to me when an otherwise unexplained desire to stop drinking coincided with my willingness to accept the suggestions of the men and women of A.A. I had to surrender, for only by reaching out to God and my fellows could I be rescued.

JUST FOR TODAY - 1st February 2026

Hardships

“We felt different… Only after surrender are we able to overcome the alienation of addiction.”

~ Basic Text p. 22 ~

“But you don’t understand!” we spluttered, trying to cover up. “I’m different! I’ve really got it rough!” We used these lines over and over in our active addiction, either trying to escape the consequences of our actions or avoid following the rules that applied to everyone else. We may have cried them at our first meeting. Perhaps we’ve even caught ourselves whining them recently.

So many of us feel different or unique. As addicts, we can use almost anything to alienate ourselves. But there’s no excuse for missing out on recovery, nothing that can make us ineligible for the program—not a life-threatening illness, not poverty, not anything. There are thousands of addicts who have found recovery despite the real hardships they’ve faced. Through working the program, their spiritual awareness has grown, in spite of—or perhaps in response to—those hardships.

Our individual circumstances and differences are irrelevant when it comes to recovery. By letting go of our uniqueness and surrendering to this simple way of life, we’re bound to find that we feel a part of something. And feeling a part of something gives us the strength to walk through life, hardships and all.

Just for today: I will let go of my uniqueness and embrace the principles of recovery I have in common with so many others. My hardships do not exclude me from recovery; rather, they draw me into it.
 
© 1991 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services Inc 

Just For Today - 13th Jan 2026

       Surrender To Win


“Help for addicts begins only when we are able to admit complete defeat.”  —Basic Text, p. 22

Complete defeat—what a concept! That must mean surrender. Surrender—to give up absolutely. To quit with no reservations. To put up our hands and quit fighting. Maybe to put up our hand at our first meeting and admit we’re addicts.

How do we know we’ve taken a First Step that will allow us to live drug-free? We know because, once we have taken that gigantic step, we never have to use again—just for today. That’s it. It’s not easy, but it’s very simple.

We work the First Step. We accept that, yes, we are addicts. “One is too many, and a thousand never enough.” We’ve proven that to ourselves enough times. We admit that we cannot handle drugs in any form. We admit it; we say it out loud, if necessary.

We take the First Step at the beginning of our day. For one day. This admission frees us, just for today, from the need to live out our addiction all over again. We’ve surrendered to this disease. We give up. We quit. But in quitting, we win. And that’s the paradox of the First Step: We surrender to win, and by surrendering we gain a far greater power than we ever imagined possible. Just for today: I admit that I am powerless over my addiction. I will surrender to win.

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrecovery

A..A. Thought for the Day

Having surrendered our lives to God and put our drink problem in His hands doesn’t mean that we’ll never be tempted to drink. So we must build up strength for the time when temptation will come. In this quiet time, we read and pray and get our minds in the right mood for the day. Starting the day right is a great help in keeping sober. As the days go by and we get used to the sober life, it gets easier and easier. We begin to develop a deep gratitude to God for saving us from that old life. And we begin to enjoy peace and serenity and quiet happiness. Am I trying to live the way God wants me to live?

Meditation for the Day

The elimination of selfishness is the key to happiness and can only be accomplished with God’s help. We start out with a spark of the Divine Spirit but a large amount of selfishness. As we grow and come in con-tact with other people, we can take one of two paths. We can become more and more selfish and practically extinguish the Divine Spark within us, or we can become more unselfish and develop our spirituality until it becomes the most important thing in our lives.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may grow more and more unselfish, honest, pure, and loving. I pray that I may take the right path every day.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation

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KEEP IT SIMPLE #essentialsofrecovery

Better bend than break.

~ Scottish proverb ~

Our program is based on bending. We call It “surrender.” We surrender our self-will to the care of God. We do what we believe our Higher Power wants us to do. We learn this as an act of love.

Many of us believed surrender was a sign of weakness. We tried to control everything. But we change as we’re in the program longer and longer. We learn to bend. We start to see that what is important is learning. We learn to do what’s best for us and for others, to learn, we need an open mind, to bend, we must stay open. Love and care become the center of our lives.

Prayer for the Day

Higher Power, teach me that strength comes from knowing how and when to bend.

Action for the Day

Today, I’ll check on myself. How open am I? Do I bend when I need to?

Copyright © 1988 by Hazelden Foundation 

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrecovery

A.A. Thought for the Day

After we’ve made a surrender, the drink problem is out of our hands and in the hands of God. The thing we have to do is to be sure that we never reach out and take the problem back into our own hands. Leave it in God’s hands. Whenever I’m tempted to take a drink, I must say to myself: “I can’t do that. I’ve made a bargain with God not to drink. I know God doesn’t want me to drink and so I won’t do it.” At the same time I say a little prayer to God for the strength needed to keep the bargain with Him. Am I going to keep my bargain with God?

Meditation for the Day

I will try to grow in this new life. I will think of spiritual things often and unconsciously I will grow. The nearer I get to the new life, the more I will see my unfitness. My sense of failure is a sure sign that I am growing in the new life. It is only struggle that hurts. In sloth—physical, mental, or spiritual—there is no sense of failure or discomfort. With struggle and effort, I am conscious not of strength but of weakness until I am really living the new life. But in the struggle, I can always rely on the power of God to help me.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may see signs of my growth in the new lite. I pray that I may always keep trying to grow.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation 

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THE EYE OPENER #essentialsofrecovery

AA is full of paradoxes. Our great Victory came as a result of our unconditional surrender; because we fell we are able to lift others; because of our mental, moral and spiritual illness we attained a health we never had in our non-alcoholic days; because we were social outcasts we have become the hope of society.

Alcoholism, which was our weakness, has indeed become our strength.

Published by Hazelden 

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DAILY REFLECTIONS #essentialsofrec #omnipotence #Surrender #Recovery

RESCUED BY SURRENDERING

Characteristic of the so-called typical alcoholic is a narcissistic egocentric core, dominated by feelings of omnipotence, intent on maintaining at all costs its inner integrity. . . . Inwardly the alcoholic brooks no control from man or God He, the alcoholic, is and must be the master of his destiny. He will fight to the end to preserve that position.

~ A.A. COMES OF AGE, p. 311 ~

The great mystery is: “Why do some of us die alcoholic deaths, fighting to preserve the ‘independence’ of our ego, while others seem to sober up effortlessly in A.A.?” Help from a Higher Power, the gift of sobriety, came to me when an otherwise unexplained desire to stop drinking coincided with my willingness to accept the suggestions of the men and women of A.A. I had to surrender, for only by reaching out to God and my fellows could I be rescued.

Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc

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Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrec

DAILY REFLECTIONS #essentialsofrecovery

RESCUED BY SURRENDERING

Characteristic of the so-called typical alcoholic is a narcissistic egocentric core, dominated by feelings of omnipotence, intent on maintaining at all costs its inner integrity. . . . Inwardly the alcoholic brooks no control from man or God He, the alcoholic, is and must be the master of his destiny. He will fight to the end to preserve that position.

~ A.A. COMES OF AGE, p. 311 ~

The great mystery is: “Why do some of us die alcoholic deaths, fighting to preserve the ‘independence’ of our ego, while others seem to sober up effortlessly in A.A.?” Help from a Higher Power, the gift of sobriety, came to me when an otherwise unexplained desire to stop drinking coincided with my willingness to accept the suggestions of the men and women of A.A. I had to surrender, for only by reaching out to God and my fellows could I be rescued.

Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc 

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Or Follow Us On Twitter #essentialsofrecovery

JUST FOR TODAY #essentialsofrec #Hardships #NA #Surrender

Hardships

“We felt different… Only after surrender are we able to overcome the alienation of addiction.”

~ Basic Text p. 22 

“But you don’t understand!” we spluttered, trying to cover up. “I’m different! I’ve really got it rough!” We used these lines over and over in our active addiction, either trying to escape the consequences of our actions or avoid following the rules that applied to everyone else. We may have cried them at our first meeting. Perhaps we’ve even caught ourselves whining them recently.

So many of us feel different or unique. As addicts, we can use almost anything to alienate ourselves. But there’s no excuse for missing out on recovery, nothing that can make us ineligible for the program—not a life-threatening illness, not poverty, not anything. There are thousands of addicts who have found recovery despite the real hardships they’ve faced. Through working the program, their spiritual awareness has grown, in spite of—or perhaps in response to—those hardships.

Our individual circumstances and differences are irrelevant when it comes to recovery. By letting go of our uniqueness and surrendering to this simple way of life, we’re bound to find that we feel a part of something. And feeling a part of something gives us the strength to walk through life, hardships and all.

Just for today: I will let go of my uniqueness and embrace the principles of recovery I have in common with so many others. My hardships do not exclude me from recovery; rather, they draw me into it.
 


© 1991 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services Inc

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Just For Today #essentialsofrec

Surrendering Self-Will

“We want and demand that things always go our way. We should know from our past experience that our way of doing things did not work.” 

Basic Text, p.78

All of us have ideas, plans, goals for our lives. There’s nothing in the NA program that says we shouldn’t think for ourselves, take initiative, and put responsible plans into action. It’s when our lives are driven by self-will that we run into problems.

When we are living willfully, we go beyond thinking for ourselves – we think only of ourselves. We forget that we are but a part of the world and that whatever personal strength we have is drawn from a Higher Power. We might even go so far as to imagine that other people exist solely to do our bidding. Quickly, we find ourselves at odds with everyone and everything around us.

At this point, we have two choices. We can continue in our slavery to self-will, making unreasonable demands and becoming frustrated because the planet doesn’t spin our way. Or we can surrender, relax, seek knowledge of God’s will and the power to carry that out, and find our way back to a condition of peace with the world. Thinking, taking initiative, making responsible plans-there’s nothing wrong with these things, so long as they serve God’s will, not merely our own.

Just for today: I will plan to do God’s will, not mine. If I find myself at odds with everything around me, I will surrender self-will. 

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Step by Step #essentialsofrec #recovery #Surrender

“I took everything that AA had to give me. Easy does it, first things first, one day at a time. It was at that point that I reached surrender. I heard one very ill woman say that she didn’t believe in the surrender part of the AA program. …Surrender to me has meant the ability to run my home, to face my responsibilities as they should be faced, to take life as it comes to me day by day, and work my problems out. That’s what surrender has meant to me. I surrendered once to the bottle, and I couldn’t do these things.” 

– Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Part II (“They Stopped in Time”), Ch. 4 (“The Housewife Who Drank at Home”), p 340.

Today, I look again at the concept of surrender and realize its various interpretations that can be integrated into my own recovery. While surrender arguably may be interpreted most often as entrusting our very lives to a Higher Power, the excerpt from the housewife’s story shows us that surrender is regaining the ability to take back and carry out our responsibilities and meet problems head-on and work them out. This requires sobriety and being clean, of course, and the promises of the Program by surrendering what we would be without it are just that – promises. Today, I long for those promises and, today, I become responsible enough to work for them. And our common journey continues. 

Step by step. – Chris M. 

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Daily Reflections #essentialsofrec #SELF-EXAMINATION

SURRENDER AND SELF-EXAMINATION

My stability came out of trying to give, not out of demanding that I receive. Thus I think it can work out with emotional sobriety. If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. Let us, with God’s help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love; we may then be able to Twelfth Step ourselves and others into emotional sobriety. 

THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEART, p. 238

Years of dependency on alcohol as a chemical mood-changer deprived me of the capability to interact emotionally with my fellows. I thought I had to be self-sufficient, self-reliant, and self-motivated in a world of unreliable people. Finally I lost my self-respect and was left with dependency, lacking any ability to trust myself or to believe in anything. Surrender and self-examination while sharing with newcomers helped me to ask humbly for help.

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Just For Today #essentialsofrec #NA #Recovery

 Surrendering Self-Will

“Our fears are lessened and faith begins to grow as we learn the true meaning of surrender. We are no longer fighting fear, anger, guilt, self-pity, or depression.”

 Basic Text p. 26

Surrender is the beginning of a new way of life. When driven primarily by self-will, we constantly wondered whether we’d covered all the bases, whether we’d manipulated that person in just the right way to achieve our ends, whether we’d missed a critical detail in our efforts to control and manage the world.

We either felt afraid, fearing our schemes would fail; angry or self-pitying when they fell through; or guilty when we pulled them off. It was hard, living on self-will, but we didn’t know any other way.

Not that surrender is always easy. On the contrary, surrender can be difficult, especially in the beginning. Still, it’s easier to trust God, a Power capable of managing our lives, than to trust only ourselves, whose lives are unmanageable. And the more we surrender, the easier it gets.

When we turn our will and our lives over to the care of our Higher Power, all we have to do is our part, as responsibly and conscientiously as we can. Then we can leave the results up to our Higher Power. By surrendering, acting on faith, and living our lives according to the simple spiritual principles of this program, we can stop worrying and start living.

Just for today: I will surrender self-will. I will seek knowledge of God’s will for me and the power to carry it out. I will leave the results in my Higher Power’s hands. 

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DAILY REFLECTIONS #essentialsofrec #Surrender #Selfishness

SURRENDERING SELF-WILL

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
~ TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 34 ~

No matter how much one wishes to try, exactly how can one turn his own will and his own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is? In my search for the answer to this question, I became aware of the wisdom with which it was written: that this is a two-part Step.

I could see many times where I should have died, or at least been injured, during my previous style of living, and it never happened. Someone, or something, was looking after me. I choose to believe my life has always been in God’s care. He alone controls the number of days I will be granted until physical death.

The matter of will (self-will or God’s will) is the more difficult part of the Step for me. It is only when I have experienced enough emotional pain, through failed attempts to fix myself, that I become willing to surrender to God’s will for my life. Surrender is like the calm after the storm. When my will is in line with God’s will for me, there is peace within.

Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrec #Recovery #AA

A.A. Thought for the Day

In AA. we must surrender, give up, admit that we’re helpless. We surrender our lives to God and ask Him for help. When He knows that we’re ready, He gives us by His grace the free gift of sobriety. And we can’t take any credit for having stopped drinking, because we didn’t do it by our own willpower. There’s no place for pride or boasting. We can only be grateful to God for doing for us what we could never do for ourselves. Do I believe that God has made me a free gift of the strength to stay sober?

Meditation for the Day

I must work for God, with God, and through God’s help. By helping to bring about a true fellowship of human beings, I am working for God. I am also working with God because this is the way God works, and He is with me when I am doing such work. I cannot do good work, however, without God’s help. In the final analysis, it is through the grace of God that any real change in human personality takes place. I have to rely on God’s power, and anything I accomplish is through His help.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may work for God and with God. I pray that I may be used to change human personalities through God’s help.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation

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TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY #essentialsofrec #Recovery #Surrender

A.A. Thought for the Day

Having surrendered our lives to God and put our drink problem in His hands doesn’t mean that we’ll never be tempted to drink. So we must build up strength for the time when temptation will come. In this quiet time, we read and pray and get our minds in the right mood for the day. Starting the day right is a great help in keeping sober. As the days go by and we get used to the sober life, it gets easier and easier. We begin to develop a deep gratitude to God for saving us from that old life. And we begin to enjoy peace and serenity and quiet happiness. Am I trying to live the way God wants me to live?

Meditation for the Day

The elimination of selfishness is the key to happiness and can only be accomplished with God’s help. We start out with a spark of the Divine Spirit but a large amount of selfishness. As we grow and come in con-tact with other people, we can take one of two paths. We can become more and more selfish and practically extinguish the Divine Spark within us, or we can become more unselfish and develop our spirituality until it becomes the most important thing in our lives.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may grow more and more unselfish, honest, pure, and loving. I pray that I may take the right path every day.

© 1954, 1975, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation

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