Father Leo’s 26

UNDERSTANDING

“Man — a being in search of meaning.”

– Plato

Today I am on my way. With my sobriety has come a desire to understand — understand life, understand me, understand my relationships and understand God. Meaning — what is true? What is noble? What is spiritual? These are important to me today.

I no longer wish to hurt, damage, ridicule, destroy, fight, lie or cheat in my life. I’ve had enough of being negative. I’ve had enough of being lost and isolated in my arrogance. I’ve had enough of standing on the outside of life, feeling resentful and afraid.

Sobriety, for me today, involves my search for meaning — knowing full well that my understanding will always be imperfect and I can never comprehend fully. The ultimate answer is in living with confusion. I am not God … but I still intend to reach for the stars.

Lord, my cry for self-awareness is answered in the journey and not the destination.    

As Bill Sees It

Community Problem, p. 180


The answer to the problem of alcoholism seems to be in education–education in schoolrooms, in medical colleges, among clergymen and employers, in families, and in the public at large. From cradle to grave, the drunk and the potential alcoholic will have to be completely surrounded by a true and deep understanding and by a continuous barrage of information.


This means factual education, properly presented. Heretofore, much of this education has attacked the immortality of drinking rather than the illness of alcoholism.


Now who is going to do all this education? Obviously, it is both a community job and a job for specialists. Individually, we A.A.’s can help, but A.A. as such cannot, and should not, get directly into this field. Therefore, we must rely on other agencies, on outside friends and their willingness to supply great amounts of money and effort.

Grapevine, March 1958

A Day At A Time - May 8 2026

Reflection For The Day

I’ve learned in The Program that I need not apologize to anyone for depending upon God as I understand Him. In fact, I now have good reason to disbelieve those who think spirituality is the way of weakness. For me, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that men and women of faith seldom lack courage. they trust their God. So I never apologize for my belief in Him, but, instead, I try to let Him demonstrate, through me and those around me, what He can do. Do I walk as I talk?

Today I Pray

May my faith be confirmed as I see how God has worked through others since the beginning of time. May I see that the brave ones, the miracle-workers, the happy people are those who have professed their spirituality. May I see, even now as I look around, how God works through those who believe in Him.

Today I Will Remember

To Watch God at Work.

Walk in Dry Places - May 2 2026

Look out for the power trips
Understanding hidden motives

We can often use a lofty reason to disguise a hidden motive behind our actions. We might be seeking power over people’s lives, for example, while claiming that “we’re only out to help them.” We may argue for a point of view only to establish a position of power. Such power trips are destructive, and others usually see them for what they really are.

If we’ve really accepted the principles of the Twelve Steps, we have no need for power trips. The logic of Step Eleven, for example, is that we’ll always have the power needed to carry out what’s in line with God’s will for us. We do not have to jostle and manipulate others to establish our importance or our authority.

When we really come to terms with our own tendencies to take power trips, we’ll be able to deal with others who come on strong with their power trips. We’ll soon perceive that such threats usually fade when we refuse to resist them or be upset by them.

I’ll undoubtedly meet people today who are maneuvering for power in different situations. I will neither criticize nor oppose them. My responsibility today is to avoid any of my own tendencies to take such power trips.

Just For Today - April 23 2026

A God Of Our Own Understanding

“Many of us understand God to be simply whatever force keeps us clean.”
Basic Text, p. 25

Some of us enter recovery with a working understanding of a Higher Power. For a lot of us, however, “God” is a troublesome word. We may doubt the existence of any sort of Power greater than ourselves. Or we may remember uncomfortable experiences with religion and shy away from “the God stuff.”

Starting over in recovery means we can start over in our spiritual life, too. If we’re not comfortable with what we learned when we were growing up, we can try a different approach to our spirituality. We don’t have to understand everything all at once or find the answers to all our questions right away. Sometimes it’s enough just to know that other NA members believe and that their belief helps keep them clean.

Just for today: All I have to know right now about my Higher Power is that it is the Power that helps keep me clean.

© 1991 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services Inc

JUST FOR TODAY - April 18 2026

“I Understand”

“We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”

~ Step Seven ~

Once we are entirely ready to have our character defects removed, many of us are entirely ready! Ironically, that’s when the trouble really starts. The more we struggle to rid ourselves of a particular defect, the stronger that shortcoming seems to become. It is truly humbling to realize that not only are we powerless over our addiction, but even over our own defects of character.

Finally, it clicks. The Seventh Step doesn’t suggest that we rid ourselves of our shortcomings, but that we ask our Higher Power to rid us of them. The focus of our daily prayers begins to shift. Admitting our inability to perfect ourselves, we plead with our Higher Power to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And we wait.humility

For many days, our program may stay on Step Seven. We may experience no sudden, total relief from defects – but we often do experience a subtle shift in our perceptions of ourselves and others. Through the eyes of the Seventh Step, we begin to see those around us in a less critical way. We know that, just like us, many of them are struggling with shortcomings they would dearly love to be rid of. We know that, just like us, they are powerless over their own defects. We wonder if they, too, humbly pray to have their defects removed.

We begin evaluating others as we have learned to evaluate ourselves, with an empathy born of humility. As we watch others, and as we keep watch on ourselves, we can finally say, “I understand.”

Just for today: God, help me see through the eyes of Step Seven. Help me understand.

© 1991 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services Inc

AS BILL SEES IT - April 9 2026

~ Page 99 ~

The “Slipper” Needs Understanding

“Slips can often be charged to rebellion; some of us are more rebellious than others. Slips may be due to the illusion that one can be `cured’ of alcoholism. Slips can also be charged to carelessness and complacency. Many of us fail to ride out these periods sober. Things go fine for two or three years—then the member is seen no more. Some of us suffer extreme guilt because of vices or practices that we can’t or won’t let go of. Too little self-forgiveness and too little prayer—well, this combination adds up to slips.

“Then some of us are far more alcohol-damaged than others. Still others encounter a series of calamities and cannot seem to find the spiritual resources to meet them. There are those of us who are physically ill. Others are subject to more or less continuous exhaustion, anxiety, and depression. These conditions often play a part in slips—sometimes they are utterly controlling.”

~ TALK, 1960 ~

© 1967 by Alcoholics Anonymous ® World Services, Inc

WALK IN DRY PLACES - April 9 2026

UNDERSTANDING COPULSION

Protecting Sobriety

Often called a “compulsive illness,” alcoholism is still a baffling mystery to most people. All we really know is that a single drink, a pleasant beverage for many, becomes a deadly trigger for alcoholics. We may even think it’s unfair that we’re unable to enjoy the pleasant customs of social drinking. If we let down our guard, we can even entertain the thought that we’ve somehow been cured of the compulsion to drink.

But we don’t have to understand the exact nature of compulsion to realize that we are victims of it. Bitter experience and the tragic examples of others should tell us that our compulsion exists and is activated by the first drink. That’s really all the understanding we need for living successfully in sobriety.

If there’s anything we should question, it’s not whether we have the compulsion, but why we would have any doubts after so much bad experience with alcohol. After all, if we always had a bad reaction from any other food or beverage, we would soon give it up. Why is there so much persistence in denying that we are compulsively attached to alcohol?

We still may be trying to convince ourselves that we can take a drink safely, and this delusion is another way the compulsion works. All we have to understand is that a single drink leads to our destruction.

I’ll remember today that I’ve accepted the fact that I am alcoholic and subject to disaster with a first drink. I’ll live today with the knowledge that I only have to understand that I have a compulsion to drink.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved.

Father Leo’s - 3rd August 2025

UNDERSTANDING

“Man — a being in search of meaning.”

– Plato

Today I am on my way. With my sobriety has come a desire to understand — understand life, understand me, understand my relationships and understand God. Meaning — what is true? What is noble? What is spiritual? These are important to me today.

I no longer wish to hurt, damage, ridicule, destroy, fight, lie or cheat in my life. I’ve had enough of being negative. I’ve had enough of being lost and isolated in my arrogance. I’ve had enough of standing on the outside of life, feeling resentful and afraid.

Sobriety, for me today, involves my search for meaning — knowing full well that my understanding will always be imperfect and I can never comprehend fully. The ultimate answer is in living with confusion. I am not God … but I still intend to reach for the stars.

Lord, my cry for self-awareness is answered in the journey and not the destination.       

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A WOMAN’S SPIRIT #essentialsofrecovery

There are many realities. We should remember this when we get too caught up in being concerned about the way the rest of the world lives or how we think they live.

~ Natalie Goldberg ~

One of the most elusive truths we’ll ever struggle to grasp is that everyone has a unique perspective about every circumstance, a perspective that reflects a personal understanding of the universe. We never doubt that truth for ourselves, of course. We simply fail to acknowledge that it’s true for everyone else too.

There are times we can’t shake the need to be right; our egos seem to depend on it. Unfortunately, we can’t maintain any real peacefulness if we are always in conflict with others who have their own viewpoints. Winning the “battle” then becomes a painful victory. Believing in valid, separate realities is only difficult at first. But like any other opinion or attitude, it can become habit with enough practice. We have nothing to lose by giving it a try.

I don’t need everyone to agree with me today. I only think I do.

© 1994 by Hazelden Foundation 

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Daily Reflections #essentialsofrecovery

AS WE UNDERSTAND HIM

My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea . . . “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself.  Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.

–ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 12

I remember the times I looked up into the sky and reflected on who started it all, and how. When I came to A.A., an understanding of some description of the spiritual dimension became a necessary adjunct to a stable sobriety. After reading a variety of versions, including the scientific, of a great explosion, I went for simplicity and made the God of my understanding the Great Power that made the explosion possible. With the vastness of the universe under His command, He would, no doubt, be able to guide my thinking and actions if I was prepared to accept His guidance. But I could not expect help if I turned my back on that help and went my own way. I became willing to believe and I have had 26 years of stable and satisfying sobriety. 

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A DAY AT A TIME #essentialsofrecovery

Reflection for the Day

I’ve begun to understand myself better since I’ve come to the Program. One of the most important things I’ve learned is that opinions aren’t facts. Just because I feel that a thing is so doesn’t necessarily make it so. “Men are not worried by things,” wrote the Greek philosopher Epictetus, “but by their ideas about things. When we meet with difficulties, become anxious or troubled, let us not blame others, but rather ourselves. That is: our ideas about things.” Do I believe that I can never entirely lose what I have learned during my recovery?

Today I Pray

May I learn to sort out realities from my ideas about those realities. May I understand that situations, things—even people—take on the colors and dimensions of my attitudes about them.

Today I Will Remember

To sort the real from the unreal.

© 1989 by Hazelden Foundation 

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Fr. LEO'S DAILY MEDITATION #essentialsofrecovery

UNDERSTANDING

“Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.”

~ Saint Augustine 

I understand that God is love. It makes more sense to live my life with love than with anger, resentment, or despair. I know the answer to life, with any problems that may arise, is love: not simply loving those people who love me, but beginning to love and understand those who dislike or hate me. Being imperfect people in an imperfect world produces enemies.

Today I love my world by listening to my critics, changing unreasonable attitudes, and growing in the humility that comes from silence. Change is part of God’s blessing of love. This I believe. This I understand. And, step by step, it is beginning to work in my life.

May my love for the world give me an understanding of self.

© 2008 Leo Booth 

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A WOMAN’S SPIRIT #essentialsofrecovery

The more I force things, the tougher my life.

~ Helen Neujahr 

Are we driven to control? Perhaps we wonder if trying to control other people is part of the human condition. We’ve probably surrounded ourselves with controlling people, particularly if our friends share our disease. However, not every person alive has to control, and that means we can lessen our stranglehold. But how?

Understanding where our need to control came from is a beginning. Most of us, at least before recovery, were insecure. We wanted to protect ourselves from abandonment, ridicule, physical and emotional harm. The only way we knew to do that was to insist others fulfill our needs. We strengthened, day by day, a trait that hinders us now.

What can save us is acceptance of the first three Steps. Ultimately, we can’t control others, so why try? Turning to our Higher Power can relieve us of our obsession, and that Power, if we’ll let it, will direct our every move. The solution is simple— simple, that is, if we’re not too complicated to follow it!

I don’t need to control anyone today. I am not insecure just as long as I let my Higher Power take charge of my affairs.

© 1994 by Hazelden Foundation 

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DAILY REFLECTIONS #essentialsofrecovery

COMMITMENT

Understanding is the key to right principles and attitudes, and right action is the key to good living.

~ TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 125 

There came a time in my program of recovery when the third stanza of the Serenity Prayer—”The wisdom to know the difference”—became indelibly imprinted in my mind. From that time on, I had to face the ever-present knowledge that my every action, word and thought was within, or outside, the principles of the program. I could no longer hide behind self-rationalization, nor behind the insanity of my disease. The only course open to me, if I was to attain a joyous life for myself (and subsequently for those I love), was one in which I imposed on myself an effort of commitment, discipline, and responsibility.

Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc 

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Father Leo’s Daily Meditation

UNDERSTANDING

“Man — a being in search of meaning.”

– Plato

Today I am on my way. With my sobriety has come a desire to understand — understand life, understand me, understand my relationships and understand God. Meaning — what is true? What is noble? What is spiritual? These are important to me today.

I no longer wish to hurt, damage, ridicule, destroy, fight, lie or cheat in my life. I’ve had enough of being negative. I’ve had enough of being lost and isolated in my arrogance. I’ve had enough of standing on the outside of life, feeling resentful and afraid.

Sobriety, for me today, involves my search for meaning — knowing full well that my understanding will always be imperfect and I can never comprehend fully. The ultimate answer is in living with confusion. I am not God … but I still intend to reach for the stars.

Lord, my cry for self-awareness is answered in the journey and not the destination.      

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A DAY AT A TIME #essentialsofrec #Recovery #AA

Reflection for the Day

If we attempt to understand rather than to be understood, we can more quickly assure a newcomer that we have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired. All of us, whatever our race, creed, color, or ethnic heritage, are the children of a living Creator, with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms—as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try. Do I know the difference between sympathy and empathy? Can I put myself in the newcomer’s shoes?

Today I Pray
May I try to love all humanity as children of a living God. May I respect the different ways through which they find and worship Him. May I never be so rigid as to discount another’s path to God or so insensitive that I use the fellowship of the group as a preaching ground to extol my religious beliefs as the only way. I can only know what works for me.

Today I Will Remember
We are all children of God.

© 1989 by Hazelden Foundation

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One Day At A Time #essentialsofrec #God #HigherPower

 Meditation 

When you are with others, be with them wholeheartedly.
But when you are by yourself, be alone with God.

Paramahansa Yogananda
When I pray to the God of my understanding, I am able to share my thoughts, to vent my feelings, to express my gratitude. But it isn’t enough for me to speak to God. I also need to listen. That’s where meditation comes in.

Sometimes I select a passage from program literature to meditate on. I read the passage, and then sit quietly and allow my Higher Power to help me make connections between what I’ve read and the life I’m leading.

Other times, I will pick a word or phrase, like “love” or “peace” and repeat it, over and over, in my mind. I allow myself to align with the feeling of that word.

I may picture a serene place, and mentally go there, to rest and regroup from the pressures of the day.

I also will sometimes sit quietly, “in the silence,” as the Quakers say. I listen to my breath moving in and out of my body, and I allow my Higher Power to speak to my heart.

No matter which meditation practice I select, the important thing for me is to do it faithfully, every day, and to totally give myself to it. I figure, if God can give to me, then I can give a little of myself back to the One who has blessed me with this program.

One Day at a Time . . .
I will spend some quiet time alone with my Higher Power, and listen to that still, small voice within.

~ Jeff 

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As Bill Sees It #essentialsofrec #slips #Relapse

The “Slipper” Needs Understanding, p. 99

“Slips can often be charged to rebellion; some of us are more rebellious than others. Slips may be due to the illusion that one can be ‘cured’ of alcoholism. Slips can also be charged to carelessness and complacency. Many of us fail to ride out these periods sober. Things go fine for two or three years–then the member is seen no more. Some of us suffer extreme guilt because of vices or practices that we can’t or won’t let go of. Too little self-forgiveness and too little prayer–well, this combination adds up to slips.

“Then some of us are far more alcohol-damaged than others. Still others encounter a series of calamities and cannot seem to find the spiritual resources to meet them. There are those of us who are physically ill. Others are subject to more or less continuous exhaustion, anxiety, and depression. These conditions often play a part in slips–sometimes they are utterly controlling.”

Talk, 1960

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EASY DOES IT #essentialsofrec #Recovery#Slogans

ONE DAY AT A TIME

Time ripens all things. No man’s born wise.

~ Cervantes ~

We come to understand time in a different way. Each day we discover there is an order to life that is only revealed day-to-day. The moments when life forces us to reconsider our schedule are no longer met with anger and frustration. We begin to trust our Higher Power to actually dictate what will happen in our lives. We find ourselves staying close to people who developed some measure of humility, for they seem to have a better sense of timing.

We remember the times when we demanded, “I want what I want when I want it.” The funny thing was, we were usually disappointed when we got what we wanted.

We are even finding a new appreciation for the seasons of the year, and for our lives. We find ourselves enjoying winter just as much as summer, our old age as much as our youth. Each new day deposits within us new wisdom.

Today I will remember that rather than fighting time, I will become time’s passenger.

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