“Recovery has taught me that I do not have the power to be happy, to make everything work, to manage my life and be effective as a partner, Dad, grandpa, or friend.”

“It is human nature to focus on what we lack. We waste many precious hours, hours that can never be recaptured, bemoaning what we think we deserve. It's far more productive to spend our quiet times acknowledging the array of gifts we have received. With help from a sponsor or a friend in recovery, we discover and come to believe we have been given exactly what is necessary to our personal growth. Today, I practice gratitude by affirming that God is in charge of my life, and give thanks for all of the gifts I've been given.”

Adapted from A Woman’s SpiritHazelden Betty Ford Foundation

“So it is necessary for all of us to accept whatever positive gifts we receive with a deep humility, always bearing in mind that our negative attitudes were first necessary as a means of reducing us to such a state that we would be ready for a gift of the positive ones via the conversion experience. Your own alcoholism and the immense deflation that finally resulted are indeed the foundation upon which your spiritual experiences rests.”

Adapted from As Bill Sees It

“The quickest ticket to heaven, enlightenment, or salvation is unworthiness itself, or at least a willingness to face our own smallness & incapacity. Our conscious need for mercy is our only real boarding pass. The ego doesn’t like that very much, but the soul fully understands. Honest self-knowledge, shadow work & therapy are sometimes dismissed with hostility by many, perhaps because they are afraid of or hiding something. The desert fathers and mothers, the writers of the Philokalia, Thomas Aquinas, and Teresa of Ávila were already into “mere psychology,” as was Jesus. Without a clear struggle with our shadow-self, some form of a humble & honest confession of our imperfections none of us can or will face our own hypocrisy.”

Adapted from Daily Meditations

“Enlightenment is the recognition of the unqualified plenitude of every moment and situation, of the immaculate suchness of all things, just as they are.”

Adapted from Tricycle