I can’t make past wrongs disappear, but I can take actions that will help me to let them go. When I make amends, I do what I can to correct the situation. Then I an put the past in its rightful place and leave it there.

I was a tough case.  When I heard some of the methods of detachment, I decided I could use them to “psych out” my husband, so I came back for more.

Sometimes it is reassuring to see a “sign” that tells me I am making the right decision.  Some people would call these signs coincidences, but I choose to see them as affirmations.

To make my spiritual environment cleaner and healthier, all I have to do is load up my junk and drive it to a meeting.  There, powers other than myself will help me remove or recycle it into something less harmful — perhaps even useful or beautiful.

Once you have accepted the idea that alcoholism is a sickness from which compulsive drinkers and those who care about them can find release, you will have no reason to be ashamed of alcoholism — no reason to fear it.

One of Al-Anon’s important fringe benefits is that it increases my awareness of the world around me, so I can see and enjoy it.  This alone helps to dim the difficulties I had been concentrating on, creating my own misery.

We know we have character defects and have some idea of the pain and difficulties they have caused us; surely it would be a relief to get rid of them. Step Six does not get rid of these defects, it only asks us to become ready.

I had been so wrapped up in everybody else’s problems that I had no time to look at my own pain.  I was hurting a lot, yet I felt nothing.  I had numbed away all my feelings except fear, guilt, and sadness.  Happiness? Never.  My mother always said that only stupid people were happy.

Prayer and meditation are the vehicles we use for spiritual communication.  But the terms “prayer” and “meditation” mean different things to different people, and we are encouraged to interpret them in any way that works for us.  Perhaps we repeat the prayers of a particular religion, write letters to God in our own words, or simply ask a higher power for help.

What I practice every day matters more than what I *might* practice someday.  Every day I work my recovery is its own celebration.

My higher power is the joy that is sometimes within me when I know that I am glad to be alive and can appreciate what is beautiful.  It is that sense of peace that comes to me when I take time to have a quiet time and relax and be at peace with the world.

Today I’ll be keenly aware of my senses.  I will think about what I am experiencing at this moment.  I won’t let the beauty of this day slip by unnoticed.

Today is all the time I have.  Nobody can keep me from using it well.  If I make this a good day, tomorrow can be even better.

An emotionally mature person keeps calm in emergencies and deals with them in a logical, reasonable fashion.

If our own position is not that of the group as a whole, we learn to support the decision reached.  Over time we learn to recognize and accept that in the long run the wisdom of the group informed by thorough discussion and guided by a higher power, ultimately will be the best for the group and its individual members.

Whether or not we live with active drinking, life is unmanageable whenever we lose perspective about what is and is not our responsibility.  We take offense at actions that have nothing to do with us.  Or we intervene where it is inappropriate and neglect our legitimate obligations to ourselves and others.