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.

What wonderful things could happen in my life if I could get rid of my natural impulse to justify my actions!

Boundaries aren’t rules I force on others.  They are standards of conduct I set for my own benefit.

Whenever I think of letting go I remind myself that there is a natural order to life – a chain of events that a Higher Power has in mind.  When I let go of a situation, I allow life to unfold according to that plan.

For me, detachment doesn’t mean abandoning others.  It means that I mind my own business and that I don’t have all the answers or solutions.

The next time I react to another’s behavior, I’ll ask myself how many times I’ve reacted that same way before.

When cruel words fly from the mouth of another person, drunk or sober, Al-Anon helps me remember that I have choices.

We can let other people gain the benefits and suffer the consequences of their decisions.

Al-Anon is not for those who need it, but for those who want it.

Just for tonight, I will be grateful.  I will give thanks for the past day — its failures as well as its successes, its sadness as well as its joy and its pain as well as its pleasure.  I will take comfort in knowing that every event and circumstance that occurred today can be used for my good and the good of others.

“By making a call to someonw outside of my family circle, I can look at the issue through the eyes of our twelve step program.” — Elizabeth, CA

If I am overwhelmed, I may be trying to do too much.  Today I will try to “keep it simple.”  “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”  (Hans Hofmann)

An emotionally mature person does not readily experience a loss of temper or “fly off the handle” about trifles.

“It is through participation that I can move away from feelings of separateness and move toward feelings of community.” — Angie M, IA

Even the present isn’t a snapshot but a video, with the scene constantly changing.  I neither hold the camera nor direct the action.  When I accept what is, and act with love and kindness as my guide, there is nothing for me to “manage” except myself.

A program of self-recognition and self-change “reads easy and does hard.”  Many failures come from trying to do too much too fast — and from expecting results overnight.  (…)  “It is no easy thing for a principle to become a man’s own unless each day he maintain it and work it out in his life.”  (Epictetus)