MARCH 31 Reflection for the Day

My illness is unlike most other illnesses in that denial that I am sick is a primary symptom of my sickness. Like many other incurable illnesses, however, my illness is characterized by relapses. In the Gamblers Anonymous Program, we call such relapses “slips.” The one thing I know for certain is that I alone can cause myself to slip.

Will I remember at all ***** that the thought precedes the action? Will I try to avoid “stinking thinking”?

Today I Pray
May God give me the power to resist temptations. May the responsibility for giving in, for having a “slip,” be on my shoulders and mine only. May I see beforehand if I am setting myself up for a slip by blame-shifting, shirking my responsibility to myself, becoming the world’s poor puppet once again. My return to those old attitudes can be as much of a slip as the act of placing a bet.

Today I Will Remember
Nobody’s slip-proof.

APRIL 1 Reflection for the Day

If we don’t want to slip, we’ll avoid slippery places. For the gambler, that means shunning poker parties and race tracks and anywhere that gambling is taking place. For me, certain emotional situations can also be slippery places, so can indulgence in old ideas, such as a well-nourished resentment that is allowed to build to explosive proportions.

Do I carry the principals of the Gamblers Anonymous Program with me wherever I go?

Today I Pray
May I learn not to test myself too harshly by “asking for it,” by stopping in at the casino, the Bingo hall, or the track. Such “testing” can be dangerous, especially if I am egged on, not only by a craving for the old object of my addictions, but by others still caught in addiction whose moral responsibility has been reduced to zero.

Today I Will Remember
Avoid slippery places

APRIL 2 Reflection for the Day

What causes slips? What happens to a person who apparently seems to understand and live the Twelve Step way, yet decides to go out gambling again? What can I do to keep this from happening to me? Is there any consistency among those who slip, any common denominators that seem to apply? We can each draw our own conclusions, but we learn in the Gamblers Anonymous Program that certain inactions will all but guarantee an eventual slip.

When a person who has slipped is fortunate enough to return to the Program, do I listen carefully to what he or she says about the slip?

Today I Pray
May my Higher Power show me if I am setting myself up to gamble again. May I glean from the experiences from others that the reasons for such a lapse of resolve or such an accident of will most often stem from what I have not done rather than from what I have done. May I "keep coming back” to meetings.

Today I Will Remember
Keep coming back.

APRIL 3 Reflection for the Day

In almost every instance, the returned slipper says, “I stopped going to meetings,” or “I got fed up with the same old stories and the same old faces,” or “My outside commitments were such that I had to cut down on meetings,” or “I felt I’d received the optimum benefits from the meetings, so I sought further help from more meaningful activities.” In short, they simply stopped going to meetings. A saying I’ve heard at Gamblers Anonymous hits the nail on the head: “Them that stop going to meetings are not present at meetings to hear about what happens to them that stops going to meetings.”

Am I going to enough meetings for me?

Today I Pray
God keep me on the path of the GA Program. May I never be too tired, too busy, too complacent, too bored to go to meetings. Almost always those complaints are reversed at a meeting if I will just get myself there. My weariness dissipates in serenity. My busyness is reduced to it rightful proportion. My complacency gives way to vigilance again. And how can I be bored in a place where there is so much fellowship and joy?

Today I Will Remember
Attend the meetings.

APRIL 4 Reflection for the Day

Another common denominator among those who slip is failure to use the tools of the Gamblers Anonymous Program – the Twelve Steps. The comments heard most often are, “I never did work the steps,” “I never got past the First Step,” I worked the steps too slow,” or “too fast” or “too soon.” What it boils down to is that these people considered the Steps, but didn’t conscientiously and sincerely apply the Steps to their lives.

Am I learning how to protect myself and help others?

Today I Pray
May I be a doer of the Steps and not a hearer only. May I see some of the common mis-Steps that lead to a fall: being too proud to admit Step One; being to tied to everyday earth to feel the presence of a Higher Power; being overwhelmed by the thought of preparing Step Four, a complete moral and financial inventory; being too reticent to share that inventory. Please God, guide me as I work the Twelve Steps.

Today I Will Remember
To watch my Steps.

APRIL 5 Reflection for the Day

Still another common thread we invariably see among slippers is that many of them felt dissatisfaction with today. “I forgot we live one day at a time,” or “I began to anticipate the future,” or "I began to plan results, not just plan.” They seem to forget that all we have is NOW. Life continued to get better for them and, as many of us do, they forgot how bad it had been. They began to think, instead, of how dissatisfying it was compared to what it could be.

Do I compare today with yesterday, realizing, by that contrast, what great benefits and blessings I have today.

Today I Pray
If I am discouraged with today, may I remember the sorrows and hassles of yesterday. If I am impatient for the future, let me appreciate today and how much better it is than the life I left behind. May I never forget the principle of “one day at a time.”

Today I Will Remember
The craziness of yesterday.

APRIL 6 Reflection for the Day

What do we say to a person who has slipped, or one who calls for help? We can carry the message, if the person is willing to listen; we can share our experience, strength, and hope. Perhaps the most important thing we can do, however, is to tell the person that we love him or her, that we’re truly happy he or she is back, and that we want to help all we can. And we must mean it.

Can I still “go to school” and continue to learn from the mistakes and adversities of others?

Today I Pray
May I always have enough love to welcome back to the group someone who has slipped. May I listen to that person’s story-of-woe, humbly. For there, but for my Higher Power, I go. May I learn from others’ mistakes and pray that I will not re-enact them.

Today I Will Remember
Abstinence is never fail-safe.

August 1 Refection for the Day

Self-pity is one of the most miserable and consuming deflects I know. Because of its interminable demands for attention and sympathy, my self-pity cuts off my communication with others, especially communication with my Higher Power. When I look at it that way, I realize that self-pity limits my spiritual progress. It’s also a very real form of martyrdom, which is a luxury I simply can’t afford. The remedy, I’ve been taught, is to have hard look at myself and a still harder one at the Gambler’s Anonymous Program’s Twelve Steps to Recovery.

Do I ask my Higher Power to relieve me of the bondage to self?

Today I Pray
May I know from observation that self-pitiers get almost no pity from anyone else. Nobody – not even God – can fill their outsized demands for sympathy. May I recognize my own unsavory feeling of self-pity when it creeps in to rob me of my serenity. May God keep me wary of its sneakiness.

Today I Will Remember
My captor is my self.

August 2 Reflection for the Day

When I begin to compare my life with the lives of others, I’ve begun to move towards the edge of the murky swamp of self-pity. On the other hand, if I feel that what I’m doing is right and good, I won’t be so dependent on the admiration or approval of others. Applause is well and good, but it’s not essential to my inner contentment. I’m in the Gamblers Anonymous Program to get rid of self-pity, not to increase its power to destroy me.

Am I learning how others have dealt with their problems, so I can apply these lessons to my own life?

Today I Pray
God, make me ever mindful of where I came from and the new goals I have been encouraged to set. May I stop playing to an audience for their approval, since I am fully capable of admiring or applauding myself if I feel I have earned it. Help me make myself attractive from the inside, so it will show through, rather than adorning the outside for effect. I am tired of stage make-up and costumes, God; help me be myself.

Today I Will Remember
Has anyone seen ME?

Hi Folks
I will be away on a 4 day Mini Vacation starting tomorrow August 3rd
so I have posted the Reflection for the Day for August 3rd 4th 5th & 6th.
Have a great weekend of recovery.
Ken L YBIR
 
August 3 Reflection for the Day

The Twelve Steps were designed specifically for people like us – as a short cut to God. The Steps are very much like strong medicine that can heal us of the sickness of despair, frustration, and self-pity. Yet we’re sometimes unwilling to use the Steps. Why? Perhaps because we have a deep-down desire for martyrdom. Consciously and intellectually, we think we want help on a gut level, though, some hidden sense of guilt makes us crave punishment more than relief from our ills.

Can I try to be cheerful when everything seems to be leading me to despair? Do I realize that despair is very often a mask for self-pity?

Today I Pray
May I pull out the secret guilt inside that makes me want to punish myself. May I probe my despair and discover whether it is really an imposter – self-pity with a mask on. Now that I know that the Twelve Steps can bring relief, may I please use them instead of wallowing in my discomforts.

Today I Will Remember
The Twelve Steps are God’s stairway.
AUGUST 4 Reflection for the Day

One of the best ways to get out of the self-pity trap is to do some "instant bookkeeping." For every entry of misery on the debit side of our ledger, we can surely find a blessing to mark on the credit side: the health we enjoy, the illnesses we don’t have, the friends who love us and who allow us to love them, a clean twenty-four hours, a good day’s work. If we only try, we can easily list a whole string of credits that will far outweigh the debit entries that bring about self-pity.

Is my emotional balance on the credit side today?

Today I Pray
May I learn to sort out my debits and credits, and add it all up. May I list my several blessings on the credit side. May my ledger show me, when all is totaled, a fat fund of good things to draw on.

Today I Will Remember
I have blessings in my savings.
 
AUGUST 5 Reflection for the Day

Among the important things we learn in Gamblers Anonymous is to be good to ourselves. For so many of us, though, this is a surprisingly difficult thing to do. Some of us relish our suffering so much that we balloon each happening to enormous proportions in the reliving and telling. Self-pitiers are drawn to martyrdom as if by a powerful magnet – until the joys of serenity and contentment come to them through the GA Program and Twelve Steps.

Am I gradually learning to be myself?

Today I Pray
May I learn to forgive myself. I have asked – and received – forgiveness from God and from others, so why is it so hard to forgive myself? Why do I still magnify my suffering? Why do I go on licking my emotional wounds? May I follow God’s forgiving example, get on with the Program, and learn to be good to myself.

Today I Will Remember
Martyrdom; martyr dumb.
AUGUST 6 Reflection for the Day

Sometimes through bitter experience and painful lessons, we learn in our fellowship with others in Gamblers Anonymous that resentment is our number one enemy. It destroys more of us than anything else. From resentment stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we’ve been not only mentally and physically ill, but spiritually ill as well. As we recover and as our spiritual illness is remedied, we become well physically and mentally.

Am I aware that few things are more bitter than to feel bitter? Do I see that my venom is more poisonous to me than to my victim?

Today I Pray
I ask for help in removing the pile of resentments I have collected. May I learn that resentments are play-actors, too; they may be fears – losing a job, a love, an opportunity; they may be hurts or guilty feelings. May I know that God is my healer. May I admit my need.

Today I Will Remember
Resentments are rubbish; haul them away.

AUGUST 7 Reflection for the Day

What can we do about our resentments? Experience has shown that the best thing to do is to write them down, listing people, institutions, or principles that are objects of our anger or resentment. When I write down my resentments and then ask myself why I’m resentful, I’ve discovered that in most cases my self-esteem, my finances, my ambitions, or my personal relationships have been hurt or threatened.

Will I ever learn that the worst thing about my resentments is my endless rehearsal of my acts of retribution?

Today I Pray
May God help me find a way to get rid of my resentments. May I give up the hours spent making up little playlets, in which I star as the angry man or woman cleverly shouting down the person who has threatened me. Since these dramas are never produced, may I instead list my resentful feelings and look at the why’s behind each one. May this be a way of shelving them.

Today I Will Remember
Resentments cause violence: resentments cause illness in nonviolent people.

AUGUST 8 Reflection for the Day

As a recovering compulsive gambler, I have to remind myself that no amount of social acceptance of resentments will take the poison out of them. In a way, the problem of resentments is very much like the gambling problem. A poker game or casino is never safe for me. I’ve attended benefits for worthy causes, often in a convivial atmosphere that makes gambling seem almost harmless.

Just as I politely but adamantly decline gambling under any conditions, will I also refuse to accept resentments

Today I Pray
When anger, hurt, fear, or guilt – to be socially acceptable – put on their polite, party manners, dress up as resentments, and come in the side door, may I not hobnob with them. These emotions, disguised as they are, can be as full of trickery as gambling itself.

Today I Will Remember
Keep an eye on the side door.

AUGUST 9 Reflection for the Day
On numerous occasions, I’ve found that there’s a strong connection between my fears and my resentments. If I secretly fear that I’m inadequate, for example, I’ll tend to resent deeply anybody whose actions or words expose my imagined inadequacy. But it’s usually too painful to admit that my own fears and doubts about myself are the cause of my resentments. It’s a lot easier to pin the blame on someone else’s "bad behavior" or "selfish motives" – and use that as the justification for my resentments.

Do I realize that by resenting someone, I allow that person to live rent-free in my head?

Today I Pray
May God help me overcome my feelings of inadequacy. May I know that when I consistently regard myself as a notch or two lower than the next person, I am not giving due credit to my Creator, who has given each of us a special and worthwhile blend of talents I am, in fact, grumbling about God’s Divine Plan. May I look behind my trash-pile of resentments for my own self-doubt.

Today I Will Remember
As I build myself up, I tear down my resentments.

 
AUGUST 10 Reflection for the Day

We’ve been our own worst enemies most of our lives, and we’ve often injured ourselves seriously as a result of a "justified" resentment over a slight wrong. Doubtless there are many causes for resentment in the world, most of them providing "justification." But we can never begin to settle all the world’s grievances or even arrange things so as to please everybody. If we’ve been treated unjustly by others or simple by life itself, we can avoid compounding the difficulty by completely forgiving the persons involved and abandoning the destructive habit of reviewing our hurts and humiliations.

Can I believe that yesterday’s hurt is today’s understanding, rewoven into tomorrow’s love?

Today I Pray
Whether I am unjustly treated or just think I am, may I try not to be a resentful person, stewing over past injuries. Once I have identified the root emotion behind my resentment, may I be big enough to forgive the person involved and wise enough to forget the whole thing.

Today I Will Remember
Not all injustice can be fixed.
 
 
August 11 Reflection for the Day

When I dwell on piddling things that annoy me – they sprout resentments that grow bigger and bigger like weeds – I forget how I could be stretching my world and broadening my outlook. For me, that’s an ideal way to shrink troubles down to their real size. When somebody or something is causing me trouble, I should try to see the incident in relation to the rest of my life – especially the part that’s good and for which I should be grateful.

Am I willing to waste my life worrying about trifles that drain my spiritual energy?

Today I Pray
May God keep me from worrying unduly about small things. May He, instead, open my eyes to the grandeur of His universe and the ceaseless wonders of His earth. May He grant me the breadth of vision that can reduce any small, fretful concern of mine to the size of a fly on a cathedral window.

Today I Will Remember
Microscopic irritations can ruin my vision.
 
 

August 12 Reflection for the Day

Someone once inquired of a Zen master, "How do you maintain such serenity and peace?" He replied, "I never leave my place of meditation." Although he meditated early in the morning, for the rest of the day he carried the peace of those moments with him. Being quiet, slowing down, is one of the most difficult tasks facing most compulsive gamblers in their recovery. Action has been a way of life for so long that I have to learn all over again to slow down and listen. Beginning each day in prayer and meditation can be the most rewarding experience of my day. When I choose to take peace and serenity with me throughout the day, the world itself seems to slow down and move at my pace, rather than spinning so fast that I’m always running to catch up.

Will I cherish the glorious peace that comes through meditation?

Today I Pray
May my days begin slowly, in quietness, and remain peaceful, as I keep my focus on what is before me to do at the moment, instead of projecting a blur of unsettling activity. As frenetic action was a symptom of my compulsion, serenity is a sign of my recovery.

Today I Will Remember
To allow serenity into my life.
 

— 12/08/2012 12:49:05 AM: post edited by ken l.– 12/08/2012 12:49:46 AM: post edited by ken l.