Step by Step
Saturday, Nov. 23, 2013
Today, may I embrace and respect the virtue of patience and loosen my grip on a character defect that can be as crippling as any other - impatience. Whether I am new to the Program or have worked it for countless 24 Hours, may I understand in expecting too much too soon that recovery requires growth - and growth is not a one-time "event" but an ever-evolving dynamic. If today I am tempted or have an impulse to drink or shoot up, grant me the wisdom of patience. I have the 12 Steps at my disposal to overcome a potential relapse and my own history to know where impatience has taken me before. And let me know that the temptation to slip will pass, as all things do. But the temptation will not pass if I feed it. If people in my life do not live up to what I expect of them or in the time I think they should, let me use patience to ask myself if I am unfairly asking anything of someone else and, if not, grant me patience to "allow" others to do what needs to be done in their own time. If something looms for me three weeks in the future, let me not fret over it today or every other today for the next three weeks for I risk igniting other potentially crippling emotions, including anger, resentment and a possible blow-up like a pressure cooker left unattended. Today, let me recognize that impatience can be as deadly a character defect as any other that is "popular" in AA discussion and that I need to respect life evolving on its time schedule, not mine. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2013
Saturday, Nov. 23, 2013
Today, may I embrace and respect the virtue of patience and loosen my grip on a character defect that can be as crippling as any other - impatience. Whether I am new to the Program or have worked it for countless 24 Hours, may I understand in expecting too much too soon that recovery requires growth - and growth is not a one-time "event" but an ever-evolving dynamic. If today I am tempted or have an impulse to drink or shoot up, grant me the wisdom of patience. I have the 12 Steps at my disposal to overcome a potential relapse and my own history to know where impatience has taken me before. And let me know that the temptation to slip will pass, as all things do. But the temptation will not pass if I feed it. If people in my life do not live up to what I expect of them or in the time I think they should, let me use patience to ask myself if I am unfairly asking anything of someone else and, if not, grant me patience to "allow" others to do what needs to be done in their own time. If something looms for me three weeks in the future, let me not fret over it today or every other today for the next three weeks for I risk igniting other potentially crippling emotions, including anger, resentment and a possible blow-up like a pressure cooker left unattended. Today, let me recognize that impatience can be as deadly a character defect as any other that is "popular" in AA discussion and that I need to respect life evolving on its time schedule, not mine. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2013
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