Narcotics Anonymous

Just For Today - Daily Email Service

   April 11                                                     A closed mind

    "A new idea cannot be grafted onto a closed mind....  Open-mindedness
     leads us to the very insights that have eluded us during our lives."

                                                            Basic Text, p. 96

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   We arrived in NA at the lowest point in our lives.  We'd just about run
   out of ideas.  What we needed most when we got here were new ideas, new
   ways of living, shared from the experience of people who'd seen those
   ideas work.  Yet our closed minds prevented us from taking in the very
   ideas we needed to live.

   Denial keeps us from appreciating just how badly we really need new ideas
   and new direction.   By admitting our powerlessness and recognizing how
   truly unmanageable our lives have become, we allow ourselves to see how
   much we need what NA has to offer.

   Self-dependence and self-will can keep us from admitting even the
   possibility of the existence a Power greater than ourselves.   However,
   when we admit the sorry state self-will has gotten us into, we open our
   eyes and our minds to new possibilities.   When others tell us of a Power
   that has brought sanity to their lives, we begin to believe that such a
   Power may do the same for us.

   A tree stripped of its branches will die unless new branches can be
   grafted onto its trunk.   In the same way, addiction stripped us of
   whatever direction we had.  To grow or even to survive, we must open our
   minds and allow new ideas to be grafted onto our lives.

                           ----=----

   Just for today:   I will ask my Higher Power to open my mind to the new
   ideas of recovery.