Narcotics Anonymous

Just For Today - Daily Email Service

   February 21                      Self-pity or recovery-it's our choice

    "Self-pity is one of the most destructive of defects; it will drain us
                           of all positive energy."

                                                            Basic Text, p. 80

                           ----=----

   In active addiction, many of us used self-pity as a survival mechanism.
   We didn't believe there was an alternative to living in our disease-or
   perhaps we didn't want to believe.   As long as we could feel sorry for
   ourselves and blame someone else for our troubles, we didn't have to
   accept the consequences of our actions; believing ourselves powerless to
   change, we didn't have to accept the need for change.   Using this
   "survival mechanism" kept us from entering recovery and led us closer,
   day by day, to self-destruction.  Self-pity is a tool of our disease;  we
   need to stop using it and learn instead to use the new tools we find in
   the NA program.

   We have come to believe that effective help is available for us; when we
   seek that help, finding it in the NA  program, self-pity is displaced by
   gratitude.  Many tools are at our disposal: the Twelve Steps, the support
   of our sponsor, the fellowship of other recovering addicts, and the care
   of our Higher Power.   The availability of all these tools is more than
   enough reason to be grateful.   We no longer live in isolation, without
   hope; we have certain help at hand for anything we may face.  The surest
   way to become grateful is to take advantage of the help available to us in
   the NA program and to experience the improvement the program will bring in
   our lives.

                           ----=----

   Just for today:  I will be grateful for the hope NA has given me.  I  will
   cultivate my recovery and stop cultivating self-pity.