October 5

”If you don’t accept failure as a possibility, you don’t set high goals, and you don’t branch out, you don’t try, you don’t take the risk.” Rosalynn Carter

My life doesn’t change because it is comfortable to do so. Living and acting in ways that I know, which are familiar to me is about keeping things the same. I know I am a creature of habit and don’t usually prefer doing something new. As a result, doing recovery work, learning how to take the Steps and integrate them into my life, means taking risks. It’s about stepping outside my comfort zone to do things in a way that I don’t feel at ease with. It means trusting that somebody else’s ways of handling life might be better than my own. It means there’s a chance I am not going to get things right, that I will make mistakes. It also means that it’s a chance for me to grow. Doing things the way I have always done them does not stimulate improvement in my life. To make a difference, to find a better way of living and interacting with the world around me, means I need to make changes. These changes have happened to my knowledge and awareness, my connections with my emotional centre, and most definitely with my spiritual self. I don’t have to set high goals, simply living without the characteristics of my addiction, for today, is a target worthy of my efforts.

Affirmation I need to be aware of when I do what is comfortable rather than what I need to do to change. May my Higher Power give me the strength to choose the latter.