A Day at a Time Reflections

I heard someone in the Gamblers Anonymous Program once read, "Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well, regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house." That is what Step Seven means to me that I'm going to clean house and will have all the help I need. Do I realize by taking the Seventh Step that I'm not really giving a thing, but in...

So often, in the past, we prayed for things, a windfall, or a streak of luck. I've learned in Gamblers Anonymous that real prayer begins-not ends-in asking God to change me. In fact, that's exactly what the Seventh Step suggests: humbly asked God (of our understanding) to remove our shortcomings. We ask God for help through His grace, and the amazing thing is that such a prayer is answered if we t...

After we take an inventory, determining and admitting the exact nature of our wrongs, we become "entirely ready," as the Sixth Step suggests, "to have these defects of character removed." Sure, it's easy to feel like that and be "entirely ready" on a morning-after a gambling fiasco, but we know in such desperate moments that our motive may be colored by a misery of the moment. The further we get a...

All of the Twelve Steps ask us to go contrary to our natural inclinations and desires; they puncture, squeeze, and finally deflate our egos. When it comes to ego deflation, few Steps are harder to take than the Fifth, which suggests that we "admit to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs." Few Steps are harder to take, yes, but scarcely any other Step is as necessary...

"How does the Gamblers Anonymous Program work?" newcomers sometimes ask. The two answers I most often hear are "very well" and "slowly." I'm appreciative of both answers, facetious as they may first sound, because my self analyzing tends to be faulty. Sometimes I've failed to share my defects with the right people; other times, I've confessed their defects, rather than my own; at still other times...

As compulsive gamblers, self-delusion was intricately woven through almost all of what we thought and did. We became experts at convincing ourselves, when necessary, that black was white, that wrong was right, or even that day was night. Now that we're in the Gamblers Anonymous Program, our need for self delusion is fading. If I'm fooling myself these days, my sponsor can spot it quickly. And, as...

The Fourth Step suggests we make a searching and fearless moral and financial inventory-not an immoral inventory of ourselves. The Steps are guidelines to recovery, not whipping posts for self-flagellation. Taking my inventory doesn't mean concentrating on my shortcomings until all the good is hidden from view. By the same token, recognizing the good need not be an act of pride or conceit. If I re...

Inventory-taking isn't always done in red ink. It's a rare day when we haven't done something right. As I uncover and face my shortcomings, my many good qualities will be revealed to me also, reminding me that they have the same reality as my faults. Even when we've tried hard and failed, for instance, we can chalk that up as one of the greatest credits of all. I'll try to appreciate my good quali...

It's often said that you can't tell a book by its cover. For many of us, our "covers" or surface records haven't looked all that bad; it seemed at first, that making an inventory would be "a breeze." As we proceeded, we were dismayed to discover that our "covers" were relatively blemish-free only because we'd deeply buried our defects beneath layers of self-deception. For that reason, self-searchi...

Step Four enables me to see myself as I really am my characteristics, motives, attitudes, and behaviors. I'm taught in Gamblers Anonymous to search out my mistakes resolutely. Where, for example, had I been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and frightened? I'm taught, also, that my deeply rooted habit of self-justification may tempt me to "explain away" each fault as I uncover it, blaming others f...

The Gamblers Anonymous Program's Fourth Step suggests that we make a searching and fearless moral and financial inventory of ourselves. For some of us, no challenge seems more formidable; there's nothing more difficult than facing ourselves as we really are. We flee from one wrongdoing after another as they catch up with us, forever making excuses, pleading always that our virtues in other areas f...

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...

When I dwell on piddling things that annoy me and 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...

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 b...

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 som...

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 politel...

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 threat...

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 dis-ease, 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 bec...

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 the...

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 whol...

The Twelve Steps were designed specifically for people like us - as a shortcut 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 h...

When I begin to compare my life with the lives of others, I've begun to move toward 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...

Self-pity is one of the most miserable and consuming defects 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...

Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. In your fourth step inventory, you made a list of the improper actions that you did as well as the good, constructive accomplishments. In Step Six, you made a list of character defects. Now, Step Eight asks you to make yet another list. This one is to identify all those you have harmed, then to become willing t...

One of the most serious consequences of the me-me-me syndrome is that we lose touch with practically everyone around us-not to mention reality itself. The essence of self-pity is total self-absorption, and it feeds on itself. Rather than ignore such an emotional state - or deny that we're in it - we need to pull out of our self-absorption, stand back, and take a good honest look at ourselves. Once...