A Day at a Time Reflections

The Gamblers Anonymous Program teaches me to remain on guard against impatience, lapses into self pity, and resentments of the words and deeds of others. Though I must never forget what it used to be like, neither should I permit myself to take tormenting excursions into the past merely for the sake of self-indulgent morbidity. Now that I'm alert to the danger signals, I know I'm improving day by...

I once heard it said that "the mind is the slayer of the real." Looking back at the insanity of those days when I was gambling, I know precisely what that phrase means. One of the Program's important fringe benefits for me today is an increasing awareness of the world around me, so I can see and enjoy reality. This alone helps diminish the difficulties I so often magnify, creating my own misery in...

Every man and woman who has joined Gamblers Anonymous and intends to stick around has, without realizing it, made a beginning on Step Three. Isn't it true that, in all matters related to their gambling, each of them has decided to turn his or her life over to the care, protection, and guidance of the Program? So already a willingness has been achieved to cast out one's own will and one's own ideas...

Any number of compulsive gamblers are bedeviled by the conviction that if they ever go near the Gamblers Anonymous Program-whether by attending meetings or talking one-to one with a member they'll be pressured to conform to some particular brand of faith or religion. They don't realize that faith is never an imperative for membership in the Program; that freedom from gambling can be achieved with...

If we attempt to understand rather than to be understood, we can more quickly assure a newcomer that we have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired. All of us, whatever our race, gender, creed, color, or ethnic heritage, are the children of a living Creator, with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms-as soon as we are w...

I came; I came to; I came to believe. Gamblers Anonymous has enabled me to learn that deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of a God. It may be obscured by pomp, by calamity, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves and miraculous demonstrations of that Power in human lives are facts as old as man hims...

Faith is more than our greatest gift; sharing it with others is our greatest responsibility. May we in the Gamblers Anonymous Program continually seek the wisdom and the willingness by which we may well fulfill the immense trust which the Giver of all perfect gifts has placed in our hands. If you pray, why worry? If you worry, why pray? Today I Pray … Our God is a mighty fortress, a bulwark who ne...

Time after time, we learn in Gamblers Anonymous, newcomers try to keep to themselves "shoddy facts" about their lives. Trying to avoid the humbling experience of the Fifth Step, they turn to a seemingly easier and softer way. Almost invariably, they slip. Having persevered with the rest of the Program, they then wonder why they fell. The probable reason is that they never completed their houseclea...

Our spiritual and emotional growth in the Gamblers Anonymous Program doesn't depend so deeply upon success as it does upon our failures and setbacks. If we bear this in mind, a relapse can have the effect of kicking us upstairs, instead of down. We in the Program have had no better teacher than Old Man Adversity, except in those cases where we refuse to let him teach us. Do I try to remain always...

What do we say to a person who has slipped, or one who calls for help? We can carry the message, if the person is willing to listen; we can share our experience, strength, and hope. Perhaps the most important thing we can do, however, is to tell the person that we love him or her, that we're truly happy he or she is back, and that we want to help all we can. And we must mean it. Can I still "go to...

Still another common thread we invariably see among slippers is that many of them felt dissatisfaction with today. "I forgot we live one day at a time," or "I began to anticipate the future," or "I began to plan results, not just plan." They seemed to forget that all we have is NOW. Life continued to get better for them and, as many of us do, they forgot how bad it had been. They began to think, i...

Another common denominator among those who slip is failure to use the tools of the Gamblers Anonymous Program the Twelve Steps. The comments heard most often are, “I never did work the Steps," "I never got past the First Step," "I worked the Steps too slow," or "too fast" or "too soon." What it boils down to is that these people considered the Steps, but didn't conscientiously and sincerely apply...

STEP 4 Made a searching and fearless moral and financial inventory of ourselves. Trust your Higher Power and then clean house. The first three steps have laid the groundwork for Step Four; surrender to a powerlessness to gamble and an inability to manage the problems in one's life. Then acquire a senior partner much greater than oneself to guide and accompany you through the remaining steps. Toget...

In almost every instance, the returned slipper says, "I stopped going to meetings," or "I got fed up with the same old stories and the same old faces," or "My outside commitments were such that I had to cut down on meetings," or "I felt I'd received the optimum benefits from the meetings, so I sought further help from more meaningful activities." In short, they simply stopped going to meetings. A...

What causes slips? What happens to a person who apparently seems to understand and live the Twelve Step way, yet decides to go out gambling again? What can I do to keep this from happening to me? Is there any consistency among those who slip, any common denominators that seem to apply? We can each draw our own conclusions, but we learn in the Gamblers Anonymous Program that certain inactions will...

If we don't want to slip, we'll avoid slippery places. For the gambler, that means shunning poker parties and race tracks and anywhere that gambling is taking place. For me, certain emotional situations can also be slippery places, so can indulgence in old ideas, such as a well-nourished resentment that is allowed to build to explosive proportions. Do I carry the principles of the Gamblers Anonymo...

My illness is unlike most other illnesses in that denial that I am sick is a primary symptom of my sickness. Like many other incurable illnesses, however, my illness is characterized by relapses. In the Gamblers Anonymous Program, we call such relapses "slips." The one thing I know for certain is that I alone can cause myself to slip. Will I remember at all times that the thought precedes the acti...

Absolute humility means freedom from myself, freedom from the demands that my character defects place so heavily upon me. Humility means the willingness to discover and carry out the will of God. Although I do not presume to attain such a vision, just keeping it in my heart helps me know where I stand on the road to humility. I recognize that my journey toward God has barely begun. As I shrink in...

Why do people gamble compulsively? Dr. Robert Custer, a pioneer in the treatment of compulsive gambling, believed we have four basic human needs - affection, approval, recognition, and self-confidence. When these needs are not met, people feel inadequate and overwhelmed by life. Gambling may - for a time - appear to fill these needs. But whatever the cause, the principles and Fellowship of Gambler...

We must think deeply of all those sick persons still to come to Gamblers Anonymous. As they try to make their return to faith and to life, we want them to find everything in the Program that we have found-even more, if that is possible. No care, no vigilance, no effort to preserve the Program's constant effectiveness and spiritual strength will ever be too great to hold us in full readiness for th...

Storing up grievances is not only a waste of time, but a waste of life that could be lived to greater satisfaction. If I keep a ledger of "oppressions and indignities," I'm only restoring them to painful reality. In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, "'The horror of that moment,' the King said, 'I shall never, never forget.' 'You will though,' said the Queen, 'if you don't make a memorandu...

I know today that getting active means trying to live the Steps of the Gamblers Anonymous Program to the best of my ability. It means striving for some degree of honesty, first with myself, then with others. It means activity directed inward, to enable me to see myself and my relationship with my Higher Power more clearly. As I get active, outside and inside myself, so shall I grow in the Program....

If a compulsive gambler wants to live successfully in society, he or she must replace the power of gambling over his/her life with the power of something else-preferably positive, at least neutral, but not negative. That is why we say to the agnostic newcomer: If you can't believe in God, find a positive power that is as great as the power of your addiction, and give it the power and dependence yo...

All of us are faced with the troubles and problems of daily living, whether we've been in Gamblers Anonymous two days or twenty years. We'd sometimes like to believe we could take care of all our problems right now, but it rarely works that way. If we remember the slogan "A Day at a Time" when we are ready to panic, we may come to know that the very best way to handle anything is to "turn it over....

Gamblers Anonymous teaches us, through the experience, strength, and hope of its Fellowship, that the worst situation imaginable does not warrant a return to gambling. No matter how bad a particular situation or set of circumstances, the return to our old ways for even a minute will assuredly make it worse. Am I grateful for the caring and sharing of the Program? Today I Pray … May I insist that n...