A Day at a Time Reflections

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...

Once in a great while, I find myself thinking that perhaps things weren't quite so bad as they seemed to be. At such moments, I force myself to realize that my illness is talking to me, trying to tempt me into denying that I am, in fact, afflicted with an illness. One of the key action steps of the Gamblers Anonymous Program is that we give our illness to God as we understand Him, accepting our po...

The Gamblers Anonymous Program teaches us that we have an incurable illness. We always get worse, never better. But we're fortunate in that our incurable illness can be arrested, one day at a time, as long as we don't place that first bet. High-toned academic research and ivory-tower studies to the contrary, we know from experience that we can no more control our gambling than we can control the o...

The longer I'm in Gamblers Anonymous, the more important becomes the slogan, "First Things First." I used to believe that my family came first, that my home life came first, that my job came first. But I know today, in the depths of my heart, that if I can't stay clean, I'll have nothing. "First Things First," to me, means that everything in my life depends on my refraining from gambling. Am I gra...

Placing one last bet will never again be for me simply killing a few minutes and leaving a nickel for the bookmaker. In exchange for the first bet, what I'd plunk down now would be my bank account, my family, our home, our car, my job, my sanity, and probably my life. It's too big a price, and too great a risk. Do you remember your last bet? Today I Pray … May I be strong in the knowledge that God...

In the old days, we often had such devastating experiences that we fervently swore, "Never again." We were absolutely sincere in those moments of desperation. Yet, despite our intentions, the outcome was inevitably the same. Eventually, the memory of our suffering faded, as did the memory of our "pledge." So we did it again, ending up in even worse shape than when we had last "sworn off." Forever...

"Lead us not into temptation," we pray, for we know with certainty that temptation lurks around the corner. Temptation is cunning, baffling, powerful and patient; we never know when it will catch us with our guard down. Temptation could come in the siren song of a four-color advertisement or a radio commercial, the neon and noise of a casino, or, more obviously, in the direct urgings of another pe...

Gamblers Anonymous teaches us that we are emotionally and mentally different from our fellows. We are reminded that the great obsession of every compulsive gambler is to prove that somehow, someday, we will be able to control our gambling. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing, and many pursue it to the gates of prison, insanity, or death. Have I conceded to my inner self that one bet is...

There have been days during my recovery when just about everything seemed bleak and even hopeless. I allowed myself to become depressed and angry. I see now that it doesn't matter what I think, and it doesn't matter how I feel. It's what I do that counts. So when I become anxious or upset, I try to stay in recovery by going to meetings, participating, and working with others in the Gamblers Anonym...

One thing that keeps me on the right track today is a feeling of loyalty to other members of Gamblers Anonymous, no matter where they may be. We depend on each other. I know, for example, that I'd be letting them down if I ever gambled. When I came to GA, I found a group of people who were not only helping each other to stay clean, but who were loyal to each other by staying clean themselves. Am I...

All my life, I looked to others for comfort, security, and all the other things that add up to what I now call serenity. But I've come to realize that I was always looking in the wrong place. The source of serenity is not outside, but within myself. The kingdom is within me, and I already have the key. All I have to do is to be willing to use it. Am I using the tools of the Gamblers Anonymous Prog...

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we'll find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. So let us, with God's help, continually surrender these crippling liabilities. Then we can be set free to live and love. We may then be able to Twelfth Step ourselves, as well as others, into emotional well being. Do I try to carry the message of the...

Since I came to Gamblers Anonymous, I've begun to recognize my previous inability to form a true partnership with another person. It seems that my egomania created two disastrous pitfalls. Either I insisted upon dominating the people I knew, or I depended on them far too much. My friends in the Program have taught me that my dependence meant demand-a demand for the possession and control of the pe...