Eleventh Step and Tranquility

November 5 - For many months after I came to Gamblers Anonymous, I paid little attention to the Eleventh Step, to the practice of serious meditation and prayer.  I felt that it might help me meet an emergency - such as a sudden craving to return to gambling - but it remained among the lowest levels on my list of priorities.  In those early days, I equated prayer and meditation with mystery and even hypocrisy.  I've since found that the result of prayer and meditation are more rewarding than I could have ever imagined.  For me today, the harvest is increasingly bountiful, and I continue to gain peace of mind and strength far beyond my human limitations.

Is my former pain being replaced by tranquility?

Today I Pray - May I find my own best way to God, my own best technique of meditation - whether I use an oriental mantra or the name of Jesus Christ, or just allow the spirit of God, as I understand Him, to settle into me and give me peace.  By whatever means I reach my God, may I learn to know Him well and feel His presence - not only in these quiet times, but in everything I do.

Today I Will Remember - Meditation is opening myself to the spirit of God.

Having a Human Experience

November 4 - In the words of Teilhard de Chardin, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience."  Even though we acknowledge in theory that we are spiritual beings, most compulsive gamblers had to experience some sort of spiritual awakening before we were willing to turn our lives over to a Higher Power.  It was then that we could finally say we were spiritual beings.  For some of us, it was as though we had experienced spirituality for the first time in our lives.  But, no matter what our spiritual base had been previously, once we discovered this new sense of spirituality, it became an experience and a feeling we wold not soon be willing to leave behind.

Am I grateful for the "awakening" that has put me in touch with my Higher Power - and with my own spiritual essence?

Today I Pray - May I not forget how my outlook toward life, myself, friends, loved ones, and God had deteriorated prior to coming to Gamblers Anonymous.  May I do whatever it takes to keep my spiritual life from hitting bottom again.  May I keep growing spiritually - a day at a time.

Today I Will Remember - Let my spirituality guide my humanity.

Find your Whole self

November 3 - The Gamblers Anonymous Red Book says: "The word spiritual can be said to describe those characteristics of the human mind that represent the highest and finest qualities, such as kindness, generosity, honesty, and humility.  Inasmuch as the Gamblers Anonymous Fellowship advocates consideration of these principles as a way of life, it is said that ours is a spiritual fellowship."  I have begun to understand that my spirituality has to do with my wholeness - the healthy congruency of truths, as I now perceive them, and my inner self.

Do I continue to strive for qualities that will bring me the greatest long-term happiness?

Today I Pray - May I work toward taking into myself those "highest and finest qualities" that define my spiritual being.  May I know the joys that come through living the GA way, until all life becomes a celebration shared especially with others who, like me, are trying to live up to these God-inspired principles.

Today I Will Remember - From spiritual holes to spiritual whole.

No situation in hopeless when in Gamblers Anonymous

September 8 - We are told that no situation is hopeless.  At first, of course, we find this hard to believe.  The opposites - hope and despair - are human emotional attitudes.  It is we who are hopeless, not the condition of our lives.  When we give up hope and become depressed, it's because we're unable, for now, to believe in the possibility of change for the better.

Can I accept this: "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed unless it's faced"?

Today I Pray - May I remember that, because I am human and can make choices, I am never "hopeless."  Only the situation I find myself in may seem hopeless, which may reduce me to a state of helpless depression as I see my choices being blocked off.  May I remember, too, that even when I see no solution, I can choose to ask God's help.

Today I Will Remember - I can choose not to be hopeless.

Find the bright side in gambling recovery

September 7 - "If you're not all right the way you are," it's been said, "it takes a lot of effort to get better.  Realize you're all right the way you are, and you'll get better naturally."  Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation so difficult that it seems insoluble.  The more we think about it, the more we get on our own backs for our imagined inadequacy to overcome the situation - and we sink into depression.  That's the moment to recall a single phrase, slogan, or bit of philosophy, saying it over and over until it replaces thoughts of the tormenting problem - which, in the final analysis will take care of itself.

Do I sometimes forget that the thorns have roses?

Today I Pray - May I see that God gives us patterns so that we can take comfort in opposites - day follows night; silence follows din; love follows loneliness; release follows suffering.  If I am ineffectual, may I realize it and try to do something constructive.  If I am insensitive, may my friends confront me into greater sensitivity.

Today I Will Remember - Clouds have linings.  Problems have endings.

Goal setting helps with depression - helps with recovery

September 6 - As practicing compulsive gamblers, we were all to familiar with depression, that pile-up of dark feelings that seemed to close over our heads at regular intervals.  Even now, when I am not making progress at the rate I expect I should be, when I expect a total turnaround in my spiritual self overnight, those familiar feelings of gloom can come calling on me again, if I hold the door open for them.

Do I recognize that my goals of perfection are directly related to my feeling of depression?  Do I admit that depression today, in my recover, is less debilitating and more within my power to change?

Today I Pray - When I am immobilized by depression, may I set small, reasonable goals - as miniature perhaps as saying hello to a child, washing my own coffee cup, neatening my desk, offering a short prayer.  May I scrap my own script for failure, which sets me up for deeper depression.

Today I Will Remember - Goals set too high set me back.

Set attainable goals in recovery

September 5 - We're often told that compulsive gamblers are perfectionists, impatient about any shortcomings - especially our own.  We tend to set impossible goals for ourselves, struggling fiercely to reach our unattainable ideals.  Then of course - since no person could possibly meet the extremely high standards we demand of ourselves - we find ourselves falling short.  Discouragement and depression set in; we angrily punish ourselves for being less than superhuman.  The next time around, rather than setting more realistic goals, we set them even higher.  And we fall farther, then punish ourselves more severely.

Isn't it about time I stopped setting unattainable goals for myself, as well as for those around me?

Today I Pray - May God temper my own image of myself as a superperson.  May I settle for less than perfection from myself, as well as from others.  For only God is perfect, and I am limited by being human.

Today I Will Remember - I am not God; I am only human.