November 29th

From Wisdom for Today:

When I was active in my addiction, I had an ego a mile wide. Everything was about me and what I wanted. I had an arrogance about life that somehow life owed me something. I acted as if I was more important than others. Certainly when it came to my family, I did not act in a loving or caring manner. I did what I wanted to do regardless of how my choices affected them. It was not that I didn’t care or couldn’t love my family, but I put my relationship with drugs and alcohol before my family. Even with my children, I acted as if their needs were not important. Most of all, I was not being loving toward myself. I cared only about satisfying one need – to get wasted night after night.

This arrogant ego of mine became a character defect. I cleaned up my act and stopped drinking and stopped using, yet I still had this ego problem. My ego would not allow me to make a mistake; I had to be perfect. I continued to blame others for my own shortcomings. I continued to put my needs and desires before others. As I continued to go to meetings, I began to listen and hear other addicts and alcoholics talk about similar problems. I heard others with more time under their belt talk about the freedom they gained in surrendering these defects. They talked of letting go of their desires and following after their Higher Power’s will. I began to realize that this character defect stood in the way of my relationship with myself, with others and with God. Do I let ego problems get in the way of my recovery?

Meditations for the Heart:

Each of us has both an outer life and an inner life. There is the part of us that we show to the world, that part of us that is known to others. There is also the inner life; this is where we hide our crazy thinking, our mixed up emotions and our secrets. In recovery I need to open myself up and tell on my disease. I need to share how my thinking and emotions and secrets mess up my life. I need to develop a new inner life. This new inner life is one in which I am in communion with God. I need to seek after His will for me and seek after the courage and power to carry out His will for me. I need to go to this new inner world often to be renewed in my commitment to ongoing recovery. I need to do regular housecleaning of this new inner world. When I do this, it makes it possible to live in peace with the outer world. I am prepared to go to work, to interact with my family and to stay true to the tasks before me. Do I seek to expose my old crazy thinking, mixed up emotions and secrets so that I can develop a new inner world?

Petitions to my Higher Power:

God,

Sometimes I do not want to clean house, but I know this must be done in order to have an effective relationship with You and others. I know that I can let my ego get in the way and act as if I am more important than others. Help me to accept myself, both my strengths and weaknesses, and learn to let go of my defects of character.

Amen