Daily Reprieve

Courage to Change of Jun 4:

The Second Step is about possibility, about hope. With this Step, we come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. We are asked to open our minds to the possibility that help is available. Perhaps there is a source of assistance that can do for us what we have been unable to do for ourselves. We don’t have to believe that it will happen, only that it could.

This little bit of hope, this chink in the armor of despair, is enough to show that we are willing to move in the direction of healing. Once we recognize that the possibility of help exists, it seems worthwhile to explore a relationship with a Higher Power. A little willingness can go a long way toward making hope and faith an ongoing part of our lives. In the hands of a Higher Power, sanity and serenity become realistic hopes.

Today’s Reminder

Our literature speaks of the possibility of finding contentment and even happiness through recover in Al-Anon. Today I will take the Second Step in that process and open my mind to hope.

“Finding inner strength is looking beyond the visible and focusing life’s search on the unseen.”

~ As We Understood . . .

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As a young man, I never understood why hope was considered a virtue. The word feels like a synonym for wishful thinking. It seemed to be an excuse to daydream about better days ahead. Wasn’t hope an admission of abdication?

Then I witnessed the ignition of hope in my own life and in the lives of others in these rooms devoted to personal recovery. This is what I now know about the capacity for hope. It is a trained response to those times in life when the wolves are at the door. It is for the time when retreat and surrender will only invite further destruction, a shrinking brain, a tragic end. Surrounded by the confident assertion of impossibility, hope garners intelligence, builds networks, and remembers the place where life spirits are forged. Hope sharpens my senses to a course of action in the midst of the overwhelming clamor of fear. Isn’t hope the first step in the hero’s journey?

“What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end…”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

This entry was posted on February 21, 2024 at 12:45 am and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Addiction, Alcoholism, Courage to Change, depression, health, inspiration, Journal, Life, mental-health, motivation, Personal, Recovery, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.