Daily Reprieve

From Courage to Change of Nov 20:

Although there are many ways to tame a horse, there is general agreement on one point: The important thing is not to break the horse’s spirit. Colts, puppies, and little children are full of boundless joy in being alive. What had happened to my joy? Alcoholism, which has touched every generation of my family, had broken my spirit.

Al-Anon gives me a fellowship, a Sponsor, and Twelve Steps and Traditions that allow me to heal my broken spirit. My healing started when I quit fighting the God of other people’s understanding and found a God who honored the long-forgotten spirit in me. That’s the God who can restore me to my true self.

Today I make a sincere effort to roll in the clover, kick up my heels, and celebrate being alive. It is one way in which I touch my God.

Today’s Reminder

Let me make this day a celebration of the spirit. There is a part of me that retains a childlike sense of curiosity, wonder, enthusiasm, and delight. I may have lost touch with it, but I know it still exists. I will set my problems to the side for a little while and appreciate what it means to be vitally alive.

“Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
~ George Bernard Shaw

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The spirit in me was never meant to be broken. I think I buried it under years of fear, vigilance, and inherited sorrow. I did not lose my joy because I was defective. I lost it because I learned to survive.

Alcoholism did not simply wound my family; it trained us. It taught us to brace. To monitor. To endure. And endurance, when practiced too long, can masquerade as identity.

What Al-Anon offered me was not correction, but remembrance.

I no longer embraced a God imposed from outside, but a God discovered within — a Presence that did not ask me to become someone else, but invited me back to who I was before I began contorting myself for safety.

There is still a child in me who knows how to marvel. I meet him sometimes when I stop trying to solve everything. When I let the moment be enough. When I breathe without scanning for threat.

I am learning what it means to re-parent that core entity, that inner child. To let his quietness find expression.

This entry was posted on January 13, 2026 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Addiction, Alcoholism, Courage to Change, faith, god, Journal, Life, mental-health, 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.