Daily Reprieve

From Courage to Change of Oct 21:

Many times I have said, “I wish I had faith.” And what I’ve heard from so many wise Al-Anon members is, “Surrender your lack of faith to your Higher Power, and ask for faith.”

I have said, “I know I am powerless, but I feel so helpless, frightened, hopeless,” and I have been told I had the option to surrender those feelings and ask for what I need. Powerless does not mean helpless. In fact, it can lead us to a source of enormous power – the power to carry out God’s will.

I have also said, “I can’t figure out what God wants me to do, though I’ve prayed for guidance.” My loving Sponsor always says, “God doesn’t speak in code. Ask for clarity, and then trust that you will get it when the time is right.”

When in doubt, I am learning that the answer is to ask.

Today’s Reminder

After years of asking only for a particular solution to a problem, such as, “Please make the alcoholic stop drinking!” — I need to learn a better way to ask for help. Today I will meditate for a few minutes on what I need, and then I will ask a Power greater than myself to help me with it.

“Even if we have struggled with the idea of a Higher Power, we have learned that asking for help works…” ~ In All Our Affairs

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Powerless, Not Helpless

There’s a subtle but vital distinction here. Powerless means recognizing that I cannot control outcomes, people, or timing. Helpless would mean believing that therefore, nothing can be done. But in recovery, surrender is never the end of movement—it’s the alignment of movement with truth. The moment I surrender my powerlessness, I open the door for a greater power to act through me. This is not passivity; it’s participation in grace.

Asking Without Prescription

For many of us, our prayers began as negotiations: “Please make the alcoholic stop drinking.” But the Step tradition teaches us to shift from asking for what we want to asking for what we need. It’s a discipline of trust—believing that the solution may look different, and that transformation often begins in our perception, not in our circumstances. When I ask simply, “Help me with this,” I move from manipulation to relationship.

God Doesn’t Speak in Code

What a freeing reminder. When we can’t hear, it’s rarely because God is cryptic—it’s because we are still translating divine language through fear. The answer to prayer often begins as peace, or a subtle loosening of tension. Clarity comes as we grow willing to stop deciphering and start listening.

From Courage to Change of Oct 17:

As newcomers, many of us were surprised by the absence of rules in Al-Anon. Before we found recovery from the effects of alcoholism, a strict sense of order may have been our only way of feeling that we had some control. Naturally we expected a program as successful as Al-Anon to be even more rigid than we were!

Instead, as a newcomer I was told that I was free to work the Steps at my own pace. I could ask questions of anyone as they came up. No one was in charge, yet everyone was in charge. It seemed impossible, yet I could see it working more effectively than any organization with which I’d ever been involved.

As I continue coming to Al-Anon, I’m learning to trust that the group is guided by a Higher Power whose will is expressed in our group conscience. | watch the | Traditions in action, guiding us by suggestions rather than rules. And | learn to trust my fellow members, each of whom contributes to the well-being of our fellowship, where no one person is in charge.

Today’s Reminder

If I take on service responsibilities in my group, it does not mean that I now run the show. Today I will remember that the ultimate authority is a Higher Power who works through all of us.

“Our groups, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.” ~ Tradition Nine

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Control was the first god I ever served — the false father of safety. I worshiped it because the world around me was chaos dressed as family, and rules were the only weapons that didn’t turn on me. When I entered recovery and found a room with no rulers, my fury woke before my faith did. I didn’t trust “suggestions.” I wanted commandments, boundaries — something with edges sharp enough to make sense of the mess. But the paradox cut deeper: every wall I built to protect myself only kept me from the very connection I claimed to crave.

There’s a sacred paradox at the heart of recovery: the more we try to control, the more we lose connection; the more we surrender, the more coherence arises. Before the rooms, many of us clung to rules like life rafts in a storm — desperate to impose order on the chaos that alcoholism had written into our days. But in Al-Anon, the invitation is different: no orders shouted from the deck, no fixed compass. Just a circle of equals listening for something greater than the sum of their fears.

The absence of rules felt like anarchy — until I saw it wasn’t chaos at all. It was the first taste of unforced order. The program didn’t need a dictator because the Higher Power wasn’t a tyrant. Its structure wasn’t held together by fear but by consequence — by what happens naturally when human beings choose humility over hierarchy. That’s when I realized: divine order doesn’t demand obedience; it asks for alignment. And alignment is harder. It burns away pride more slowly than punishment ever could.

The absence of rules is not the absence of order — it is trust in invisible order. The Steps give us a path; the Traditions give us harmony; and the group conscience becomes a living current of grace. Guidance doesn’t come through domination but through the collective humility of those who are willing to listen together. What once seemed impossible — an organization without control — becomes living proof that divine order needs no warden.

Service, then, becomes something entirely different from leadership. It’s not a stage to command but an altar to tend. When I take on responsibility, I do not hold power; I channel it. The Higher Power expresses through us, not above us. In this way, recovery becomes a model for the kind of world many of us have always wished for — one where trust replaces tyranny, and love replaces law.