Lucky or Cheated?

If you go around thinking you are being cheated,
life becomes very unpleasant.--Felix Salten

Sometimes we feel cheated that we have been given this darn disease to cope with. Why us? Why can't we just be like normal people? Why did we have to get into so much trouble and pain as a result of a disease that hit us and skipped over other people?

way to look at it is: Hey, I'm really lucky. I have a killer disease, and I'm beating the odds. I'm sober and getting healthier every day. I got my life back.

Another way to look at it is: At least this is a disease I can recover from.

The Big Book Promises (on pages 83 and 84) say that any feeling of self-pity will disappear by the time we are working Step Nine. We may even be grateful for the path that led us to recovery. Do we believe it? There's one way to find out: We need to try it.

Prayer for the Day:
Higher Power, help me to remember that there are a lot worse things in life than being in recovery.

Today's Action:
What are five good things that I have gotten from recovery? Ten? I will write these down and refer to them when I'm tempted to feel sorry for myself.

Tonight as I helped a sponsee through the third step it hit me......I am so very blessed. I have this deadly affliction and I have been granted not one but two chances to accept the gift of recovery. So very many people never make it to the room, let alone get a second chance. It has been very selfish of me to fuck with this recovery process. This is not a game....this is life or death. When I looked back at how I landed in this group I remembered the fine line I was walking, between life and death. By all rights I should have been dead, as already had one foot in the grave. I have been given the greatest gift of all and I have a responsiblity to myself and to the world to live to my fullest potential, to follow to my best ability the path which Good Orderly Direction would have me do.

I am so grateful for: (ten things I've gotten from recovery)

• G.O.D. (Good Orderly Direction)
• second chances
• sponsors and sponsees
• my family
• my other family (which, thanks to the web extends globally)
• a great job
• restored sanity
• restored health
• willingness, honesty and openmindedness
• my Sangha
• my home group
• little pieces of happy, joyous and free
• the opportunity to meet in person some of my online friends and the promise to meet even more of yall
• 20.5 years of marriage that is still loving, respectfull and passionate despite all I did to try to destroy it
• 24 hours......today