Victim or Survivor?

Today's Thought

You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning.

There are really only two ways to approach life--as victim or as gallant fighter--and you must decide if you want to act or react, deal your own cards or play with a stacked deck. And if you don't decide which way to play with life, it always plays with you.
--Merle Shain

Being the victim is, or was, uncomfortably familiar to many of us. Perhaps some of us are only now realizing we have choices, that we need not let life happen to us. Becoming responsible to ourselves, choosing behavior, beliefs, friends, activities, that please us, though unfamiliar at first, soon exhilarates us. The more choices we make, the more alive we feel. The more alive we feel, the healthier our choices.

Our aim is recovery. Recovering means participating fully in our lives. It means self-assessment and self-direction. It means trusting to move forward, step-by-step, choice-by-choice, knowing all the while that no thoughtful action can trouble us.

Many opportunities to make choices will present themselves today. The choices I make will satisfy me; they will move me toward my goal of recovery.

I spent a long time being a victim and being played by life. It was a place of misery and pain. The insanity continued until the pain became so great that I was faced with a choice......life or death. The victim was trapped in a fatal addiction and inorder to live I had to become a survivor. My fear was so intense that at times I felt paralyzed by it. In the end when all was said and done I had to make the choice to take that step at the edge of the cliff and have faith that one of two things would happen.......there would be ground on which to stand or I would be given wings. It was the most difficult thing I have ever done. Once I took the step things began to fall into place. I am now a survivor. It is something I must remember to do ever day for it is so easy to return to the comforts of the vicitim. However, when I remain the survivor I can be happy, joyous and free. Working through the pain leads to tremendous gain. I am so grateful to my Higher Power for the strength to survive. It was there all along, all I had to do was ask for it, and have the courage to reach out and use it. I am also grateful to the folks who patiently and kindly held my hand and showed me the way.