PODCAST · health
A Day at a Time Reflections
by James H
Reflections from the Gamblers Anonymous little blue book, A Day at a Time, published by Hazelden Information and Education Serviceswww.hazelden.orgAvailable on Amazon -A Day at a Time https://amzn.to/3EOjuiHG.A. A New Beginning https://amzn.to/3E9YgPC
Episodes
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OCTOBER 20 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "I will not kick myself"
Before I admitted my powerlessness over gambling, I had as much self worth as a "peeled zero." I came into Gamblers Anonymous as a nobody who desperately wanted to be a somebody. In retrospect, my self-esteem was shredded, seemingly beyond repair. Gradually, the Program has enabled me to achieve…
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OCTOBER 19 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Throw away old tapes"
There are countless ways by which my progress and growth in the Gamblers Anonymous Program can be measured. One of the most important is my awareness that I'm no longer compelled, almost obsessively, to go around judging everything and everybody. My only business today is to work on changing...
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OCTOBER 18 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "I'm grateful for the contrast"
Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the rewards that would be mine when I first contemplated turning my life and will over to the care of God as I understood Him. Now I can rejoice in the blessing of my own recovery, as well as the recoveries of countless others who have found hope and…
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OCTOBER 17 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Miracles mark our progress"
All my life I searched for what would bring me happiness, traveling many roads, fast and slow. Most of the roads I chose were easier, softer ways, but the destinations were unsatisfying. I always turned back and chose another - again the easiest road to travel. I thought they were short cuts, but...
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OCTOBER 16 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Give and take and give back"
Someone once said that the mind's direction is more important than its progress. If my direction is correct, then progress is sure to follow. We first come to Gamblers Anonymous to receive something for ourselves, but soon learn that we receive most bountifully when we give to others. If the...
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OCTOBER 15 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "A heavy hand is not a helping hand"
All too often I unwittingly set standards for others in the Gamblers Anonymous Program. Worse yet, I expect those standards to be met. I go so far, on occasion, to decide what progress other people should make in their recoveries, and how their attitudes and actions should change. Not…
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OCTOBER 14 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "The Twelve Steps work"
"Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas," wrote Alfred North Whitehead. When we review the ups and downs of our recovery in Gamblers Anonymous, we can see the truth of that statement. We make progress each time we get rid of an old idea, each time we uncover a...
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OCTOBER 13 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "I need not be discouraged"
My progress in recovery depends in large measure on my attitude, and my attitude is up to me. It's the way I decide to look at things. Nobody can force an attitude on me. For me, a good attitude is a point of view unclouded by self-pity and resentments. There will be stumbling blocks in my path,...
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OCTOBER 12 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "The greatest high of them all"
Many people we meet in Gamblers Anonymous radiate a kind of special glow a joy in living that shows in their faces and bearing. They've put aside their obsession with gambling and have progressed to the point where they're "high" on life itself. Their confidence and enthusiasm are contagious -...
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OCTOBER 11 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "God's formula for living"
When I say the Serenity Prayer, sometimes over and over, I occasionally lose sight of the prayer's meaning even as I repeat its words. So I try to think of the meaning of each phrase as I say it, whether aloud or silently. As I concentrate on the meaning, my understanding grows, along with my...
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OCTOBER 10 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Anxiety never solved anything"
When we allow our Higher Power to take charge, without reservations on our part, we stop being anxious. When we're not anxious about some person or situation, that doesn't mean we're disinterested or have stopped caring. Just the opposite is true. We can be interested and caring without being...
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OCTOBER 9 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Stop list-making for God"
I remember once hearing someone in the Gamblers Anonymous Program say, "Life is a series of agreeings or disagreeings with the universe." There is much truth in that statement, for I'm only a small cog in the machinery of the universe. When I try to run things my way, I'll experience only...
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OCTOBER 8 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Loosen up on the stranglehold"
Determination-our clenched-jaw resolve that we can do something about everything-is perhaps the greatest hindrance to achieving serenity. Our old tapes tell us, "The difficult can be done immediately; the impossible will take a little longer." So we tighten up and prepare ourselves for battle…
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OCTOBER 7 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Serenity comes first"
When I first read the Serenity Prayer, the word "serenity" itself seemed like an impossibility. At the time, the word conjured up images of lethargy, apa thy, resignation, or grim-faced endurance; it hardly seemed a desirable goal. But I've since found that serenity means none of those things....
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OCTOBER 6 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Serenity is surrender"
As we "Keep Coming Back" to meetings, we're able to recognize those who have an abundance of serenity. We are drawn to these people. To our surprise, we sometimes find that those who seem most grateful for today's blessings are the very ones who have the most serious and continuing problems at…
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OCTOBER 4 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "I cannot engineer another's recovery"
We are powerless over gambling; that admission brought us to the Gamblers Anonymous Program, where we learn through unconditional surrender that there is victory in defeat. After a time, we learn in Twelfth Step work that we're not only powerless over our own addiction, but over the addiction of...
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OCTOBER 3 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Acceptance is not inactivity"
I've learned in Gamblers Anonymous that I am wholly powerless over my compulsion. At long last, I've conceded my powerlessness; as a result, my life has taken a 180-degree turn for the better. However, I do have a power, derived from God, to change my own life. I've learned that acceptance does…
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OCTOBER 2 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Live and let live"
An entire philosophy of life is condensed in the slogan "Live and Let Live." First we're urged to live fully, richly, and happily - to fulfill our destiny with the joy that comes from doing well whatever we do. Then comes a more difficult challenge: let live. This means accepting the right of…
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OCTOBER 1 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Shared loneliness is less lonely"
We can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely. We can be all by ourselves and still feel happy and content. What makes the difference? We feel lonely if we look to other people for something they really can't provide. No one else can give US peace of mind, an inner sense of acceptance, and...
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OCTOBER 5 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Life without people?"
Soon after I came to Gamblers Anonymous, I found a Higher Power whom I choose to call God. I've come to believe that He has all power; if I stay close to Him and do His work well, He provides me not with what I think I want, but with what I need. Gradually, I'm becoming less interested in myself...
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SEPTEMBER 30 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "A dependancy is a dependancy"
No matter what other people do or don't do, for ourselves we have to remain abstinent from gambling. When our program of recovery becomes contingent on the actions or inactions of another person-especially someone with whom we're emotionally involved the results are invariably disastrous. We also...
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SEPTEMBER 29 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "No entangling alliances"
In our first weeks or months in Gamblers Anonymous, our shaky emotional condition sometimes affects our feelings toward old friends and family. For many of us, these relationships heal quickly in the initial stages of our recovery. For others, a time of "touchiness" seems to persist; now that…
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SEPTEMBER 28 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Giving is part of being"
Now that we're free from our compulsion to gamble, and living life one day at a time, we can begin to stop making unreasonable demands upon those we love. We can show kindness where we had shown none; we can take the time and initiative to be thoughtful, considerate, and compassionate. Even with...
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SEPTEMBER 27 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "More than one dependancy"
In times past, even as adults, many of us childishly insisted that people protect, defend, and care for us. We acted as if the world owed US a living. And then, when the people we most loved became fed up, pushing us aside or perhaps abandoning us completely, we were bewildered. We couldn't see...
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SEPTEMBER 26 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Stopping was a starting point"
Is freedom from compulsive gambling all that we're to expect from a spiritual awakening? Not at all. Freedom from our addiction is only the bare beginning; it's only the first gift of our first awakening. Obviously, if more gifts are to come our way, our awakening has to continue. As it does...
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SEPTEMBER 25 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Promises"
At the suggestion of a long-timer in Gamblers Anonymous, I began taking "recovery inventories" periodically. The results showed me - clearly and unmistakably - that the promises of the GA Program have been true for me. I am not the sick person I was in years past; I am no longer bankrupt in all...
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SEPTEMBER 24 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Getting there, not being there."
"Everybody wants to be somebody, nobody wants to grow," wrote Goethe. I ask myself sometimes, as we all do: Who am I? Where am I? Where am I going? What's it all about? The learning and growing process is usually slow. But eventually our seeking always brings a finding. What seem like great...
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SEPTEMBER 23 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Progress over perfection"
On studying the Twelve Steps of Recovery, many of us as newcomers to Gamblers Anonymous exclaimed, "What an order! I can't go through with it." "Don't be discouraged," we're told at meeting after meeting. "No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these...
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SEPTEMBER 22 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Don't let things I can't do get in the way"
For a considerable period of time after I reached Gamblers Anonymous, I let things I couldn't do keep me from doing the things I could. If I was bothered by what a speaker or other people said, I retreated, sulking, into my shell. Now, instead of being annoyed or defensive when someone strikes a...
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SEPTEMBER 21 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Step by step"
I've heard it said that when God closes a door, He opens a window. Since I started working the Twelve Steps of Recovery, much of the fear and pain that haunted my life is gone. Some of my defects have been lifted from me, though I'm still wrestling with others. I believe that if I continue to…
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SEPTEMBER 20 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Strength through adversity"
"When a man has reached a condition in which he believed that a thing must happen when he does not wish it, and that which he wishes to happen can never be, this is really the state called desperation," wrote Schopenhauer. The very real pain of emotional difficulties is sometimes very hard to…
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SEPTEMBER 19 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "From powerless high to Higher Power"
It's still not exactly a "piece of cake" for me to accept today's occasional pain and anxiety with any great degree of serenity, but I'm increasingly able to be thankful for a certain amount of pain. In the Gamblers Anonymous Program, we find the willingness to do this by going over the lessons...
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SEPTEMBER 18 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "I hurt; therefore I am"
In every story we hear from others in Gamblers Anonymous, pain has been the price of admission into a new life, But our admission price purchased far more than we expected. It led us to a degree of humility, which we soon discovered to be a healer of pain. And, in time, we began to fear pain…
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SEPTEMBER 17 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Remain teachable"
When I see new members come into Gamblers Anonymous, I am reminded first of the pain and the unmanageable mess I found myself in, and then the hope I felt once I became willing to accept the Gamblers Anonymous Program. When I see and hear the Old Timers, some with twenty years or more in GA, I am...
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SEPTEMBER 16 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "First a trap door"
We learn from others in Gamblers Anonymous that the best way to deal with painful situations is to meet them head on, to deal with them honestly and realistically, and to try to learn from them and use them as springboards for growth. Through the GA Program and our contact with a Higher Power, we...
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SEPTEMBER 15 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Throw away my stamp"
No one welcomes pain with open arms, but it does have its uses. Just as physical pain serves as a warning that we may be suffering a bodily illness, so can emotional pain be a useful sign that something is wrong - as well as a warning that we need to make a change. When we can meet pain without...
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SEPTEMBER 14 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Humility restores sight"
Until we came to the Gamblers Anonymous Program, our lives had been spent running from pain and problems. Escape by way of compulsive gambling was always our temporary solution. Then we started going to meetings. We looked and listened, often with amazement. Everywhere around us, we saw failure…
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SEPTEMBER 13 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Pain saves lives"
We hear often in our Gamblers Anonymous meetings that pain is the touchstone of spiritual progress. We eventually realize that, just as the pains of compulsive gambling had to come before our abstinence, emotional turmoil comes before serenity. We no longer commiserate with all people who suffer,...
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SEPTEMBER 12 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Thank God for restoring my feelings"
"At certain moments," wrote Coleridge, "a single almost insignificant sorrow may, by association, bring together all the little relics of pain and discomfort, bodily and mental, that we have endured even from infancy." The Gamblers Anonymous Program doesn't teach us to pretend that hardships and...
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SEPTEMBER 11 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Love is a charitable contribution"
One thing, more than anything else, that can relieve my occasional feeling of depression is love. I have to keep myself "lovable" in the sense of being able to love others, rather than being concerned with whether others love me. In somehow losing myself in others, emotionally or spiritually, I...
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SEPTEMBER 10 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Loneliness is treatable"
Years ago, Dr. Alfred Adler prescribed this remedy for depression to a patient: "You can be healed if every day you begin the first thing in the morning to consider how you can bring a real joy to someone else. If you can stick to this for two weeks, you will no longer need therapy." Adler's...
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SEPTEMBER 9 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Look for someone to share with"
The longer I'm in the Gamblers Anonymous Program and the longer I try to practice its principles in all my affairs, the less frequently I become morose and depressed. Perhaps, too, there's something to that cynical old saying, "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be…
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SEPTEMBER 8 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Choose not to be hopeless"
We are told that no situation is hopeless. At first, of course, we find this hard to believe. The opposites - hope and despair are human emotional attitudes. It is we who are hopeless, not the condition of our lives. When we give up hope and become depressed, it's because we're unable, for now…
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SEPTEMBER 7 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Problems have endings"
"If you're not all right the way you are," it's been said, "it takes a lot of effort to get better. Realize you're all right the way you are, and you'll get better naturally." Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation so difficult that it seems insoluble. The more we think about it, the more we...
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SEPTEMBER 6 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Goal set too high set me back"
As practicing compulsive gamblers, we were all too familiar with depression, that pile-up of dark feelings that seemed to close over our heads at regular intervals. Even now, when I am not making progress at the rate I expect I should be, when I expect a total turnaround in my spiritual self...
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SEPTEMBER 5 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "I am not God"
We're often told that compulsive gamblers are perfectionists, impatient about any shortcomings - especially our own. We tend to set impossible goals for ourselves, struggling fiercely to reach our unattainable ideals. Then of course - since no person could possibly meet the extremely high…
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SEPTEMBER 4 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "God may not do it MY way"
Though I have prayed at various times in my life, I realized after several months in Gamblers Anonymous that I'd never really prayed properly. I'd always tried to make deals with God, much like a foxhole atheist; I'd always pleaded, "Grant me my wishes," instead of "Thy will - not mine - be…
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SEPTEMBER 3 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Don't give in or up, give over"
Sometimes, even when friends in and outside of the Gamblers Anonymous Program tell us how well we're doing, we know deep down that we're really not doing well enough. We still have trouble handling life and facing reality on reality's terms. We suspect, at those times, that there must be a…
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SEPTEMBER 2 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "Tell God what to do?"
When I wake up. I'll think quietly about the twenty-four hours ahead, I'll ask God to direct my thinking especially asking that it be free from self-pity and from dishonest or self seeking motives. If I have to determine which of several courses to take, I'll ask God for inspiration, for an...
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SEPTEMBER 1 REFLECTION FOR THE DAY "I thank God for my understanding"
The Gamblers Anonymous Red Book, in explaining Step Eleven, says "A conscious contact seems to start with daily prayer. What is prayer? To some it is a personal chat with their Higher Power. So each of us can pray as we see fit." If at first prayer seems difficult, you can "fake it until you make...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Reflections from the Gamblers Anonymous little blue book, A Day at a Time, published by Hazelden Information and Education Serviceswww.hazelden.orgAvailable on Amazon -A Day at a Time https://amzn.to/3EOjuiHG.A. A New Beginning https://amzn.to/3E9YgPC
HOSTED BY
James H
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A Day at a Time Reflections currently has 299 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is A Day at a Time Reflections about?
Reflections from the Gamblers Anonymous little blue book, A Day at a Time, published by Hazelden Information and Education Serviceswww.hazelden.orgAvailable on Amazon -A Day at a Time https://amzn.to/3EOjuiHG.A. A New Beginning https://amzn.to/3E9YgPC
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A Day at a Time Reflections publishes regularly with 299 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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Who hosts A Day at a Time Reflections?
A Day at a Time Reflections is created and hosted by James H.
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