A Day at a Time Reflections

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. To make direct amends means making amends in person whenever possible. If miles apart makes such a meeting...

Virtually all of us suffered the defect of pride when we sought help through the Program, the Twelve Steps, and the Fellowship of recovering compulsive gamblers who truly understood what we felt and where we had been...

I never cease to be amazed at how appropriate the topic at meetings I attend seems to be in relation to my life at that particular time. We can only become students in the presence of a teacher-and when a student...

The Gamblers Anonymous Program's Fourth Step suggests that we make a fearless moral and financial inventory of ourselves. For so many of us, especially newcomers, the task seems impossible. Each time we take pencil in...

From time to time when I see the slogan "There, but for the Grace of God Go I," I remember how I used to mouth those words when I saw others whose gambling addiction had brought them to what I considered a "hopeless and...

My gambling addiction was like a thief in more ways than I can count. It robbed me not only of money, property, and other material things, but of dignity and self-respect, while my family and friends suffered right...

"You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his...

"One's own self is well hidden from one's own self," a renowned philosopher once wrote. "Of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up." The Gamblers Anonymous Twelve Steps of Recovery have enabled me to...

"Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well," wrote La Rochefoucauld. The Gamblers Anonymous Program is of inestimable value for those of us recovering compulsive gamblers who want to know ourselves...

There's a world of difference between the idea of self-love and love of self. Self-love is a reflection of an inflated ego, around which - in our distorted view of our own self-importance everything must revolve...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...