Gratitude Recovery Gifts Abundant and Accessible My area is blessed with a face-to-face meeting that occurs at noon every weekday. As a young professional, I’m thankful for this regular lunchtime meeting, though often, when I am able to make it, I’m rushing in and out between work appointments. Rushing, to be honest, is a byproduct of some character defects I’m asking my Higher Power to remove: … Read More
Gratitude Recovery Summer Steps and Smiles As I reflect on the unofficial start of the summer season, I’m filled with gratitude for OA. I first came into these sacred rooms on a Monday, right after the Fourth of July. Thank God that summer party at a friend’s lake house drove me to look into OA. A childhood friend had become sober in another Twelve Step fellowship … Read More
Recovery Relationships Keep Recovery a Priority I wrote a song once that said: “I am stuck in the middle of the hard part of my story.” I was 27, and I thought it was a clever lyric for a challenging time. Eleven years later, I see that difficulties back then pale in comparison to what’s happening now. Due to a series of stressful events, I am … Read More
Keep Coming Back Uncategorized Freedom of Choice It is easy to be misled to think That freedom is entitlement to obtain Whatever we want, when we want it, Be it pleasing or wasteful or vain. Yes, we’ve been given free will, But that doesn’t mean absence of price For choosing that which is not for our good, For rejecting virtue for vice. For what is the opposite … Read More
Spirituality The Sum of One and One Step Eleven—Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will and the power to carry that out. At a recent meeting, the topic for sharing was “What Step has been the most meaningful in your recovery?” As you can imagine, a dozen members presented a dozen … Read More
Steps Step 11: Learning to Listen My first Step sponsor told me I could begin to practice Step Eleven early in my OA program. I did not need to wait until I had worked the preceding ten Steps. Prayer for me, until then, had just been asking God for things I thought I needed; basically “God, please give me _____.” But my sponsor had me stick … Read More
Atheists & Agnostics Something Like Physics I am a member of OA who is successfully working the program, and I am an atheist, or maybe an agnostic, but I’m not concerned with the label. I consider myself a spiritual person, but I do not have a Higher Power to whom I pray. I have been in OA for twenty-eight years. My current abstinence is six years. … Read More
