Narcotics Anonymous

Just For Today - Daily Email Service

   August 14                                    Letting go of our limitations

     "We don't have to settle for the limitations of the past.  We can
                    examine and reexamine our old ideas."

                                                            Basic Text, p. 11

                           ----=----

   Most of us come to the program with a multitude of self-imposed
   limitations that prevent us from realizing our full potential, limitations
   that impede our attempts to find the values that lie at the core of our
   being.   We place limitations on our ability to be true to ourselves,
   limitations on our ability to function at work, limitations on the risks
   we're willing to take-the list seems endless.   If our parents or
   teachers told us we would never succeed, and we believed them, chances are
   we didn't achieve much.  If our socialization taught us not to stand up
   for ourselves, we didn't, even if everything inside us was screaming to
   do so.

   In Narcotics Anonymous, we are given a process by which we can recognize
   these false limitations for what they are.   Through our Fourth Step,
   we'll discover that we don't want to keep all the rules we've been
   taught.  We don't have to be the lifelong victims of past experiences.
   We are free to discard the ideas that inhibit our growth.  We are capable
   of stretching our boundaries to encompass new ideas and new experiences.
   We are free to laugh, to cry, and, above all, to enjoy our recovery.

                           ----=----

   Just for today:  I will let go of my self-imposed limitations and open my
   mind to new ideas.