Narcotics Anonymous

Just For Today - Daily Email Service

   February 26                                                        Remorse

   "The Eighth Step offers a big change from a life dominated by guilt and
                                  remorse."

                                                            Basic Text, p. 39

                           ----=----

   Remorse was one of the feelings that kept us using.  We had stumbled our
   way through active addiction, leaving  a trail of heartbreak  and
   devastation too painful to consider.  Our remorse was often intensified by
   our perception that we couldn't do anything about the damage we had
   caused; there was no way to make it right.

   We remove some of the power of remorse when we face it squarely.  We begin
   the Eighth Step by actually making a list of all the people we have
   harmed.  We own our part in our painful past.

   But the Eighth Step does not ask us to make right all of our mistakes,
   merely to become willing to make amends to all those people.  As we become
   willing to clean up the damage we've caused, we acknowledge our
   readiness to change.  We affirm the healing process of recovery.

   Remorse is no longer an instrument we use to torture ourselves.   Remorse
   has become a tool we can use to achieve self-forgiveness.

                           ----=----

   Just for today:   I  will use any feelings of remorse I may have as a
   stepping-stone to healing through the Twelve Steps.