Narcotics Anonymous

Just For Today - Daily Email Service

   April 21                                                              Fear

   "We have found that we had no choice except to completely change our old
                    ways of thinking or go back to using."

                                                            Basic Text, p. 22

                           ----=----

   Many of us find that our old ways of thinking were dominated by fear.   We
   were afraid that we wouldn't be able to get our drugs or that there
   wouldn't be enough.   We feared discovery, arrest, and incarceration.
   Further down the list were fears of financial problems, homelessness,
   overdose, and illness.  And our fear controlled our actions.

   The early days of recovery weren't a great deal different for many of
   us; then, too, fear dominated our thinking.   "What if staying clean
   hurts too much?" we asked ourselves.   "What if I  can't make it?
   What if the people in NA don't like me?  What if NA doesn't work?"
   The fear behind these thoughts can still control our behavior, keeping us
   from taking the risks necessary to stay clean and grow.   It may seem
   easier to resign ourselves to certain failure, giving up before we start,
   than to risk everything on a slim hope.  But that kind of thinking leads
   only to relapse.

   To stay clean, we must find the willingness to change our old ways of
   thinking.  What has worked for other addicts can work for us-but we must
   be willing to try it.  We must trade in our old cynical doubts for new
   affirmations of hope.  When we do, we'll find it's worth the risk.

                           ----=----

   Just for today:   I  pray for the willingness to change my old ways of
   thinking, and for the ability to overcome my fears.