Narcotics Anonymous

Just For Today - Daily Email Service

   November 14                                             Not just surviving

    "When we were using, our lives became an exercise in survival.  Now we
                 are doing much more living than surviving."

                                                            Basic Text, p. 50

                           ----=----

   "I'd be better off dead!" A familiar refrain to a practicing addict,
   and with good reason.  All we had to look forward to was more of the same
   miserable existence.  Our hold on life was weak at best.  Our emotional
   decay, our spiritual demise, and the crushing awareness that nothing would
   ever change were constants.  We had little hope and no concept of the life
   we were missing out on.

   The resurrection of our emotions, our spirits, and our physical health
   takes time.   The more experience we gain in living, rather than merely
   existing, the more we understand how precious and delightful life can be.
   Traveling, playing with a small child, making love, expanding our
   intellectual horizons, and forming relationships are among the endless
   activities that say, "I'm alive." We discover so much to cherish
   and feel grateful to have a second chance.

   If we had died in active addiction, we would have been bitterly deprived
   of so many of life's joys.   Each day we thank a Power greater than
   ourselves for another day clean and another day of life.

                           ----=----

   Just for today:  I am grateful to be alive.  I will do something today to
   celebrate.