Narcotics Anonymous

Just For Today - Daily Email Service

   October 20                                               Freedom to choose

    "Enforced morality lacks the power that comes to us when we choose to
                           live a spiritual life."

                                                            Basic Text, p. 45

                           ----=----

   In our active addiction, many of us lived our lives by default.  We were
   unwilling or unable to make choices about how we wanted to act, what we
   preferred to do, or even where we would live.  We allowed the drugs or
   other people to make our most basic decisions for us.  Freedom from active
   addiction means, among other things, the freedom to make those choices for
   ourselves.

   Freedom of choice is a wonderful gift, but it's also a  great
   responsibility.  Choice allows us to find out who we are and what we
   believe in.  However, in exercising it, we're called on to weigh our own
   choices and accept the consequences.   This leads some of us to seek out
   someone who will make our choices for us-our sponsor, our home group,
   our NA friends-just as our disease made our choices for us when we were
   using.  That's not recovery.

   Seeking others'   experience  is one  thing;   abdicating  personal
   responsibility is something else.  If we don't use the gift of freedom
   we've been given, if we refuse to accept the responsibilities that go
   along with it, we'll lose that gift and our lives will be diminished.
   We are responsible for our own recovery and our own choices.  Difficult as
   it may seem, we must make those choices for ourselves and become willing
   to accept the consequences.

                           ----=----

   Just for today:   I  am grateful for the freedom to live as I choose.
   Today, I will accept responsibility for my recovery, make my own choices,
   and accept the consequences.