Narcotics Anonymous

Just For Today - Daily Email Service

   June 21                                              New levels of honesty

       "We have been experts at self-deception and rationalization."

                                                            Basic Text, p. 28

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   When we come to our first meeting and hear that we must be honest, we may
   think, "Well now, that shouldn't be too difficult.  All I have to do
   is stop lying." To some of us, this comes easily.  We no longer have to
   lie to our employers about our absence from work.   We no longer have to
   lie to our families about where we were the night before.  By not using
   drugs anymore, we find we have less to lie about.  Some of us may have
   difficulty even with this kind of honesty, but at least learning not to
   lie is simple-you just don't do it, no matter what.  With courage,
   determined practice, the support of our fellow NA members, and the help of
   our Higher Power, most of us eventually succeed at this kind of honesty.

   Honesty, though, means more than just not lying.  The kind of honesty that
   is truly indispensable in recovery is self-honesty, which is neither easy
   nor simple to achieve.    In our addiction, we created a storm of
   self-deception and rationalization, a whirlwind of lies in which the
   small, quiet voice of self-honesty could not be heard.  To become honest
   with ourselves, we first must stop lying to ourselves.  In our Eleventh
   Step meditations, we must become quiet.  Then, in the resulting stillness,
   we must listen for truth.   When we become silent, self-honesty will be
   there for us to find.

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   Just for today:   I will be quiet and still, listening for the voice of
   truth within myself.  I will honor the truth I find.