It is the privilege of wisdom to listen, Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote. If I try as hard as I can to cultivate the art of listening—uncritically and without making premature judgments—chances are great that I’ll progress more rapidly in my recovery. If I try as hard as I can to listen to the feelings and …
Many of us come to the Gamblers Anonymous Program professing that we’re agnostic or atheistic. As someone once put it, our will to disbelieve is so strong that we prefer a date with the undertaker to an experimental and open-minded search for a Higher Power. Fortunately for those of us with closed minds, the constructive …
Very few of us know what we really want, and none of us knows what is best for us. That knowledge is in the hands of God. This is a fact I must ultimately accept, in spite of my rebelliousness and stubborn resistance. From this day forward, I’ll limit my prayers to requests for guidance, …
For my own good, I’ll go to meetings and participate in discussions with an open mind that’s ready to receive and accept new ideas. For my own peace of mind and comfort, I’ll determinedly try to apply those new ideas to my own life. I’ll remember that the Gamblers Anonymous Program offers me the instruction …
Long experience has proved that the Gamblers Anonymous Program and Twelve Steps will work for any person who approaches them with an open mind. We have to remember that we can’t expect miracles overnight; after all, it took years to create the situation in which we find ourselves today. I’ll try to be less hasty …
Faced with almost certain destruction by our addiction to gambling, we eventually had no choice but to become open-minded on spiritual matters. In that sense, the multitude of ways we used to bet and wager were potent persuaders; they finally whipped us into a state of reasonableness. We came to learn that when we stubbornly …
Conditioned as we are by our old ideas and old ways of living, it’s understandable that we tend to resist certain suggestions made to us when we first come to the Gamblers Anonymous Program. If that’s the case, there’s no need to reject such suggestions permanently; it’s better, we’ve found, just temporarily to set them aside. The …
These days, I go to meetings to listen for the similarities between me and others in Gamblers Anonymous—not the differences. And when I look for the similarities, it’s amazing how many I find, particularly in the area of feelings. Today I go to meetings thinking that I’m here not because of anyone else’s addictions, but …
In many respects, the Fellowship of Gamblers Anonymous is like a reasonably happy cruise ship or, in time of trouble, like a convoy. But in the long run, each of us must chart his or her own course through life. When the seas are smooth, we may become careless. By neglecting Step Ten, we may …
Someone once defined the ego as the sum total of false ideas about myself. Persistent reworking of the Twelve Steps enables me gradually to strip away my false ideas about myself. This permits nearly imperceptible but steady growth in my understanding of the truth about myself. And this, in turn, leads to a growing understanding of God …