Just for Today...

My Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous fell from my desk recently and flipped open to page 100. "Just for Today" is written on that page, and I took it as a sign that there was a need for me to review that series of slogans in my life. It goes like this:

Tell yourself:

Just for today my thoughts will be on my recovery, living and enjoying life without the use of drugs.

Just for today I will have faith in someone in NA who believes in me and wants to help me in my recovery.

Just for today I will have a program. I will try to follow it to the best of my ability.

Just for today through NA I will try to get a better perspective on my life.

Just for Today I will be unafraid, my thoughts will be on my new associations, people who are not using and who have found a new ways of life. So long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear.

Some of you may recognize a few of these phrases for I have consistently used parts of Just for Today in several blog entries. There is a reason for that...I believe wholeheartedly in what this says because Just for Today saved my life.

When I first got clean in 1987, I used to go to meetings at a place called the Crossroads Club in Delray Beach FL. The people and meetings there made such a strong emotional impression on me that I can picture the faces of the people in those rooms to this day. And, I remember their names...Jerry, the gambler with the massive cocaine addition; Kennedy, the weightlifter who would do two or three 12-step calls on suffering addicts a week; Don, my sponsor, who was 66 years old and had 6 strong years of recovery under his belt; Bobby, the suicidal pot smoker, who survived a shotgun blast to his face after a busted attempt to shoot himself. The people and more formed the core of healthy people that I initially relied upon to save my life.

At first, surrounded by all these recovering addicts whose using lives seemed so much more chaotic and hopeless than my relatively normal existence, I felt I didn't fit in. "I was different" I said to myself. Don was the first to remind me that no one gets to the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous by mistake and there was a reason for me being there. He was right: My inability to live in the moment, in the day, in the time I had been given to live a productive life...that inability to live life on life's terms was the chief cause for the collapse of my life that was directly related to my use of drugs. He is the one who first took me to Just for Today, and I have never looked back since.

Today, I only think about recovery and living life as best I can. Today, I have faith that someone wants to help me and is there for me when I need him or her. Today, I have a strong program of recovery and I follow its guidance. Today, I have a true perspective on my life. And, today, I am unafraid of life and I focus on what I have with respect and gratitude.

That's all I really need to do to stay well. It is so simple. It is elegant. It is real. For the book to flip open at this page could be due to its well-worn groove in the binding. Or, one might say it's a reminder for me to look carefully at my life today to see that I am living one day at a time. It makes no difference which it is. I just take it as it comes to me with all the goodness and hope that it provides.

So long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear.

All the best, Roger W.