I need courage to change
After doing Steps Four and Five* in my dual recovery program, I'm spiritually and emotionally tired. (They were especially hard to do given the shame and guilt I have felt in my depression.) I don't much feel like making any more changes in Steps Six and Seven*. Haven't I made enough changes by getting stable and abstinent?
And yet, how can I stop now? As I'm learning in the program, I work Steps Four and Five so I'm free to make these changes in myself. I know it will not be easy, but I need to begin to let go of the parts of my personality that cause me trouble, the parts that, in recovery, no longer help. I need to become open to change in Step Six and then invite change in Step Seven. With strength from my higher power, I can so this much and trust the results
Today I will pray for the courage to allow myself to be changed through my higher power.
Copyright (c) 1995 Today I will do one Thing, Hazelden Publishing ISBN-13: 978-1-56838-083-4
* The 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.