Finally my mother knelt down in desperation, and as she cried she handed me a knife. She asked me to kill her once and for all, not little by little like I had been doing.

From experience I knew that pauses in working the steps can be dangerous. I knew I had to write regularly, even if in small portions, but to write.

but I experienced amazing tranquility. I found out that I am able to be above my impulses and live without doing harm to myself or people around me.

it. Spirituality enables us to live life to its fullest, feeling grateful for who we are and for what we have done in life.

In recovery, our ideas of fun change. We are now free to enjoy the simple things in life, like fellowship and living in harmony with nature.

If we had written down our list of expectations when we came to the program, we would have been cheating ourselves. Hopeless living problems have become joyously changed. Our disease has been arrested, and now anything is possible.

us. We are recovering in the here and now and the future becomes an exciting journey.

Living just for today, we have no way of knowing what will happen to us. We are often amazed at how things work out for

Higher mental and emotional functions, such as conscience and the ability to love, were sharply affected by our drug use. Living skills were reduced to the animal level. Our spirit was broken. The capacity to feel human was lost. This seems extreme, but many of us have been in this state.