Recovery International

04/23/2026

Whether your future will be one of fulfillment or of frustration depends on the manner in which you manage your expectations.” (Selections, p. 34)

04/22/2026

Clearing Up the Confusion Between
Angry and Fearful Thoughts vs.
Angry and Fearful Temper

Sunday, April 26, 2026
5:00 p.m. Eastern time
(60 minutes via Zoom)

RI members can sometimes confuse the terms “Angry and Fearful Thoughts” with “Angry and Fearful Temper” when reporting those in an example. Judi Bakke will clarify the difference between these concepts and explain during which step of the 4-Step Method the example giver should describe their thoughts and tempers. After the presentation and group discussion, attendees will have a clearer understanding of how to correctly identify, distinguish, and report their thoughts and tempers within the Recovery International example framework.

Free to all. Please register - https://bit.ly/4mn8q3m

04/22/2026

Your moment of peace

04/21/2026

Gear up for May is Mental Health Awareness Month!
Celebrate Mental Health Awareness month with gratitude for the gifts we were given by the Recovery Method! And speaking of gifts – we are offering a special boxed gift set for someone in your life who needs the valuable life coping skills that have helped you.
The set includes:
• Better Mental Health for Everyone, an intro workbook to get started learning the concepts and RI Method
• The Wisdom of Dr. Low, quotations from various books he wrote
• A set of 50 designer Tool Cards (your choice of botanical or nature landscapes)
• A green ribbon mental health pin
• And a personalized note card -- Jessica will write out what you want the message to say.
The cost is $45.00 and includes FREE shipping in the US (please allow at least 10 days for shipping). Call Jessica at (312) 337-5661.

04/20/2026

Temper, Symptoms and Insight

"Fights give a sense of living that differs from the boredom of daily existence. They offer the opportunity to display strength, decision, eagerness, determination—all of the elements that are painfully lacking in a drab routine of hopelessness and paralysis of will. Our patients want stimulation, not equilibrium and peace. They want exhilarating theories, not balancing realities. They crave the use of force, not the adjustment of sensations, feelings and impulses. If you tell them that their unbridled tempers will upset health and disturb peace, their verbal or mental reply is: 'I would rather disturb peace and lose health than give up temper.'”

Mental Health Through Will-Training,
Ch. 2 (5th Edition), pg. 14

04/20/2026

04/19/2026

A triviality of everyday life

"Step 1: Recently one afternoon, as we were getting ready to take our children to the park, my husband thought of a last-minute item he wanted to purchase in preparation for an upcoming road-trip. He began searching on his phone for local products and retailers, and wanted to make a few calls, all while we were asking the children to get dressed and get everyone prepared to leave the house.

Step 2: The mental symptoms I had were: angry temper and racing thoughts (“Why on earth does he always leave things until the very last minute? Does he really have to deal with searching for this item right now, while we’re right in the middle of trying to get the kids out the door?”). The physical symptom I experienced was muscle tenseness.

Step 3: I spotted right away that I was getting worked up and that I needed to use my Recovery. I used the following spotting tools:
• There are no right or wrongs in the trivialities of daily life, and every aspect of this was a triviality.
• People do things that annoy, not to annoy.
• Don’t work a triviality into an emergency (it doesn’t matter if it takes us an extra five minutes to arrive at the park).
• Calm begets calm and temper begets temper.

Step 4: In former days, before my Recovery training, I would have indulged myself in anger, because I would have insisted that I was right, and my husband was wrong. I would have indulged myself in feeling personally hurt that my husband was ignoring my wants and didn’t care about the plans I had made for the family. I might have worked myself up to crying, stomach discomfort, and more tenseness throughout the body. Instead, when I quickly noticed myself getting worked up and quickly used the spotting tools, my temper was controlled quickly, too. As it turned out, my husband only needed just a few minutes to make the phone call and then we were off to the park. I let the working-up process go and by the time we arrived at the park I had almost forgotten that I had even been upset just moments prior and we had a wonderful time."

Danielle C., Burnaby, BC, Canada

04/19/2026

What brought you to Recovery?
How has it benefited you?

04/18/2026

- What brought you to Recovery?
- How has it benefited you?

04/18/2026

Find an RI meeting by visiting https://bit.ly/3WqXOW4

04/17/2026

Recovery International gives a quick overview of some of the main concepts of the Recovery Self-Help Method. This will help you understand our focus on daily stressful events (trivialities), where we assign blame when we are worked up (angry/fearful temper), what we can and can't control in our environment, and the power of self-endorsing.

04/17/2026

Announcing The Dial-a-Spot Helpline
This recording of Dr. Low's spots may help you manage your symptoms and find calm and peace when you are worked up and can't get to a meeting. Dial (312) 448-9387 -- available 24 hours a day.