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Sober Life, Santa Rosa Beach, FL (2026)

03/31/2026

March 31

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself.
–Ethel Barrymore

There was a time when we wouldn’t let anyone laugh at us–even ourselves. We had to much shame. We had to much pain. We took the world too seriously. If we laughed it was at others–not at ourselves. Over time , real honest laughter returns to us. Laughter is a way of accepting ourselves as human. To be human means we can make mistakes. It means we can lighten up. It also means growing up. And growing up means being happy with all of who we are–even parts of us that may seem odd or funny. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, we shut ourselves off from the world. We shut ourselves off from the parts of us we need to accept. Am I willing to accept the fact that I’m human.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, You made laughter. Help me us it to make my life easier. Help me accept all of me a funny mistake I’ve made.

Action for the Day: Today, I’ll share with someone close to me a funny mistake I’ve made.

03/30/2026

March 30
Identify, don’t compare
Good Judgment.

There’s always danger in comparing ourselves with others. If we use behavior and drinking as yardsticks, such comparisons can lead us to believe that we might not really be alcoholics. This mistaken conclusion has been the undoing of some alcoholics.

The better course is to identify with the problems others have in common with us. Thought drinking patterns and habits may vary between two people, individuals may at least share the fears and delusions that drinking brought.

Other common factors that bind alcoholics together are emotional immaturity, a misplaced faith that alcohol solves problems, loneliness, and a tendency toward resentments. These also make good discussion topics for meetings.

At the very beginning of AA, the founders had trouble coming up with a real definition of alcoholism. Since then, we’ve done very well be letting members “Diagnose” themselves. It’s best to leave it this way: “If your drinking is a problem in your life, AA has an answer for you.

Today I will not waste time comparing myself with others. Having accepted my alcoholism, I’ll devote my attention to the things that enhance sobriety.

03/29/2026

March 29
Getting Needs Met

Picture yourself walking through a meadow. There is a path opening before you. As you walk, you feel hungry. Look to your left. There’s a fruit tree in full ripe. Pick what you need.

Steps later, you notice you’re thirsty. On your right, there’s a fresh water spring.

When you are tired, a resting place emerges. When you are lonely, a friend appears to walk with you. When you get lost, a teacher with a map appears.

Before long, you notice the flow: need and supply, desire and fulfillment. Maybe, you wonder, someone gave me the need because someone planned to fulfill it. Maybe I had to feel the need, so I would notice and accept the gift. Maybe closing my eyes to the desire closes my arms to its fulfillment.

Demand and supply, desire and fulfillment — a continuous cycle, unless we break it. All the necessary supplies have already been planned and provided for this journey.

Today, everything I need shall be supplied to me.

03/28/2026

March 28

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
~Franz Kafka

Our addiction closed our eyes to the beauty of the world. The longer our disease went on, the uglier we felt and acted. We looked at honesty as an enemy, not as a friend. In recovery, we start over.

As time goes on, we work to stay young in the program. We need to be beginners. We need the eyes of a child to stay sober. We might think we know how to stay sober. This thinking can be full of danger. Instead, we need to see staying sober as a gift. It's a gift that's given one day at a time. We need to stay open to the beauty of the Twelve Steps and the gifts they hold.

Prayer for the Day
Higher Power, help me stay a beginner in this program. Have me see the beauty of the world. My addiction made me old. Help me regain my youth.

Action for the Day
Today I'll study the children I meet. I'll learn much from their gentle beauty.

03/27/2026

March 27

Learned Helplessness
"From the nonalcoholic parent we learn helplessness, worry, black-and-white thinking, being a victim, and self-hate." BRB p. 24

Many of us grew up with one parent who was an abuser and one who was our caretaker. The first abandoned us in the midst of their addiction, whether it was alcohol, sexual acting out, workaholism or something else that took them from us. The other parent seemed to hold things together, and we were grateful. But we were often drawn into their addictions, including their extreme points of view, worry, and playing the relationship victim. We had to participate in order to survive.

As adults, we saw that some of our learned behaviors kept us from owning our own power. Many of us were still afraid of aggressive people. We worried constantly, seemingly about everything. We played the victim at work and in our relationships; we were naturals because our codependent/ caretaker parent modeled that behavior for us for years. When we finally realized how we hated ourselves for these behaviors, we knew it was time to get help.

We learn in ACA that our self-destructive behaviors come from both parents. New feelings surface with our realizations, although we aren't always sure where they come from. It can be startling. But we honor those feelings and don't push them away.

As we continue to make progress, we release our self-destructive patterns, recognizing their origins. They no longer have a place in our lives.

On this day I now choose my own role and how I respond to the world around me.

Copyright © 2013 by Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families

03/26/2026

March 26

To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives; it is the only way we can leave the future open.
–Lillian Smith

Today stands before us, ready for our involvement. And it will offer us opportunities for personal growth and occasions to help another make progress on her path to the future. Challenges are to be expected. They further our purpose. They foster our maturity.

How different it is, for many of us, to look forward today with secure anticipation, to trust in what the future holds! We can still remember, all too vividly perhaps, the darker periods in our lives, periods that seemed to hold no promise; a time when we dreaded the future, fearing it would only compound those awful times.

The fear and the dread are not gone completely. They hover about us, on occasion. They no longer need to darken all of a day, however. We can recognize their presence as parts of our whole, not all of it. How free we are, today! Our choices are many.

I can step toward today with assurance, reaching out to others along the way, trusting that my accumulated steps add stability to my future.

03/25/2026

March 25
Expect Miracles
Belief

Some have claimed that there have been no miracles since the fourteenth century. This is a smug way of saying that miracles do not happen.

Emmet Fox conceded that miracles don’t happen in the sense of violating the perfect, universal system of law and order. But there is such a thing as appealing to a higher law, and this too is part of the constitution of the universe. Prayer is a means of doing this, and enough prayer will get you out of any difficulty, Fox insisted.

People who have found sobriety in AA are actually modern miracles. They expect more miracles to continue happening” otherwise, there would be no point in continuing to work with newcomers. And while we’re expecting miracles, let’s remember that countless other human problems will yield to a spiritual approach. Life itself is miraculous when we study it: why shouldn’t there be more miracles ahead?

I’ll keep an open mind on the subject of miracles. Since we still can glipmse only a fragment of the universe, it should follow that there’s also much more to learn about the spiritual processes that rescued us from alcoholism.

03/23/2026

March 23

Stuck Grief
"My ACA counselor understood what I was trying to do. She helped me understand my loss or the pain of my ‘stuck grief' through the Fourth and Fifth Steps." BRB p. 150

The "stuck grief" is very difficult to dislodge because we keep up an endless array of defenses to keep it stuck. We can experience an overabundance of anger, sadness, food, shopping, underachieving, sloppiness, procrastination or cleanliness - a list that only skims the surface of how many ways we can keep our grief embedded.

Difficult as it may seem, the defenses and resistances we have deployed to protect us can be addressed and lowered and lessened after being in the program for a while. With regular attendance at meetings and the use of a fellow traveler or an ACA counselor, we find the strength to allow ourselves to become vulnerable.

As we continue on this new path, we develop greater trust and lessen our fear, which allows us to delve into a Fourth and Fifth Step and dislodge our "stuck grief." Like an un-stuck jam of logs, our grief begins to flow again down the river of our daily lives. We let the natural currents gently and slowly release it into the ocean of our Higher Power's love for us.

On this day I will work with my fellow traveler or ACA counselor to develop trust and lose the fear of dislodging my "stuck grief," knowing that the flow will be set by my Higher Power in whom I have developed trust.

Copyright © 2013 by Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families

03/23/2026

March 23

If anything, we have tended to be people who have wanted it all now. To hope is not to demand.
–On hope

Maybe we were a bit demanding. Maybe we were a bit impatient. Maybe that’s why we such little hope.

Hope is believing good will, even in bad times. Hope is knowing that “this too, shall pass.” Hope is knowing that no mater how afraid we are, God will be with us. Hope is knowing we never have to be alone again. It is knowing that time is o our side. Hope is giving up control. Hope is knowing we never had control in the first place. Hope is believing in ourselves. Hope is what our program is all about.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, in our program we share our experiences, our strengths, and our hopes. Thank you for giving all three of these to me to share.

Action for the Day: I will share my hope for the future with myself, my Higher Power, and my friends. I also will share this with someone who has lost hope.

03/22/2026

March 22

Emotional Intoxication
"The third Identity Paper examined the steep cost of surviving by hiding the vulnerable and wounded child in a prison of isolation, the high price of using the myriad methods we employ to protect the vulnerable self by staying emotionally intoxicated and numb." BRB p. 628

When we came to ACA, many of us had experience with other programs that dealt with sobriety. We may have even heard about emotional sobriety before, but when we learned it was the focus of this program, it really got our attention. We knew we felt out of control a lot of the time, unable to think clearly. Our minds went 100 miles an hour, and many of us had trouble turning them off at night to go to sleep. We couldn't sit still with our feelings. We used activities as a drug to numb ourselves when we were uneasy.

Understanding that we were dealing with emotional intoxication made sense. And we were tired of living that way.

Our journey to free ourselves helps us come out of isolation and relate to others who are finding success. We work the Steps and reach out to our Higher Power and our fellow traveler for help. We practice sitting still with our feelings and let it be okay. We ask our loving parent to speak words of encouragement to our vulnerable self so that we don't get busy to avoid our feelings. We no longer have to walk around numb; we can make it.

On this day I will remember that being alive comes with feelings, and my feelings are all okay! I am entitled to a rich life of emotional sobriety.

Copyright © 2013 by Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families

03/21/2026

March 21
Considering Commitment

Pay attention to your commitments.

While many of us fear committing, it’s good to weigh the cost of any commitment we are considering. We need to feel consistently positive that it’s an appropriate commitment for us.

Many of us have a history of jumping — leaping headfirst — into commitments without weighing the cost and the possible consequences of that particular commitment. When we get in, we find that we do not really want to commit and feel trapped.

Some of us may become afraid of losing out on a particular opportunity if we don’t commit. It is true that we will lose out on certain opportunities if we are unwilling to commit. We still need to weigh the commitment. We still need to become clear about whether that commitment seems right for us. If it isn’t, we need to be direct and honest with others and ourselves.

Be patient. Do some soul searching. Wait for a clear answer. We need to make our commitments not in urgency or panic but in quiet confidence that what we are committing to is right for us.

If something within says no, find the courage to trust that voice.

This is not our last chance. It is not the only opportunity we’ll ever have. Don’t panic. We don’t have to commit to what isn’t right for us, even if we try to tell ourselves it should be right for us and we should commit.

Often, we can trust our intuitive sense more than we can trust our intellect about commitments.

In the excitement of making a commitment and beginning, we may overlook the realities of the middle. That is what we need to consider.

We don’t have to commit out of urgency, impulsivity, or fear. We are entitled to ask, Will this be good for me? We are entitled to ask if this commitment feels right.

Today, God, guide me in making my commitments. Help me say yes to what is in my highest good, and no to what isn’t. I will give serious consideration before I commit myself to any activity or person. I will take the time to consider if the commitment is really what I want.

03/20/2026

March 20

Trust
"These adult children rarely stop to think that self-sufficiency is covering up a fear of rejection which they think could come if they ask for help." BRB p. 102

Most of us had no one we could consistently rely on as children. Everyone seemed to be caught up in the dysfunction, and we were left to manage things ourselves. We became very self-sufficient and were sometimes even praised for that ability.

As adults, our self-sufficiency became a way of controlling things around us. If we did it ourselves, then we didn't have to rely on anyone else, especially because experience told us that most people weren't trustworthy anyway.

Even in recovery, some of us clung to our self-sufficiency, not asking for help because we found it hard to believe that we'd get it. And we would simply not allow ourselves to feel rejected yet again.

But as we continued to go to meetings, we gradually heard the truths we needed and became stronger. We learned to allow ourselves to feel vulnerable and trust that there was help available if only we would ask for it - help in our recovery, help in our work life, and help in our personal life.

On this day I will give myself the gift of asking for help, whether it's in my recovery or anywhere in life.

Copyright © 2013 by Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families

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Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
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