[nandm]

Day 7

The Past

"Judgment comes from experience, and great judgment comes from bad experience." Bob Packwood

As we develope the ability to put our past difficulties, performances and biasis into perspective, we begin to understand that we hold in our hands a valuable tool for survival. Although our past brought us to the state where we felt helpless and useless and created harm and chaos in our lives and those of others; although it seemed to push us to the point of no return, the opposite is true.

Slowly we are beginning to understand that every mistep in our lives was part of the dynamic which led us to our present state of recovery.

With the blueprint of all past errors clearly defined, we can work Step Ten with confidence. We can see that had we not committed every one of those past actions that led to our cry for help, we would not have been desperate or needly enough to reach out.

We recognize that it was our finer instincts that took over in our struggle for survival and made us willing to humble ourselves enough to seek help. We could not have reached that point without experiencing every negative moment that marked the progression of our disease. Therefore, we now need to look at all those unkind, unhealthy, unproductive, antisocial actions as milestones that were necessary to bring us to our present state of recovery.

Today's Step: Remembering my past mistakes helps me avoid today's pitfalls.

Step by Step. Muriel Zink