Hello everyone! My name is Bianka. I would like to give you another warm welcome to Detox to Rehab’s Recovery Reflections. Please join us and listen to the experience, strength and hope shared by Madison, Corey, Brandon, and myself.
We will pre-record readings from Narcotics Anonymous: Just for Today. We express how this reading has helped our recovery or how it has impacted us. We thank you and hope we can inspire your recovery journey!
Narcotics Anonymous
February 27, 2017: Pure Motives
“We examine our actions, reactions, and motives. We often find that we’ve been doing better than we’ve been feeling.”
Basic Text, p. 42
Imagine a daily meditation book with this kind of message: “When you wake up in the morning, before you rise from your bed, take a moment for reflection. Lie back, gather your thoughts, and consider your plans for the day. One by one, review the motives behind those plans. If your motives are not entirely pure, roll over and go back to sleep.” Nonsense, isn’t it?
No matter how long we’ve been clean, almost all of us have mixed motives behind almost everything we do. However, that’s no reason to put our lives on hold. We don’t have to wait for our motives to become perfectly pure before we can start living our recovery.
As the program works its way into our lives, we begin acting less frequently on our more questionable motives. We regularly examine ourselves, and we talk with our sponsor about what we find. We pray for knowledge of our Higher Power’s will for us, and we seek the power to act on the knowledge we’re given. The result? We don’t get perfect, but we do get better.
We’ve begun working a spiritual program. We won’t ever become spiritual giants. But if we look at ourselves realistically, we’ll probably realize that we’ve been doing better than we’ve been feeling.
Just for Today: I will examine myself realistically. I will seek the power to act on my best motives, and not to act on my worst.
Just for Today: http://www.justfortodaymeditations.com/daily-recovery-readings-february-27/
Checking Your Motives
“My motives were never in the right place,” Brandon said.
When in active addiction it was easy for us addicts to manipulate, lie, and steal. We would manipulate an individual to let us stay with them so we can just lie to them and get what we need. If you had something we wanted, we would use you to get it.
This doesn’t mean that when we enter recovery our motives change completely; we are still human and make genuine human mistakes.
“I don’t have the right motives for everything,” I said.
I still to this day don’t have perfect motives for everything I do. I sometimes need to reflect on what I am doing and for what reason to make sure my head is in the right place.
“Check your motives,” Brandon said.
Since there are times where my motives are in the wrong place, it is important to check yourself and see if what you are doing is out of the kindness of heart. We want to shift away from using people in recovery for what we want.
“I am okay today and I don’t need to use people for my emotional security,” Madison said.
This won’t happen overnight. It will take time and dedication for you to get where you want to be with the right motives in mind. However, it gets better day by day if you really work on yourself and your recovery.
“As time went by, my motives started to change,” Corey said.
When you have a mind and heart full of recovery it is hard to have the wrong motives. If you do end up using someone for something, don’t beat yourself up over it. Just because we are in recovery doesn’t mean we are supposed to be instantly perfect. We are human and we will make mistakes. What matters now, is if we learn from the mistakes we make.
Learn and Grow
When we learn from mistakes, we grow. When we grow, we become who we strive to be. Things take time and so does checking your motives. Don’t beat yourself up if you slip us. Learn from it and move on. If you or a loved one feel that you need more in depth treatment- give us a call. We are willing to help in any way we can. Our number is: (866) 578-7471
