NA Daily Meditations

NA Meitations

Feel free to read one of our 2 daily meditations.

Just For Today
Spiritual Principle A Day

Just For Today

October 20, 2026

Freedom to choose

Page 306

“Enforced morality lacks the power that comes to us when we choose to live a spiritual life.”

Basic Text, p. 45

In our active addiction, many of us lived our lives by default. We were unwilling or unable to make choices about how we wanted to act, what we preferred to do, or even where we would live. We allowed the drugs or other people to make our most basic decisions for us. Freedom from active addiction means, among other things, the freedom to make those choices for ourselves.

Freedom of choice is a wonderful gift, but it’s also a great responsibility. Choice allows us to find out who we are and what we believe in. However, in exercising it, we’re called on to weigh our own choices and accept the consequences. This leads some of us to seek out someone who will make our choices for us–our sponsor, our home group, our NA friends–just as our disease made our choices for us when we were using. That’s not recovery.

Seeking others’ experience is one thing; abdicating personal responsibility is something else. If we don’t use the gift of freedom we’ve been given, if we refuse to accept the responsibilities that go along with it, we’ll lose that gift and our lives will be diminished. We are responsible for our own recovery and our own choices. Difficult as it may seem; we must make those choices for ourselves and become willing to accept the consequences.

Just for Today: I am grateful for the freedom to live as I choose. Today, I will accept responsibility for my recovery, make my own choices, and accept the consequences.

Spiritual Principal A Day

October 21, 2026

Optimism and That Storied Glass of Water

Page 304

“Just for today my thoughts will be on my recovery, living and enjoying life without the use of drugs.”

Basic Text, Chapter 9: Just for Today–Living the Program

People often talk about pessimism and optimism in terms of seeing the glass as being “half empty” or “half full.” As addicts, many of us think about it more in terms like, “What’s in the glass, though? Is it any good? When can I get more?” or “Do you have more than I do? Let me have some of yours.” No matter how many glasses we have or how full they are, we addicts tend to always be concerned with where the next one is coming from and/or what the people around us have in theirs. We often forget that before recovery we either didn’t have a glass at all or couldn’t keep one, full or not.

We hear “Just for Today” read so often that we may forget how revolutionary the shift in thinking it proposes is for us. Instead of focusing on what’s next or what’s going on around us, we are called to focus on ourselves, right here and right now. The principles of optimism and hope often seem to be forward-looking, directing our attention to what is yet to come. However, as anyone who has ever been assigned to do a gratitude list can tell you, focusing on what is going well for us in the present moment can dramatically change our outlook on our lives.

When we focus on our recovery, on living and enjoying life without the use of drugs, our fears and anxieties tend to melt away. We become less concerned with matters like when our glass is going to get refilled. If we look into the glasses of those around us, it’s to see whether we can share what we have with them. Focusing on our glass–our recovery–gives us optimism by reminding us that we will be okay, no matter what.

Being in recovery means I no longer have to wonder whether the glass is half empty or half full. Not only do I have what I need, I have enough to share. I no longer need to compare with others.