What is it about today, which is so important? Today is all I’ve got.
Yesterday is gone. It can’t come back. Tomorrow is not here. As one person once said, you can’t wash tomorrow’s dirty dishes today.
If I truly want to stay sober and not take that next drink, I can only do it today. Doesn’t matter that I didn’t drink yesterday. Today is the only day I can truly stay sober. Tomorrow is another day and I can’t stay sober tomorrow today. But if I stay sober today, I can hope I will stay sober, when tomorrow comes.
If I live in today, doing the best I can do this day, I needn’t get upset, anxious, worried, stressed out about tomorrow. What will come will come. But it’s more important for me to live in the present moment. If I do, no matter what plans I have made, I can turn them over to my higher power and trust that whatever will be will be.
That’s where I can lift this moment into the realm of the spirit.
The question is do I trust? Do I have faith and hope? I will, if I am practicing this program. The Steps.
A bar down in New York City used to have a sign inside, which proclaimed “Free Drinks Tomorrow”. No one ever got a free drink. Because when tomorrow came it was today again.
We stay sober a day at a time. And that day is always today.
I was thinking about this today. What have I done about yesterday, the 9th Step, which frees me to live in today and not the past? Then the thought came that my real problem is that I’m what my sponsor said I was. Insecure, immature, and oversensitive. A worry wart, as my mother used to tell me. I was always worried about the future. But in the program I learned that I have no control of the future. I’m powerless. But I also learned that a power greater than myself can not only restore me to sanity, but empower me to live this life…today.
If I will but stop taking myself so seriously and take the program I’m trying to live seriously, I can learn to relax and stop worrying about anything beyond today.
This all started, when I was thinking about sobriety. That’s when I realized that it’s always about today.