Courage is being afraid but doing it anyway.
~ Unknown

Every day we make thousands of decisions: Am I going to shave before or after breakfast; Should I wear this blouse or that one; Latte or mocha; Shall I go to the morning or evening meeting, and so on.

These usually seem like small things, and they often are.  But small decisions can lead to big results.  I might decide to cross the street, and thus meet the love of my life — or she might walk past on the side of the street I just left. Not all our decisions are so momentous.  Nonetheless, we need to be mindful of those that might carry weight.

Generally speaking, good decisions are those that will benefit us, and it’s pretty easy to analyze them: will this further my sobriety, or not; what might be the long-term results, and can I live with those possibilities; am I doing this to help me stuff some feelings, and so forth.

Bad decisions, on the other hand, tend to be focused outwardly: will this please my partner, even though I might get a resentment about it; am I doing that in order to avoid looking at something about my life that I’d rather forget…. These are often more difficult to identify, but if we use the criterion “Will it really benefit me in the long run” we most likely won’t be too far off track. 

This may seem selfish, but we need to remember that we can’t take care of others if we don’t take care of ourselves! We need to consider our decisions mindfully.

In our addictions we let our minds run free, doing what felt good and avoiding — at all costs — things that made us uncomfortable, or that frightened us.  In order to recover, we need to develop the courage that carries us past our fears and our wants, to actions that satisfy our true needs.

And we need to look carefully at what those fears might be, because that’s what doing the “next right thing” is all about.