Alone, seated in a strange house filled with strangers, I felt as if I were in dangerous waters, swimming badly and out of my depth. I was plankton in an ocean of whales.

You cannot control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

I couldn't decide on any move, so I recited a few Bible verses, and went home.

My mother wrote to me and said, "Airplanes leave here every day for Africa. If you need me, I will come." Her love and support encouraged me to dare to live my life with pizzazz.

I want to thank each person who has the courage to push through and past the set of coping behaviors we've come to label as codependency—who learn what it means to take care of themselves. "Nobody taught me how to take care of myself," a fifty-year-old woman told me recently. "I didn't have enough money to go to therapy, but I had enough to buy a book.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.1 —II TIMOTHY 1:7

Many of us react as though everything is a crisis because we have lived with so many crises for so long that crisis reaction has become a habit.

People and things don't stop our pain or heal us. In recovery, we learn that this is our job, and we can do it by using our resources: ourselves, our Higher Power, our support systems, and our recovery program.

I've learned I can take care of myself, and what I can't do, God will do for me. —Al-Anon member

Today, I will trust that God will do for me what I cannot do for myself. I will do my part—working the Twelve Steps and letting God do the rest.

On our worst days, we still look for something we've done toward recovery. Sometimes the best we can do is feel good about what we did not do.

5. We can depend on God, too. He's there, and He cares. Our spiritual beliefs can provide us with a strong sense of emotional security.