January 31, Step Eight: Becoming Ready To Make Amends

Thought for today: We make a list of people we have harmed in step eight, and become willing to make amends to them all. Whether we actually make amends or not is irrelevant at this point. Our willingness is what matters in this step. We start by reviewing our fourth step, where we discovered our […]

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January 30, Why Do Step Eight?

Step eight is: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. By now we should have identified our shortcomings and their impact in our lives. If we aren’t ready for this step, we can go back over the preceding steps (starting with step 1) to […]

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January 29, How Humility Frees Us Of Our Shortcomings

Thought for today: Step seven is: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Humility is knowing of the truth about yourself, that you are not the center of the universe, that you are not God, and that other people are just as important as you. We humble ourselves before the “Ultimate Other”, unburdening ourselves of […]

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Am I Entirely Ready?

Thought for today: Some call step six “the desert”, and for good reason. The way can be blurred by pride and fear. What happens to us in a world without our favorite defects of character? What if I surrender everything to God – the good and the bad – to do with as He will? […]

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Step 5: The Beginning of the End of Isolation

Thought for today: They say you are as sick as your secrets. We were so alone, our secrets were many.  No one knows how many of us hid our true financial situation from immediate family members who had a right to know. Then we took Step 5: “Admitted to God, ourselves and another human being […]

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Overspending Was Only a Symptom of a Deeper Problem

Thought for Today: Resentment – the re-feeling of old wounds – was our #1 problem. Full of pride and self-justification we would lash out at an unjust world in anger, sometimes passive-aggressively, other times with outright aggression.  Taking a fourth step inventory was essential for recovery from compulsive debting, overspending, and under-earning. Before Step Four, […]

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How One Member Did Step Four and Found Enlightenment

Thought for today: A member shares on Step 4: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” “When I was ready to take Step Four I made the list just like in the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, chapter 5), using five columns: ‘Who’, ‘What’, ‘Affects My’, ‘Exact Nature of My Wrongs’, and […]

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The Paradox of Winning By Surrendering

Thought for today: A central idea of DA is that of the Higher Power.  In Step 2, we  sought strength beyond ourselves, accessible, that we can turn to in need.  The But how could we reckon our lives with  that power? At DA meetings, you can hear a lot of financial horror stories – bankruptcy, […]

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How Step Two Opens the Door for Solvency

Thought for today: Sanity is a relative term.  A person can seem perfectly normal in most ways, and yet be totally insane in one key area.  Our relation to debt is like that. We need to admit that we are not like normal people when it comes to debt, spending and earning.  Our disease beats us […]

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What Does Powerlessness Have To Do With Getting Out of Debt?

Thought for today: Newcomers often arrive at DA looking for a way to escape the effects of unchecked debt, chronic under earning and/or years of overspending.  Many of us have felt isolated in our grief and desperation. Once the downward spiral of compulsive debt takes hold, we are defenseless against it. Left unchecked, our issues […]

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