The Library

Sifrei chassidus, including B'nei Yisos'char, elaborate on the fact that the light of the Chanukah menorah contains ohr haganuz and is miraculous. For this reason, "ein lanu reshus l'hishtamesh bohen, ella lir'osom bilvad." We have no permission to behave as though it's o...

I ask my Higher Power to help me realize what He is trying to teach me through these challenges and what I need to correct in my thoughts or actions as a result

Hashem made an interesting world, The greatest secret of strength and winning is admitting that we can't, and giving it over to Hashem. (And this is the underlying secret of the power of the 12-Steps in helping addicts stop acting-out). If Kings would know this secret, th...

 “Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.” — Wayne Dyer

My sponsor told me that I should be a grateful alcoholic and always have “an attitude of gratitude”—that gratitude was the basic ingredient of humility, that humility was the basic ingredient of anonymity and that “anonymity was the spiritual foundation of all our Traditi...

I was 35 years old the first time I spoke up to my mother and refused to buy into her games and manipulation. . .I didn't have to start an argument. But I could say what I wanted and needed to say to take care of myself. I learned I could love and honor myself, and still ...

I had a miracle today which also reminds me how sick I am and can lose my new-found sanity in a matter of seconds. I've been abroad with my wife for a few weeks, I had with me a little dinky phone which I would never have imagined would be able to support any picture onli...

רבי אומר, הסתכל בשלושה דברים, ואין אתה בא לידי עבירה 1 דע מה למעלה ממך, 2 עין רואה, ואוזן שומעת, 3 וכל מעשיך בספר נכתבין. We see in this משנה, that רבי says that when we look at those three things, then we won't get to an עבירה. Before we go any further, we have...

WILL POWER = Our WILL-ingness to use a Higher POWER.--Anonymous One of the greatest decisions any of us ever made concerned our Third Step. This decision seemed to go against everything we wanted to do. We all know so well that every time we tried to manage our own lives,...

Somewhere in our past life, we may have picked up the idea that it's not all right to ask for help, that asking for help would be a sign of weakness. Recovery calls for some basic changes in our thinking, and when we feel vulnerable is the best time to reach out and ask ...

"Avi Ha'Oved" wrote in this amazing story (translated from an email we received in Hebrew): For many years after the wedding, we didn't have children. We did tests and discovered that the chances for me to be able to ever have children were close to zero. The doctor (who,...

For many years, I tried to beat lust. If only I could figure it out, wrap my head around it, I would be able to control it. Many times, especially after falls or lots of pain, I was sure that I had finally internalized that it was SHEKER, that there was nothing there. I w...

Sometimes, especially in early recovery, we concentrate on our losses instead of our gains. We see a chapter in our life closing, and we mourn. We must leave some friends behind, or say goodbye to a social life we enjoyed. We must give up an active addiction, which had ...

For many of us, the most difficult word to say is one of the shortest and easiest in the vocabulary: No. Go ahead, say it aloud: No. No - simple to pronounce, hard to say. We’re afraid people won’t like us, or we feel guilty. We may believe that a “good” employee, child, ...

The fourth Principle of Responsibility is to stop hiding from ourselves. There can be no recovery when we continue to isolate ourselves and our feelings from the outside world. In addiction, we used our emotions to protect us from reality. We guarded our delusions with ...

Reflection for the DayI've heard it said that when God closes a door, a window opens. Since I started working the Twelve Steps, much of the fear and pain that haunted my life is gone. Some of my defects have been lifted from me, though I'm still wrestling with others. I b...

Rebbe Meir of Permishlan once gave the following mashal: "There was once a farmer who was addicted to his alcohol. One day he decided to stop drinking! Every so often he would have a tremendous desire for just one drink, but he controlled himself and did not give in. On...