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October 30th – Take What You Need and Leave the Rest
“…principles before personalities… ”
– Life with Hope, first edition, page 99
While using, I did not care if it was a person I hated or not, if they could get me high then I was spending time with them. Once I got clean, I decided that I would do the exact opposite of what I did before. I decided if I did not like a person I wouldn’t go near them or listen to them. I found myself at a meeting where someone said something completely off the wall and I remember thinking, “Wow, how can I relate to a person like that?” I started to wonder if I belonged at all; a few told me, “Take what you need and leave the rest.”
At the next meeting, that same person said something that I truly needed to hear that day and I realized that we do not have to relate to everything about one another to learn from each other. Sometimes, a person may offend you one day and say exactly what you need to hear the next day.
Final thought: Today, I will learn to put “principles before personalities” in my recovery.
Living Every Day with Hope – Copyright © 2025 Marijuana Anonymous World Services. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher. Marijuana Anonymous groups have been granted limited permission to quote Living Every Day with Hope.
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