Unshackled Echo ~ December 31, 2018 ~ The First Step

Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on

December 31, 2015.

Well, we made it through another year, and it's New Year's Eve. Tomorrow begins the new year, and in truth, other than changing the calendar and remembering to write 16 instead of 15, there won't be a lot of difference between today and tomorrow. But it is a point that we mark as a new beginning and often the new year is when many people try to break the bondage of addictions and bad habits. If that is you, then remember that it won't likely be easy. If what you want to eliminate from your life had not become at the least ingrained and at most a chain of bondage it would have been set aside naturally as soon as it became undesirable.

The first step to any recovery, whether from addiction or a habitual sin, wrong attitude or behavior, is to realize that we can't change it or stop it or control it on our own. The first step is not admitting we have a problem. The first step is realizing that we can't fix ourselves. That our habits and addictions have become our master. We don't like to admit that, but we can't find freedom without understanding that we're slaves that are in need of emancipation. How may times have we thought about changing something and then decided it's really not that bad or not worth the effort it will take to change it? How many times have we trued to stop or start something better in its place only to have failed to stay stopped or not continued doing the improved thing? That's powerlessness. We are powerless over our old behavior, and determination won't be enough. Hitting reset at the start of the year won't last long, and we'll soon find ourselves in the same place that we were on New Year's Eve. In order to find freedom, something different must be done. Seeing that we need something else, something to help do what we can't do is the first step to freedom and lasting change.


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