The first time we heard that we should act "like we believe it," many of us reacted by saying, "But that's not sincere! I thought in Narcotics Anonymous we should always be honest about our feelings."
Maybe we should remember how we were when we came into the program. We may not have believed in God, but we still prayed. Or maybe we weren't sure the program would work for us, but we kept going to the meetings regardless of what we thought. We are still operating this way in recovery. For example, crowds may panic us, but if we arm ourselves with confidence and dare, we'll feel good about ourselves and find that crowds don't scare us as much anymore.
Everything we do in this direction brings us closer to becoming who we really are. With every positive change we make, our self-esteem grows. We realize that when we operate in a different way, we begin to think differently. By acting "as if...", our way of thinking also changes for the better.
