Fifty Tips for Fifty Years: Celebrating 50 Years of Emotions Anonymous
1. Approach the Twelve Steps with love for yourself and others.
2. Always welcome the newcomer – they are the future of our program.
3. Persevere in the search for your Higher Power. Remember that it can be nature, the group, or anything
you identify as a Higher Power.
4. Healthy groups make healthy fellowship members.
5. Receiving help in working the program is a gift, just as is service to others in the program.
6. Program literature helps deepen our EA experience. We have dozens of pamphlets, books andworkbooks to help you.
7. Becoming a sponsor is an ideal way to share the program – you and your sponsee can create asponsorship arrangement that works for you.
8. There is no “one way” or “perfect way” to work the program. The goal is progress.
9. Dark times happen to all of us, yet we are never alone – we have a supportive fellowship to help us.
10. Replace negative thoughts and actions with positive ones.
11. The best hope for the program to work is to work it consistently.
12. Minimizing complacency while working the program offers the best chance of success.
13. If you feel called to be of service to EA, do the work to find out the best way you can contribute.
14. Think of the best ways to inform your local community about your EA meeting to make your meetingrich with new members.
15. Sometimes opening the Today book to the day’s reading can turn a bad day into a good one!
16. You know you’re working the program if the pages in your EA book are on the verge of falling out.
17. You know you’re working the program if instead of reacting in interpersonal and social interactions,
you pause and speak thoughtfully.
18. You know you’re working the program if you’ve learned how to protect your serenity.
19. Progress not perfection.
20. Work/live the program one day at a time.
21. Don’t judge or criticize yourself/others.
22. Don’t compare your progress to others’ progress in the program.

23. Accept that others may have a different Higher Power than yours.
24. Accept and use the program, don’t analyze it.
25. Don’t place labels on emotional illnesses or health.
26. Let go and trust in your Higher Power.
27. Live and let live.
28. Look for the good in people and situations.
29. You may be powerless over your emotions, but you are not powerless over your choices.
30. Sometimes participating in a meeting can be a test of patience. Make sure you can pass the test!
31. Happiness comes from being at peace with yourself.
32. Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.
33. Believe that you can achieve emotional health.
34. Live in today. The past is gone and the future doesn’t yet exist.
35. Let go of resentments about others.
36. Live gratefully.
37. Take responsibility for your choices, life, and recovery.
38. A lapse is not a relapse.
39. Success is standing up just one time more than life knocks you down.
40. Meetings, meetings, meetings. More than once a week if you can. The best way for newcomers tolearn the program and meet people. And the best way for us to get grounded when we lose our way.
41. Give yourself time to recover. We didn’t get to a point of despair overnight. We don’t recoverovernight either.
42. Take notice of the progress you’ve made in handling everyday situations.
43. Share the program with others when appropriate. The path to emotional wellness should not be a secret!
44. The increase in utilization of virtual meetings has created more opportunity for distraction during
meetings. Make sure to stay focused during meetings to maximize the benefits of attending.
45. The propensity to de-prioritize the program when holidays and life events come around is natural. Just
remember that the program and its materials and meetings are always there for you!
46. Remember to listen and avoid crosstalk when people talk in meetings and in our daily lives. It is
important for our emotional growth to allow people to talk, even when we feel we have somethingimportant to add.
47. Emotions Anonymous has successfully existed over the past fifty years because of the contributionsof thousands of people at local meetings and the international office. In order to ensure the programstays relevant for another fifty years, it is critical to recognize these contributions by contributing inways that work best for us when we are able to.
48. EA helps us to navigate situations that used to be difficult for us to manage. As our emotional healthimproves, it’s also important to do our best to avoid situations (when possible) that make itchallenging for us to maintain serenity.
49. The more we “work” the muscle that improves our responses to others, the stronger the muscle will get.
50. Just For Today, we should not be afraid to work the Emotions Anonymous Program, face challenging
emotional problems and improve our daily emotional health.

© 2021 Emotions Anonymous International — Item #102
EA-approved literature. This may be reproduced for free distribution.

www.emotionsanonymous.org

P.O. Box 4245 Saint Paul, MN 55104-0245

651-647-9712