There is after all, a lot of God talk in those meetings and in their “Big Book,” Alcoholics Anonymous. God is the main feature of the 12-Step approach to substance abuse. And some of its member do have a culty reliance upon one another, rather than God. So, if you consider that, it’s a fair assumption when made from afar.

• There are many men and women who felt the same way and have been able to overcome the malady by maintaining spiritual fitness and practicing the principles of AA in all of their affairs.
• Apart from dissecting the Big Book so as to have a firmer grasp on the 12 Steps and program and in general, it also is designed to help us decipher the intricate language and wording used from a different time period.
• God is the main feature of the 12-Step approach to substance abuse.
• When we enter the silence with discipline and perseverance, we make space for the living presence of God to heal us from the inside out.
• What that means is that all that is required is the belief in a power greater than yourself.
• Is describing, essentially is referring to a stark void in our lives that we constantly attempt to fill with outside things such as drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, or anything we can think to try to feel better.

They do not understand why it is being suggested they read a book they believe to be for alcoholics. It is our experience that the problem is not the substance; the problem is the disease of addiction. We have also found that the disease of addiction https://ecosoberhouse.com/ is not limited to any one substance and that to be sober we need to be free from all mind-altering substances. He then offered his definition of the word ‘spiritual’. He said, “spiritual simply refers to that which is not material.

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Our spiritual malady never just goes away and stays away on its own, it requires a constant spiritual connectivity and effort on our parts in our programs to keep it and the subsequent alcohol and drug abuse at bay. So long as we make an active effort to address our spiritual malady every day, we will find relief from it, one day at a time. You are merely instructed to be open to the idea that you are not the end all be all, that there exists out in the universe something that is greater or more powerful than yourself. Whatever you designate that power to be is up to you. However, you choose to interact with that higher power is also up to you. Whether you seek to engage in formal prayer, informal mental conversations, or merely by doing good and putting positive energy into the universe, there is no right or wrong way to pray to your higher power. Once you open up to this idea and implement that spiritual connection, you will experience your long-awaited spiritual awakening, the answer to that pesky spiritual malady we suffer from as alcoholics.

They developed mastery over resentment, became free of anger and gained courage through the defeat of fear. A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke.

Ending and Unending: The Art of Meditation in the Christian Tradition by Magrit Dahm

The hook in their presentation was an answer to their alcohol problem, of course. Virtually all their problems were resolved via spiritual awakening and they predicted that the fortune would continue as they experienced subsequent growth going forward in life. If you wish to contact a specific medical detox center then find a specific treatment center using our addiction treatment locator tool. If you are seeking drug and alcohol related addiction rehab for yourself or a loved one, the YourFirstStep.org hotline is a confidential and convenient solution. Nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. My first true freedom is the freedom not to have to take a drink today.

To be fashionable and to seem better than I really am is a spiritual illness. They proposed that the remedy to all obsessive states, at that time alcoholism, was primarily to become spiritually well, after which all of their mental and physical issues would be miraculously resolved. Many of us spiritual malady felt that there was something wrong with us or something missing—in short, we felt different from other people. We couldn’t understand why the people surrounding us could feel happiness or contentment, so we turned to drugs and alcohol as a means of self-medicating our perceived shortcomings.

SPIRITUAL HEALTH

I have often called my drinking separation from God. Once I stopped drinking, I had to daily reconnect with God to reactivate the light of the spirit within me—and, work on my steps for my mind. I am aware that there are many paths to recovery- my path has been the 12-Steps. While this may not be for everybody, the principles contained within the steps and the program are applicable and useful to anyone seeking sobriety and recovery. It might be with food, sex, gambling, or even something as nebulous as procrastination or a compulsion to gossip. Perhaps it’s an obsession with nicotine, using cigars, cigarettes or vaping devices to self-administer that powerful, psycho-active drug. Regardless of the name of the substance or vice, all bad habits stem from brokenness that is directly tied to the emotional energy spun out of a dark force called resentment.

• However, you choose to interact with that higher power is also up to you.
• The disease of alcohol and drug addiction is not just mental and physical but also spiritual.
• It is our experience that the problem is not the substance; the problem is the disease of addiction.
• It might be with food, sex, gambling, or even something as nebulous as procrastination or a compulsion to gossip.
• Of Alcoholics Anonymous, “we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick.
• My spiritual health is excellent when I realize that the better I get, the more I discover how much help I need from others.