It is the emptiness we feel on such a deep level that we turn to self-medication in order to alleviate the sadness and despair that go hand in hand with. But in our quest to fill this void with any and everything we can think of, we completely miss that the only thing that can actually fulfill us a spiritual connectedness to something greater than ourselves. When the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous was written and published in 1939, the times and language of those times was incredibly different than modern times.
Thoughts of Recovery – No.17 – The Spiritual Malady – Step 1
Today I look further at the disease of alcoholism focusing on it as a spiritual malady. There are many persons in recovery who are not interested in discussing or even hearing about spirituality. In fact, they may tense up when they hear words like “God” and “spirituality.” This reaction may cause them to remember a past negative experience – an episode in their life that may cause them to recall a traumatic event they’d sooner rather forget. Gratitude and being grateful are terms heard often in recovery. Developing an attitude of gratitude comes easily for some and for others takes some practice and habit-building. However, no matter how you come by it, practicing gratitude in your daily life can transform it from one of doom and gloom to one of peace and joy.
Mindful Ways To Calm Your Inner Child When You’re Around Family
One of the teachings we’ve carried forward from AA is that those of us who struggle with compulsive behaviors or addictions suffer from “an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind“. So let me say up front that when we talk about the spiritual side of recovery, we’re not talking about religion or rules. We’re talking about a relationship, between us and God. This relationship spiritual malady is a vital part of finding serenity and healing, so let’s take a minute to look at the spiritual side of recovery and then we’ll talk about building what we call a “spiritual inventory”. Spirituality is the aspect of recovery that I think most often gets overlooked. Some of us are very comfortable embracing spirituality, but for others, it feels weird or uncomfortable.
STUDY OBJECTIVES
That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundredforms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows andthey retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly, without provocation, but we invariably find thatat some time in the past we have made decisions based on self, which later placed us in aposition to be hurt. The authors gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the members of the recovering community who shared their experiences, strength and hope with our staff for this project. The study used a semi-structured instrument; in addition to socio-demographics and background, we used the measures described below. Unless otherwise stated, higher scores represent a higher level of the construct under study; Chronbach Alpha reliability scores reported are those obtained for this dataset.
Right now, on this inventory step, all we’re doing is identifying our part in any damaged relationships. We won’t actually act on this step until we get to Principle 6. For right now, just ask yourself who might be on your amends list. What activities or habits have caused harm to my physical health? Many of us say that we have the right to do whatever we want to our own bodies.
QUALITY OF LIFE
To conclude, it’s not my body — my allergic reaction to alcohol — that’s going to take me back to drinking. It’s really not my mind — the mental obsession — that is the underlying root of what will take me back to drinking. It’s the “spiritual malady”, as manifested by my EGO (selfishness-self-centeredness), that can eventually lead me back to drinking or sometimes even suicide. While not all recovering persons embrace spirituality/religiousness, many report that a spiritual or religious connection to the transcendent is part of their recovery. Recovering participants in one study expressed a sense of needing something to depend on that could be trusted and that was there always (Morjaria & Orford, 2002). Recovering person also express often that lack of a spiritual or religious connection contributed to the escalation of their problem (National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, 2001).
- The daily dedication helped me feel more in control as I aligned with the present moment and tapped into the wisdom within.
- Do your words build up or tear down those around you?
- Many in recovery, particularly early recovery, feel guilty for past mistakes and beat themselves up.
- We’re talking about a relationship, between us and God.
- As discussed earlier, there is already overwhelming empirical evidence that 12-step affiliation is beneficial to the recovery process; present findings suggest that these benefits extend to the critical and most general domain of life satisfaction.
- But rather than dealing with their obsessive religiosity, many abandon the faith.
- Unobserved or latent variables are represented by an oval in the SEM figures.
When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally andphysically. In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. List people, institutions orprinciples with whom you are angry. In most cases it will befound that your self-esteem, your pocketbook, your ambitions, your personal relationships,(including sex) are hurt or threatened.
- You see that these resentments must be mastered, buthow?
- All this uncertainty, isolation, and separation took a toll on me.
- We examine stress and life satisfaction among recovering persons, and investigate the role of social supports, spirituality, religiousness, life meaning, and 12-step affiliation as recovery capital–buffering stress and enhancing life satisfaction.
- No matter where you are in your spiritual journey, you’re welcome here, and you’ll find help and acceptance.
- Most everyone has heard the question, “Is the glass half empty or half full?
- I must be God centered instead of self centered and God directed rather than self directed .
- Fortunately, it was caught early enough that I had a chance to try and manage it with lifestyle changes.
- List people, institutions orprinciples with whom you are angry.
- Therefore my illness is a result of relying on self.
- Same thing with alcohol; some people can have a couple beers, no problem.