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What I am saying is that they do not have the emotion dysregulation or fear based responding that I seem to have which often prompts “sin”. Selfishness and self -centeredness is the root of my trouble. My troubles are of my own making and arise out my living a life run on self-will. I must be God centered instead of self centered and God directed rather than self directed . The specific directions in the first 102 pages of the book Alcoholic Anonymous. Many of us 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.
Negative emotions that cut me off from sanity and reason. They do not necessarily come from a Judea-Christian belief structure, just spiritual malady from my own awareness, 12 step practice and years of Neursocience research. I really struggle with the “spiritual malady” idea.
Video: WCCM Teacher-Leader Programme Closing Event
We practice unity in meetings, in our 12-Step work, and with our vibrant recovery community. This blends perfectly with service, where we strive to help each other and come together as a community https://ecosoberhouse.com/ of recovered men to help the larger Colorado community. Yes, we work the 12-Steps, but we also engage in group and individual therapy, physical activity, and other healthy practices.
There are as many different definitions of what spirituality means as there are alcoholics in recovery. A spiritual awakening in the life of any alcoholic in recovery is a very personal matter. We have found that these problems no longer exist for us when we begin living by spiritual principles and improving our conscious contact with our higher power. 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. The 12-Steps focus on addressing and fixing the spiritual problems that led us into our addiction, and by doing so, we find that they allow us to positively change our mental and physical issues.
The Spiritual Approach to Recovery
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.
- What Power is it that drives a man to act sinfully, even unwillingly, as if powerlessly.
- I believe that an awakening of the spirit and an awakening to a belief in God are not mutually inclusive.
- Through my years of sobriety resentments tend to crop up less and less.
- In other words it is the consequence of my fear based condition, this affective disorder.
- But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got.
- There is no “one right way” to cure them, just as there is no one best antibiotic for an infection.
For most diseases that exist, there are multiple treatment options. There are very few monopolies on methodology when it comes to getting well, no matter what ails you. This holds true for alcoholism and addiction as well. There is no “one right way” to cure them, just as there is no one best antibiotic for an infection. But there are certain things that work better than others.
Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book, First Edition.
I do not think anyone is NORMAL lol and I seldom use the word without a little bit of sarcasm. Step 1 in the AA programme is “ We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable”. It is emotionally healthy to surrender and accept things over which we have no control. It is emotionally healthy to live in the day … in the here and now. Professional therapists teach people to live in the present. AA encourages members to share their experience, strength and hope with other members.
- Only once we open the spiritual channels and begin to accept a Higher Power into our lives can we hope to find a solution to our alcoholic condition.
- My own terms made a mess of my alcoholic life so I did not want to have to repeat any of that history.
- The list of emotional difficulties continues throughout the Big book’s first 164 pages.
- I do not think anyone is NORMAL lol and I seldom use the word without a little bit of sarcasm.
- Yet, that is not all we do at Jaywalker Lodge.