We often take them to grave sooner rather than later unless we decide to be open and share our secrets with another person. Sorry for being so direct in this blog, it is a message of hope, there is a way to completely turn your life around. Sponsorship embodies the fellowship’s altruistic orientation, reflecting a “helping and helper therapy principle” . Sponsorship plays an important role in the recovery process.

• 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.
• That will be lifted if you correctly follow the twelve steps in the book.
• For many folks, including myself, ‘the spiritual’ aspects of recovery can be a challenge.
• Lacking the tools to manage pain, disappointment, and resentment in a healthy way, the mind obsessively seeks the only solution to the problem that has yet worked, which is a mind or mood-altering substance.
• Practicing prayer and meditation helps us be mindful of our surroundings and gain consciousness of our spirituality by bringing us closer to our higher power.

We can not rely on our thoughts and feelings or, in other words, our Self Will. Our self will has become impaired and is no longer in the service of our successful survival. William Silkworth referred to alcoholism as an allergy of the body and obsession of the mind. Narcotics Anonymous coined the term “one is too many, a thousand is never enough,” when referencing how the craving can take over.

What Leads to a Malady of The Spirit?

So we have issues with emotions and somatic/body feeling states. But when it comes to alcohol and drugs, there is no will power. The reason is that our reaction to alcohol and drugs is physical, it’s not mental. I want to make clear to members that these thoughts are not definitive treatise on the subjects.

When things get tough, take a moment to pray, meditate, or just sit quietly and think about your Higher Power and what it means to you. Allow yourself to feel the strength and support that comes from knowing that there is something bigger than yourself out there rooting for your success. One of the great things about AA is that it’s flexible – you can make it work for you, even if you don’t believe in God. So, instead of fixating on the parts of the program that don’t work for you, focus on the things that do.

Take Your First Step To Recovery

Once turning to substances many of these people struggle to maintain the same focus on the other priorities they had. As an alcoholic I have found I needed to grow up mentally and emotionally and I agree with the idea of emotional dysfunctionality which I believe is caused, probably, by past trauma or attachment issues. This means that I have hyper-sensitivity and can be over-reactive but I do not believe that I am in any way spiritually deficit.

It is loaded with old ideas and religiosity, tainted by overuse, abuse, and centuries of bad press. It is sad that countless addicts and alcoholics have rejected 12 Step recovery because the G_d word is up on the wall and included in prayers and literature. Even if you don’t believe in God right now, it’s important to keep an open mind. Things spiritual malady may change over time, and you never know when or how your beliefs might evolve. The important thing is that you stay committed to your sobriety and continue working the program – eventually, everything else will fall into place. In sobriety, it is so important to maintain consciouscontact with a higher powerand count our blessings.

Recovery Starts Here.

Alcoholics do not seem want stuff like normal folk, but have a pathological wanting, an all consuming need to get stuff regardless of it’s worth or value. I am assailed externally by fear of what other’s think about me and internally about what I think of me – when these two line up it can have a powerful and damaging effect on my psyche. I have found over the last decade in recovery that when I turn my Will over to the care of the God of my understanding that I am restored to sanity and my thoughts are sound, they are on a higher plane as the Big Book tells me. I have seen in myself how fear and shame seem to drive most of my maladaptive behaviour. Some of us have this knawing feeling of not being good enough, have a hole in the soul which we are/were kinda always unconsciously trying to protect, shield from the world. Some of us are “people pleasers”, some of us are dismissive towards others.

• It is emotionally healthy to surrender and accept things over which we have no control.
• The “spiritual malady” of the Oxford group seems enhanced in me, I believe I sin more than normal people because of my emotional immaturity and reactivity.
• In Grace we can still experience negative emotions but God allows us to see them for what they are and not react.
• There is an obsessive quality and an emotional sensitivity, often experienced in childhood, that later has the possibility of turning to an obsession to seek solace from the way they feel.