Step One: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol [drugs, compulsive sexual behavior, spending, food, gambling, codependence, unhealthy relationships], that our lives had become unmanageable.
Scripture references: 2 Corinthians 12:5-10, Romans 7:19, Proverbs 14:12
In his Second letter to the Corinthians (12:9), the Apostle Paul tells us that "power is made perfect in weakness." Sometimes this line is translated as "my strength is made perfect in weakness." This central message of our Christian faith is also essential to the very survival of people in recovery from addictions, compulsions and destructive behaviors, attitudes and relationships. It starts with Step One. We admit our powerlessness over the substances, behaviors, attitudes and relationships that drag us down, destroying our spirits, our lives and our very essences. Paul captures this great human quandary well in Romans (7:19), "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." Surrendering, defeated, we finally are able to say, "God, I am weak. I am power-less."
Paul explains in 2 Corinthians that we can be boastful and feel elated, but to keep us from ever being too high on ourselves, we're given thorns in our flesh -- messages from Satan, or perhaps what we might describe today as visitations from our personal demons. We pray to God to remove these thorns, to free us from our demons. In Paul we read that power is made perfect in weakness; in order for us to be filled with Christ, we must be weak. This is the seeming contradiction embedded in our relationship with God, and in addiction and recovery. To have the strength to live free of our demonizing influences, we must let go absolutely, surrender everything and let God's love fill us, melt us, mold us, transform us. At the moment we hit bottom, as we finally admit we are powerless and can't do it by ourselves any more, we attain our moment of greatest strength. This is the paradox of the crucified God, the One who is resurrected. Out of the depths of despair and weakness comes the ultimate transfigured and transcendent strength.
I remember well the day I reached the end of my alcohol and drug use, one day at a time. I had gotten drunk on the job, acted inappropriately and then called in sick for an entire week afterward. I finally came back to work and was greeted with an intervention. My boss took me into her office and she confronted me about my behavior: I had scared and hurt people; through my actions I had let my employer and my coworkers down. She sent me to our Employee Assistance Program, where a wise counselor made a horrible-sounding statement in a comforting tone: "Someday you'll look back on this as the moment you hit bottom." From that place at my bottom, I wasn't ready to perceive that the only place I had left to go is up. But now, more than 20 years after what I now remember as a glorious day, I can see how far down I had gone and what an incredible, fantastic journey going back "up" has been -- by letting go and letting God do for me what I could not do for myself.
We need bread for this journey of recovery -- spiritual sustenance. When many of us come into AA or other 12 Step programs, part of hitting bottom is feeling ourselves to be emotionally, morally, ethically and spiritually bankrupt. In all but the ultimate sense, we are dead. Proverbs (14:12) describes "a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death." Our disease does indeed "want us dead" as we are told so powerfully by our peers in recovery. Sober, we begin to recognize the Higher Power at work in our lives. We begin practicing spiritual disciplines, in number of forms. We learn how to pray, many first by simply reciting the Serenity Prayer at meetings. Some of us begin to practice meditation, to find a center and a place of peace and tranquility we need in order to begin to be comfortable in our own skins. We use the tools of recovery contained in the 12 Steps, along with those deceptively simple but profoundly wise Program slogans like "easy does it," "one day at a time" and "keep it simple." We absorb the wisdom found in 12-Step literature and related recovery books such as the AA Big Book; "Alcoholics Anonymous"; SCA's "Hope and Recovery"; the "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" of AA, NA or OA; Patrick Carnes' invaluable "A Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps"; or David Crawford's "Easing the Ache."
Coming into recovery, many people supplement the spiritual disciplines they learn by joining a faith community. One day, we venture upstairs into the sanctuary for a worship service after we've spent some time in a church's basement attending AA, NA or OA meetings. Others discover a worship community in a recovery-based congregation, such as my own Step By Step Ministry or the powerful Lifeline ministry, both here in New York. In our new church home, our spiritual lives are enriched as we experience the scripture, tradition, liturgy, music, hymns, prayers and preached messages.
Christian fellowship, at its heart, empowers us to open the doorways and windows of our hearts, minds and souls, letting God's love and light flood into our lives. Here, as in recovery, we let go and let God turn our weakness into strength. The paradox and miracle both of faith and of recovery is this: The more we admit our powerlessness and open ourselves to God's will for us, the greater becomes our power to do good, and the more joy and fulfillment we feel in the doing. Let's join Paul in "boasting of our weaknesses," our wounded places, our deepest imperfections, for that is where God works the greatest wonders in our lives.
Rev. Dr. Paul Bradley: Recovery, Gratitude and the Power of the Holy Spirit
Rabbi Shais Taub: Judaism and Addiction Recovery - Huffington Post
Kevin Griffin: A Buddhist Approach To Recovery ... - Huffington Post
SoberRecovery : Faith-Based Treatment - Christian Drug Rehab ...
The Renewal of Old "Habits" springs forth... Enduerment takes place at Rehab.
Some fellows find recovery in drinking to forget, Others... like myself in days
Goneby, engaged in "Stronk-Drink" to remember. Subsequently, A Relapse.
Though however means you call "Big Book" traditions, of that Godsend
Bill [W] Wilson. Where there is a Will, there is a Way.
May your "Higher-Power" be that Set of Keys to the Front Door.
There But Before Grace a Of Higher, Go I.
"Keep Coming Back, It Works when you Work It".
Jesus, keep me from all wrong;
I’ll be satisfied as long
As I walk, let me walk close to Thee.
Through this world of toil and snares,
If I falter, Lord, who cares?
Who with me my burden shares?
None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee.
When my feeble life is o’er,
Time for me will be no more;
Guide me gently, safely o’er
To Thy kingdom shore, to Thy shore.
Just a closer walk with Thee,
Grant it, Jesus, is my plea,
Daily walking close to Thee,
Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.
The whole "your higher power can be a doorknob" thing is baloney too--it's a bait and switch plan to get one used to the whole idea--a "starter god" if you will--but as you work through the steps, you find that in order to work the steps as written, your HP must be omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent--which a doorknob, or "nature", etc, is not.
This was the dilemma in which I found myself when (after 20+ years sober and 15 years as a liberal Protestant minister) I became a born-again, Bible-believing Christian. I was fired from my job as a youth pastor, I had to let go of my second income as a jyotish astrologer (in which I had been supported and encouraged by my denomination), and I also needed to leave behind my 12-step support network.
However, if you're expecting this story to conclude by my realizing how foolish and narrow-minded I'd become...well, that didn't happen. I never picked up the bottle again. I committed myself to not serving in a pastoral position, and took my training and skills into health care chaplaincy. And I'm forever grateful that my Higher Power is the One True God, and His son, Jesus Christ, our Savior.
How wonderful!
f/f
However, in order to surrender this false consciousness, one has to set in front of himself an object love. One surrenders to a higher power or to God or to a higher self or to transcendent reality. The label matters as it must resonate with the person. Then by surrendering, a new center gradually emerges replacing the obsolete and inoperable false paradigm.
The course of recovery is fretted with trouble and no absolute guarantees. Stresses in life may trigger an atavistic response to alleviate suffering and the addicted personality might rebound and renew and strengthen this orientation that leads away from self-centeredness..
The struggle of those who have addictions mirror all of us. We possess in varying degrees these attachments as part of our existential condition. Perhaps they pave the way for us to make this same paradigm shift of putting the other before us thereby opening our hearts to love.
Just a few simple steps: you too can recover from your pitiful addiction to christianity, and join the humans in getting on with life.
Apparently god only saves a small minority of the addicts that 'find' him.
on the other hand, you are of course, right, though: we are all 'spirit-less'. and no, i refuse to consider that it's 'your' process or any one else's. fact: no 12stepper has EVER been 'cured'-especially not through ANY 12 step process, or a.a. type group.
oh, and it's not 'your' "recovery process" either, einstein. The very 1st 'step' tells you that you're powerless, so don't play like you did anything. you didn't, did you? By your definition, it's god's recovery process, cuz uh....you're powerless, remember?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPOfurmrjxo