The Spiritual Illness

By Jennifer Constant | août 6 , 2022 | 01Commentaires fermés sur The Spiritual Illness

When people become too self-reliant, they often start to think that they don’t need AA anymore. They may start to skip meetings, distance themselves from their support system, and eventually relapse. Whenever you find yourself feeling irritable discontent bored with your life or depressed it is likely that you may have skipped meditation or prayer. In these situations, I feel further from God than normal and then I wonder who moved me or God and the answer is always me. The thoughts we have as alcoholics are often insidious in such a way that we can’t tell what is true or false.

I believe my so-called defects of character are linked to my underlying emotional disorder of alcoholism. Alcoholics and children of alcoholics have a tendency to avoid emotions (use avoidant coping strategies) in fact and to use emotional reasoning when arguing a point. I am aware that there are many paths to recovery- my path has been the 12-Steps. While this may not be for everybody, https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/10-best-alcohol-addiction-recovery-books/ the principles contained within the steps and the program are applicable and useful to anyone seeking sobriety and recovery. As we work towards this state of selflessness we find that we are slowly being relieved of the hopeless alcoholic state we once thought we were doomed to be in forever. It is constant maintenance of being spiritually connected with a god of your understanding.

Big Book ASL – Chapter 10 – To Employers

Old timers and recovering people with more experience can explain in layman’s terms just what the author Bill W. Was trying to relay in a far more easily digestible fashion. Hanley Center is a well-known care provider offering a range of treatment programs targeting the recovery from substance use, mental health issues, and beyond.

At Oceanfront Recovery, our team of addiction treatment professionals understands how to approach alcohol addiction as the chronic disease it is. We offer extensive detox and therapies to help individuals address the physical aspects of the disease as well as the psychological and spiritual aspects. If I could control my alcoholism without the help and support of a recovery community, I would have done it long ago. Taking responsibility doesn’t stop at declaring that I needed help and made the decision to find the solution. Throughout the recovery process, commitment is expected at all times. As The Big Book states, in time, responsibility will become such a large part of our recovery journey that we will even “awaken to a new sense of responsibility for others” as well.

Stories to Help You Live Better

When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.” When men and women look inwardly, the spiritual component of the disease becomes apparent. Many of our previous attempts to achieve sobriety failed because we did not address anything other than the physical and mental aspects of addiction. We felt that breaking physical dependence would work, or focused on a psychiatric solution. However, when we entered into a recovery model that included the spiritual, we found a solution. The Big Book explains, “If, when you honestly want to, you find that you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably an alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.” We embark upon a journey of recovery that allows us to develop a deep spiritual connection.

What the book says is that the only thing that will solve our drink problem is a spiritual awakening, spiritual experience, attitude adjustment, or psychic change. One way to think of a Higher Power is simply as a force that is greater than yourself. This could be the power of nature, the universe, or even something as simple as your cats or dogs at home – perhaps their love for you and the fact that they need you to be sober is your Higher Power. It doesn’t matter what your Higher Power is; what matters is that you believe in something that can help guide and support you on your journey to recovery. You should also try to find other people in AA who share your beliefs and struggles; they can provide support and fellowship as well as offer helpful advice. Just remember, even if you don’t share the same beliefs, everyone in AA are united by their shared experience with addiction and their desire to stay sober.

Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience & Creative Power.

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. Thankfully, the “spiritual malady” is no longer a “missing piece” of Step One for me. It is a reality of my powerlessness and unmanageability and enables me to see why I so desperately need to seek a Power Greater than myself. And unless this malady is recognized, and a course of action (the Twelve Steps) is taken to enable God to remove it, the root of our alcoholic illness can lie dormant and burn us when we least expect it.

However, in keeping with the 10th tradition of AA, the opinions I express in the book do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or positions held by AA as a whole. Quotations from Alcoholics Anonymous are from the first edition (1939) which is now in the public https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/what-spiritual-malady-means/ domain. Any quotations from sources other than the first edition of the Big Book are reprinted with permission. 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.

When not treating the spiritual aspect of the disease those behaviors are the types of things that will start to make life unmanageable once again. Especially being alcoholic more often than not, it is our nature to have that “my way or the highway” mentality. Intellectually, believing in something we cannot physically see or a scientifically proven exists is a hard pill to swallow, those intellectual individuals shut the idea out completely. These core beliefs make it harder for us to connect with a god of our understanding.

• As The Big Book states, in time, responsibility will become such a large part of our recovery journey that we will even “awaken to a new sense of responsibility for others” as well.
• Why is it that when an alcoholic is dishonest or engages in some other type of poor behavior, we hear people refer to it as alcoholic behavior?
• The Big Book couldn’t illustrate this point any better.

The mind and alcoholism are so cunning, baffling, and powerful that we often cannot fathom how we ended up intoxicated when relying on our strong willpower to stay sober. Unlike normal people (whatever that means) alcoholics are unsettled to the core. After reading ‘The Doctor’s Opinion,’ ‘Bill’s Story,’ and ‘There is a Solution,’ in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous,  we came to an understanding that we have no control whatsoever over alcohol or drugs. 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. This is one of the reasons that Big Book study groups have become so popular among recovering alcoholics. 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.

The Spiritual Illness

What can that statement possibly mean to an agnostic? Is the whole idea of someone being spiritually ill acceptable? These are questions that I have had to struggle with as an agnostic in AA.

• Selfishness and self -centeredness is the root of my trouble.
• You’re probably wondering what a spiritual malady is.
• Yes, to remain in the recovered state, we must continue to work on the spiritual malady.
• The common way to get this transformational change in your psyche is by doing the 12 Steps that are written in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

No one is perfect at first when attempting to live a spiritual life, especially when we are coming back from a long spiritual hiatus. What is important though is that we strive to be a little better every single day and never give up on our spiritual journey in recovery. 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. Why is the spiritual malady such a big part of the disease? People who are not alcoholics or addicts can be restless, irritable, and discontent when they are living with resentments and fear.

David B told me that by going to therapy, “I was trying to fix a spiritual problem with a psychological solution”. I eventually accepted that the twelve steps are the spiritual tools that will help me to recover from this “hopeless condition of mind and body.” (BB There Is a Solution, p.20). He then offered his definition of the word ‘spiritual’.