As we start our new journey in sobriety, we begin to recover physically and emotionally. But this will only prove to be temporary if we remain stubborn to find a meaningful spirituality. For some of us who’ve never truly embraced the concept of a Living God, this will seem incredibly difficult. For those who’ve wandered away from a religious practice altogether, it may even seem impossible.
But here’s the deal: we cannot change of our own volition. We are reminded of this on page 44-45 in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: “If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted; in fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn’t there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly.
In other words, we essentially have no other rational choice but to develop a spiritual faith in a Power greater than ourselves if we are to continue living in harmony with God, ourselves, and others without falling back into the hopeless pit of addiction.
This may take time. For some, it may take a lot of time.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but here goes: the clock is ticking. The longer it takes for some folks to reconcile their past with God, the longer it takes to reconcile their past with themselves and others, and the longer it takes for God’s peace and serenity to find them. The bars and liquor stores are open more hours of the day than not. One can go into a seedy section of any city in America at just about any hour of the day and find another sick and suffering soul peddling their drug of choice.
The longer it takes one to find God’s grace, the greater the odds become of one’s past becoming their future again. This is precisely why the first three steps of nearly every effective program of recovery in the world begins with personal admittance (of the problem), followed by acknowledgement (of a Higher Power) and then submission (to a Higher Power).
Willpower may buy a certain amount of time for one to find God and come to terms with Him so the rest of his recovery foundation can be built, but experience has shown that our human resources alone have an incredibly short shelf-life; that the rehabs and treatment centers around the world spend so little money on advertising is the only indictment needed to reinforce that.
So…. for those who struggle with the God thing, I would strongly encourage you to set aside all preconceived biases and become open to further investigation and discovery. You may find that the spiritual hoop you’re required to jump through to find a better life has a bit more wiggle room than you might otherwise believe.
Former Blackout Artist 