Alcoholism Support Group
Alcoholism is the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, even when it is negatively affecting your health, work, relationships and life. If you think alcohol is causing you to lose control, it's time to seek help. Our group is a safe place to vent, check in, get back up if you fall, and reach sobriety.
One of the most common topics I read about on here is the search for and concept of higher power. Often it is from people who are very early in recovery who have not yet really begun the 12 steps, who are around step 2/3 in the steps, or are not involved in AA but are still looking into spirituality as a possible solution to their alcoholism.
I was thinking about this last night and realising that there is something back to front in this, something I recognise because I had it back to front when I first started my recovery.
I was looking to "find" a higher power before I could start on a spiritual program of action instead of realising that the spiritual program was what would bring me to a higher power. This could be the 12 steps as it turned out to be in my case, or another path to spirituality.
The 12 step program says at step 12 - "Having had a spiritual awakening as THE RESULT of these steps" i.e. we do the steps to have a spiritual awakening, we dont have a spiritual awakening to do the steps.
Maybe the confusion comes from step 2 and 3 which talk about power greater than ourselves and god. I think this gives the impression, or it did to me anyway, that I needed to have my concept of higher power all sorted in order to do those steps - I was wrong.
Step2 is about recognising that this solution to my problems is a spiritual one. That, as the result of acknowledging my powerlessness in relation to alcoholism, the obvious conclusion is that I will need a power other than myself to recover. There is no requirement to know what that power is, just a requirement to be willing to believe that there is a power other than me and that power is the key to solving my problem.
In step 3 we are asked to turn our will and our life over to god - as we understand him. The crucial bit here being as we understand him. That is what we understand at that point, not how we want to understand or how we think or hope we will understand in the future, what we understand right now when we are looking at this step.
What I understood at that point was that a higher power could not be another person and could not be an inanimate object, pretty much everything else was unknown to me. I didnt have a clue what spirituality really was, I was pretty sure I didnt believe in god as a deity, creator, christian type god etc but I didnt know what i did believe or understand. At first the word god really bothered me and then I realised that the book was written by christians and they wrote about what they knew/ used terms with which they related. However they explained that this path of spirituality was open to everyone and that has proved true for me. (if AA and the 12 steps had been conceived in the middle east the book would probably say Allah - it really doesnt matter!)
That is the beauty of the 12 step process - it will take you from whatever you understand (or really dont understand) in step3, to the right spiritual awakening for you. It doesnt matter where you start, if you follow the path you will always end up where you are supposed to. It might not be the same place as someone else but it will be the right one for you. We might all do the same steps but a spiritual awakening is uniquely personal to each of us. All the time trying to find my spirituality in order to do the steps was wasted for me. Yet soon after I started the program of action in steps 4 - 9, I started to move towards what i had been searching for for all along.
I know i have talked about the 12 steps here because that is the path I took towards a spiritual awakening. The spiritual awakening was actually the beginning of my spiritual journey not the end of it as it opened the door to spiritual exploration that I had no idea about before I started.
I hope what I have talked about will apply to spiritual paths other than the 12 steps too. Whatever way we choose to go about things we have to put in action and engage in change to go from one place to another. Very rarely will we go to bed with no concept of spirituality and wake up the next morning fully awakened to it. And it turns out that I thought at the beginning that the most important thing was what I believed in and it isnt - the most important thing for me is how I act, how I behave, how i demonstrate my spirituality. I effectlively became spiritual by action not by belief.
Sorry this is long but I hope if you read this far, it was interesting or helpful!
I was thinking about this last night and realising that there is something back to front in this, something I recognise because I had it back to front when I first started my recovery.
I was looking to "find" a higher power before I could start on a spiritual program of action instead of realising that the spiritual program was what would bring me to a higher power. This could be the 12 steps as it turned out to be in my case, or another path to spirituality.
The 12 step program says at step 12 - "Having had a spiritual awakening as THE RESULT of these steps" i.e. we do the steps to have a spiritual awakening, we dont have a spiritual awakening to do the steps.
Maybe the confusion comes from step 2 and 3 which talk about power greater than ourselves and god. I think this gives the impression, or it did to me anyway, that I needed to have my concept of higher power all sorted in order to do those steps - I was wrong.
Step2 is about recognising that this solution to my problems is a spiritual one. That, as the result of acknowledging my powerlessness in relation to alcoholism, the obvious conclusion is that I will need a power other than myself to recover. There is no requirement to know what that power is, just a requirement to be willing to believe that there is a power other than me and that power is the key to solving my problem.
In step 3 we are asked to turn our will and our life over to god - as we understand him. The crucial bit here being as we understand him. That is what we understand at that point, not how we want to understand or how we think or hope we will understand in the future, what we understand right now when we are looking at this step.
What I understood at that point was that a higher power could not be another person and could not be an inanimate object, pretty much everything else was unknown to me. I didnt have a clue what spirituality really was, I was pretty sure I didnt believe in god as a deity, creator, christian type god etc but I didnt know what i did believe or understand. At first the word god really bothered me and then I realised that the book was written by christians and they wrote about what they knew/ used terms with which they related. However they explained that this path of spirituality was open to everyone and that has proved true for me. (if AA and the 12 steps had been conceived in the middle east the book would probably say Allah - it really doesnt matter!)
That is the beauty of the 12 step process - it will take you from whatever you understand (or really dont understand) in step3, to the right spiritual awakening for you. It doesnt matter where you start, if you follow the path you will always end up where you are supposed to. It might not be the same place as someone else but it will be the right one for you. We might all do the same steps but a spiritual awakening is uniquely personal to each of us. All the time trying to find my spirituality in order to do the steps was wasted for me. Yet soon after I started the program of action in steps 4 - 9, I started to move towards what i had been searching for for all along.
I know i have talked about the 12 steps here because that is the path I took towards a spiritual awakening. The spiritual awakening was actually the beginning of my spiritual journey not the end of it as it opened the door to spiritual exploration that I had no idea about before I started.
I hope what I have talked about will apply to spiritual paths other than the 12 steps too. Whatever way we choose to go about things we have to put in action and engage in change to go from one place to another. Very rarely will we go to bed with no concept of spirituality and wake up the next morning fully awakened to it. And it turns out that I thought at the beginning that the most important thing was what I believed in and it isnt - the most important thing for me is how I act, how I behave, how i demonstrate my spirituality. I effectlively became spiritual by action not by belief.
Sorry this is long but I hope if you read this far, it was interesting or helpful!
xx
~Chris
I understood nothing when I first did step 3 and even the things i thought I understood I didnt - like I said I didnt have a clue what spirituality was, and my only sense of higher power was that I didnt believe in god.
My step 3 was in essence - " I dont have a fucking clue what this is all about but I know I cant do life like this and so I will start to let go of everything I think i know and try and let something else in and i will start that by doing a step 4 as honestly and open mindedly as I can"
Think a lot of my problem was that I thought this was about "getting" something and actually it was about letting go of something.
I can totally understand how you feel, I have honestly been there, all I can say is keep going to meetings, keep reading the book, keep working with a sponsor, keep going with the steps and stay honest, open minded and willing and it will change for you. That is all I did and it changed for me.
After I'd been in the program for awhile I realized that I was sooo damn miserable I couldn't see straight. I felt so empty and lonely that I wanted to die.
One night I just got down on my knees, and started praying - I figured by that time there MUST be a God cause everyone else was praying to Him. I was begging & crying -- at LAST I finally surrendered!!! All of a sudden this strange warmth came over me --- something I can't describe. Along with the warmth, a tingling went thru me -- and I felt a serenity that I had never felt before!! I figured that God had come to me in my sadness! I never felt so wonderful and full of faith and hope in my life.
Today I do believe in God and He walks with me every day. I had to SURRENDER in order to find Him. Lee
Which in its on right is a different way of thinking. Produced through the actions of Twelve steps.
Billy
Many of us want to understand everything before we start - that was my experience too. My way did not work and so I had to be willing to take some direction in order to let go of my faulty way of looking at things.
Suppose I had to fly somewhere but I was frightened of flying and the fact that, for the entire journey, the pilot would be in control of the plane - not me. I would have to just "trust" in certain odds that I would arrive at my necessary destination safely.
To be comfortable I would feel better if I knew how to take over the plane's controls in case the pilot died suddenly or some other disaster befell the flight.
It's a bit like that with recovery - I could not hope to know it all with any certainty before I began. All I could do was look at the odds (observing those happy in sobriety without the need or want for a drink) and understand that they had more experience in this particular area than I did and therefore take a chance on doing what they did (or just swallowing my fear and getting on that plane) before I could hope to judge.
Coming in it was a willingness to try and believe, realizing that what I had going on was not working. There was nothing to loose. I did not want to go on the way I was.
In AA I found there is a lot of room for different spiritual beliefs and there was a lot of room for my own belief system to be defined (or not) grow.
One thought I had reading reply 2 - about the idea of turning our life and will over to an hp -
And unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is little hope for their recovery. There are 2 key words there. CHANGE (probably everything) and EXPERIENCE... take what you hear and put it in to action. Try what you hear. Do it repeatedly. Just like you did drinking. There is another saying. MORE WILL BE REVEALED. Amazing stuff coming your way. EXPERIENCE IT. If all you do is think about it and if nothing changes well then... nothing changes.
I do have to share my third step adventure which I am sure is not original but HEY, who knows.
Sponsor says; do you believe in GOD.
I say; well I really..............
Sponsor; Just shut the fuck up you can borrow mine.
The rest has been progress.