I am listening to everything you all are saying. There is one observation that I can easily make - It seems as though no one is more enthusiastic about their recovery than an AA'er who claims to have had this spiritual awakening and that is pretty compelling.

Ok.

Spiritual awakening is a term used throughout religion apparently. Not just in our program:)
For me, I had my first mini spiritual awakening when I sat down and listened at my first AA meeting. What a huge relief.
Another when I really admitted I was powerless. Still another after my 4th step, and a few mini ones around prayers, and my HP answering them, not with what I thought I want, but with what I needed.

I'm looking forward to a continued path to spiritual growth and awakening. There is a page of the BB that talks about it never saying "ok you are done now" that we are all works in progress essentially.

setmefree that is exactly what I experienced as my spiritual awakening.

I think Serenity hit the nail on the head.

This is a programme of ACTION. The Big Book says "The spiritual life is NOT A THEORY. We have to LIVE it" The capitals are mine, just for emphasis - they are not "shouty" or "telling you what to do" ones lol!

It also says "Faith without works is dead." Those two statements are pointing to the same thing, in my opinion.

In normal circumstances, even in yin and yang terms, "you get what you give" but with the progressive nature of alcoholism and its seeming desire to keep you in its thrall, that is not quite the case.

The BB suggests you agree to be willing to go to any lengths on commencing the journey. That is a really important consideration because it is too easy to skip bits, here and there.

Give 100% on your part and the rewards are beyond what mere words can describe.

Give 50% and, unfortunately, you don't often get 50% - this can leads to relapse and, in chronic alcoholism cases, death.

But at the end of the day, it is each and every one's individual choice on how they choose to -or choose not to - approach recovery from alcoholism.

AA gave me more than I bargained for, but in the best possible way.

Spiritual Awakening to me Tara is a term I'd use to describe a moment in my life where fear of the unknown, fear of death drew me closer to God and made every day count. Came 10 years into sobriety and it's the day I renewed a relationship with God I'd shutdown many many years before. A moment of stillness when I felt the safest I've ever had in my life and truly knew that no matter what was going to happen, I wasn't alone. Gives me goosies and tears every time I think about it.

http://vimeo.com/7237309

LindaJean - how cool is that?! I love the deep connection and "in the moment" feelings that cast all fear and anxiety out the window and make things perfectly, crystal clear of where our paths need to go. You can't help but feel a deep sense of peace and love in those moments.

I had another spiritual awakening 2 weeks ago that I will never forget. I think I shared it here somewhere, but I'll do it again because to me, it was a really profound awakening and has been a BLESSING ever since! I have transformed in yet another area thanks be to my God!

I believe when we are struggling with something, a spiritual awakening regarding the issue is inevitable if we let ourselves submit and become vulnerable to it's calling. Whether a Christian or not, these experiences are transforming if we heed to their power and beauty. We're always transforming.

This current (2 week old) awakening came after I cried out about struggles with envy and depression. How fun. I needed to be delivered from comparing myself to a friend in the housekeeping department. I keep things picked up, but living with cats is a challenge (esp when you have 10 in your house) and the housekeeping becomes overwhelming. I found myself hating the cats, being angry at them (although I was the one who rescued them and brought them home), being mad at my husband thinking (battle of the mind) that he thought I was a BAD housekeeper, bitter towards my friend becoming critical of her so I could feel better and hopeless that anything could change or that I would ever have a clean house "like hers". It got bad, so bad that I was paralyzed when it came to deep cleaning my house and I was not peaceful inside because hubby doesn't help so I resented him, resented my friend and had a hairy house. As a "Virgo" person, this really kills my spirit as we're supposed to be neat freaks.

Well, I have been wanting to pray even more and I was walking around just feeling depressed and defeated and playing bad tapes in my head - critical ones about everything and walked outside to the front and looked up and just cried out to God - well, He answered my cries rather quickly because as I looked at back at my house, I didn't see a porch that needed stained (crabbing about that) or cleaned - but instead, saw the blessing of a home He gave us and my hardened heart melted and immediately, I wanted to fall to my knees in gratitude to God for this revelation and deliverance from the envy, jealousy, criticalness - but didn't at first because of the dew and grass chitlins from mowing the night before. I fell to my knees anyway and the voice said, "quit your bitchin and clean your house" - that was it. I'm like, OK. It was SO crystal clear and I just felt like I was delievered from the FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) and saw things clearly. I took off the next day from work and cleaned up a storm and haven't stopped yet. I am transformed in this area and LOVING it. I've gotten more done in 2 weeks than I have in 3 or 4 years or more.

This week, just this morning, after much prayer, I have been having a spiritual awakening in my finances and it's been equally awesome.

Sometimes people wonder what life is like after alcohol or what could be next, but I tell you, for those of us who cannot drink, there is SO much waiting for us that it's hard to wrap our minds around.

I googled "spiritual awakening" and came across this. It really explains, in detail the deep feelings associated with this as well as being a really good love story. I hesitated to post the link because there's a paragraph that was pretty distasteful to me regarding spiritual teachers acting out their animal nature sexuality with students (EWE!) - but if you can disregard that paragraph, the piece is really fascinating.

http://www.personaltransformation.com/awakening.html

Great article, thanks!