Spirituality is important in addiction recovery it helps individuals find meaning, purpose, and fulfillment during difficult times

Spirituality is important in addiction recovery it helps individuals find meaning, purpose, and fulfillment during difficult times

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It is this notion that the fellowship of AA was founded upon, and how millions of recovered alcoholics equate their success in overcoming a seemingly hopeless situation. The only solution to a spiritual malady is a spiritual awakening. Only once we open the spiritual channels and begin to accept a Higher Power into our lives can we hope to find a solution to our alcoholic condition. The disease of alcohol and drug addiction is not just mental and physical but also spiritual. The spiritual malady, however, can be seen as an inward unmanageability.

Why is it called Rule 62 in AA?

This means that I have hyper-sensitivity and can be over-reactive but I do not believe that I am in any way spiritually deficit. This is a Judea-Christian belief structure of bad versus good and I believe that I did not join AA to become good but well. AA may have started within the Oxford Group but has gradually moved away from their tenets. Once we are aware of these feelings we can begin the real work on ourselves. It is not easy to do so but recognizing this aspect of alcoholism forces us to take an honest look in the mirror at our behaviors and attitudes towards life and other people. If we do not get spiritually connected with meditation or prayer with a power greater than us it will bring us closer and closer to that drink or drug. In sobriety, if we are self-reliant we usually end up using anything that will make us feel good externally excessively. These are common emotions in people who are experiencing spiritual malady. Since most people don’t know how to deal with their spiritual disconnect, they turn to alcohol and drugs. The addiction then makes them lose interest in everyone and everything else.

Bear with me on this one, but I believe that the spiritual malady that addicts and alcoholics face is also experienced by almost everyone else on the planet, yet it expresses itself in different manners. This aversion to all things spiritual is often times the main stumbling block that many people new to recovery face. They have to find a way to come to terms with the idea that there is something greater out there than themselves and that in order to overcome their addiction, they have to at least attempt to connect with it. Is describing, essentially is referring to a stark void in our lives that we constantly attempt to fill with outside things such as drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, or anything we can think to try to feel better.

The Mind is also Abnormal

I had been practicing meditation for almost 20 years and had read countless books on Eastern religion and thought. I had studied Emmett Fox, The Course in Miracles and was a card-carrying member of the Self-Realization Fellowship . I proceeded to give John a discourse about the human ego, transcendence, and the Oneness of all things. We are dedicated to providing you with valuable resources that educate and empower Sober Home you to live better. In addition, we frequently update old content to reflect the most up-to-date information. Still, others look to their personal interests—such as art, exercise, or even their career—for personal fulfillment and purpose. These individuals throw themselves into their beloved activities and achieve a greater sense of happiness in doing so. And feel a greater connection to the world around them.
define spiritual malady
I also think the issues are complicate because alcoholism have some many similarities to GAD, MDD, OCD, and so on. It was 80 years ago, so our knowledge base has moved on greatly from when the Big Book was written. Hence I believe we should appreciate that this definition of our condition has been updated by research into emotions especially in the define spiritual malady last 20 years. My recovery has thus since been about “growing up” a bit, however unsuccessful I am in this pursuit on occasion. My inventory showed me also that I did not seem to have the facility previously to emotionally respond to the world in a mature way. It shows the areas of behaviour and attitudes that can be treated by working the steps.

Most who work the 12-Steps can find freedom and joy in their new life in recovery. In simple words, a spiritual malady is the feeling of emptiness or vacuum. People often describe it as “knowing or feeling that something is missing.” Usually, people try to feel this void with alcohol or other substances. Everyone experiences it on some level at different points in their lives. It can be captured in the moments before you reach the comfort of a hobby or a beloved one. Addicts experience it in the moments before they take a drink or drugs. Alcohol and drug addiction is often seen as a disease that affects the mind and body. However, addiction also affects the spirit, hence the term spiritual malady. The idea is that what goes on in a person’s life when they become addicted is more than an uncontrollable desire to drink. As an alcoholic I have found I needed to grow up mentally and emotionally and I agree with the idea of emotional dysfunctionality which I believe is caused, probably, by past trauma or attachment issues.

  • I sin so naturally, effortlessly and usually without even trying.
  • They walk into a store, steal some food, and get caught.
  • Thus, the alcohol is absorbed in the bloodstream, and takes about an hour to metabolize.

So, it’s important that you equip yourself with the right information. Seniors living alone aren’t the only ones at risk for abusing alcohol. The mind piece is also limited to the alcoholic and the addict. The reaction the body has is limited to those who suffer from alcoholism. This article is coming out of a small resentment I once had. It wasn’t the kind of resentment that would make me angry but rather one that would make me uncomfortable. I often hear people refer to themselves or someone else as suffering from untreated alcoholism or blame some behaviors on alcoholism. I think this is not a helpful description of the cause. Selflessness, gratitude, love, service and compassion combats the self certeredness, self seeking, self pity, victim hood and selfishness which is at the core of my dis-ease that kept the malady going for so long. This is the reason that “self help” didn’t work for me.

I explained to him that his pride had been hurt, he was in shame and his “apparent” depression every since was simply prolonged self pity. For example there is an undercurrent in fear of things being taken away, of it being because we are not good enough, deserving enough, have failed in some way, which are shame based reactions. One of my own difficulties is realising I am hungry or tired and I can often end up exhausted by over-doing stuff especially manual work around my house. My stop button broke a long time a ago and probably did not work very well to begin with. We seem to compulsively seek to relieve an inherent distress of not having what we set out to get. Our decision making seems fueled at times by this need to relieve distress rather than the intrinsic value of what we are seeking.

What does our lives has become unmanageable mean?

This idea is insane because we have admitted that we are powerless over our thoughts, and our lives have become unmanageable because of it. That means that we suffer from a perception problem. We don't see the truth and only see what we think is the truth. We don't realize our minds are hazy and cloudy.

The years of recovery reveal many different things, some of them not so palatable. Anger responses are modeled and learned in some families. The anger response is more comfortable than feeling the shame for some individuals. Families where coercive and humiliating methods of discipline are used develop children who are shame prone.

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