If you’re struggling to find a Higher Power in AA, know that you’re not alone. There are many people who have been in your shoes and have found creative ways to work around this issue. Remember to keep an open mind and heart, and eventually, you will find something (or someone) who can serve as your own personal higher power. 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.
Why meditation? My personal story
The role of physical dependence and psychological addiction in alcoholism partly explain why those with alcohol use disorder are unable to moderate or discontinue use. To initiate a full and sustained recovery, it is also helpful to address the spiritual role of this disease. Today’s guide explores the spiritual malady meaning in the context of https://ecosoberhouse.com/ 12-step recovery groups like AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). According to AA, spiritual malady is often fueled by resentments and renders life unmanageable. Many people are initially turned off to the idea of the program because they believe it preaches religion and God, and many addicts and alcoholics have no desire to pursue a religious answer.
- 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.
- It revitalizes our connection with our thoughts and emotions, pushing us to contemplate our spiritual growth and the need for positive change.
- As you grow in your sobriety and learn more about yourself, you may find that your concept of a Higher Power changes as well.
- As much as it depends on us, we need to live at peace with our families.
- Yes, the “allergy” is still there, but one will never be affected as long as they never take that first drink or drug.
Understanding Spiritual Malady
For example, AA rooms offer fellowship and support and provide a structure that can help keep you sober. These are all positive things that can help you on your journey to recovery, regardless of your beliefs. In AA, one of the main goals is to become sober and stay sober.
Cultivating Connections in Recovery: Fellowship and a Higher Power
We have to watch out for motor vehicles, knives, and guns. Also, tornados, hurricanes, droughts, fires, global warming, and war threaten us physically. Lack of clean soil, water, air, and lack of nutritious food are a threat to us. There are a lot of physical threats that can flip our physiology into a defense state. This is frequently referred to as ‘breed and feed” physiology, although it is clearly much more than just that.
What Constitutes a Spiritual Awakening?
While an addict’s spiritual malady triggers a compulsive need to use drugs, other people’s spiritual conflicts may take the form of a gambling problem, anxiety, depression, or eating disorder. The great psychiatrist Carl Jung called this a ‘low level thirst for wholeness – for union with God’. In our addictions, we tried to quench our soul-thirst with fleeting pleasures. The pursuit of them dominated our lives, destroyed relationships, and caused greater desperation than we ever thought possible.
But of the few who kept up with the God-consciousness proposal, improving it through prayer and meditation, life was amazingly productive and full of peace. They developed mastery over spiritual malady resentment, became free of anger and gained courage through the defeat of fear. There is after all, a lot of God talk in those meetings and in their “Big Book,” Alcoholics Anonymous.