Treatment Centers Addiction Recovery Community Blog Entries tagged 'Spiritual awakening'

BABY BOOMERS AND ADDICTION

sherry@sgabatherapy.com — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

MIDDLE AGED BABY BOOMERS AND ADDICTION

A woman enters my office disheveled, thin, mid forties, with hollow eyes. It is as if the sparkle in her eyes ceased to exist a very long time ago. She tells me she has been drinking and is using methamphetamines. I am not surprised to hear this because lately my practice has been filled with middle aged baby boomers seeking help for their serious addictions. Whether it is alcohol, cocaine, crack, methamphetamines, pa [...]

Why Ask For Help With Addiction?

kenandjody@comcast.net — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

I am aware that these words will only reach a select few. I am writing to anybody who has reached their true "bottom" and given up on the whole life process. If you are like me, you were brought to this point by the impact of the two diseases of addiction and codependency. If you have just started reaching out for help through one of the 12-step programs, then continue reading. If you are just miserably despondent right now due to thes [...]

Why Do "Big Boys" Have Trouble Feeling Feelings?

kenandjody@comcast.net — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Men are confused. We are taught early in the game a basic lie. We are taught as little boys that emotions (yes, I'm goanna talk about the "F" word here guys, feelings), are bad and WRONG. We therefore confuse emotions with faults (short-comings if you are a 12-stepper, sins if you are many Christians).

As a man in al-Anon, a 12-step program for people who are being adversely effected by somebody else's drinking, I have listened to men speak during meetings [...]

Love the Addict, Hate the Disease.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Love the Addict, Hate the Disease.

A wise counselor once told my wife and I "...it's hard to hug a porcupine!" Addicts and alcoholics are like porcupines. Their decades of consuming known depressants render them irritable and negative. Their addiction has been used to avoid facing and solving life's problems, so they have hampered their own maturation process, because maturity can only happen when a per [...]

Cleaning House. Taking Steps 4-9.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

This post is strictly for experienced 12-step people. Most others will not understand it.

After taking the first three steps, beginning steps 4-9, the "clean house" steps, is not a matter of choice if you are at all committed to recovery. It is just not possible to stretch to a higher level of consciousness if you are burdened beneath a half of a lifetime of shortcomings.

The fourth step inventory presents a once-in-a-lifetime oppor [...]

The Serenity Prayer

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The Serenity Prayer

We 12-step people say the Serenity Prayer's first few lines thousands of times, before most meetings, and in our hearts so often when faced with one of those inevitable difficult situations life hands us.

But how many times have we heard the entire work, as written by Reinhold Neibuhr in 1926?

When you hear the prayer in its entirety you see even greater depth, and you see where [...]

No Pair. A Song For Gamblers.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

No Pair is an allegory that condenses a lifetime into a poker game. The "dealer," in the story (and usually in life on earth) is the Devil. The reader (or listener) may not believe in a devil, but anybody who experiences this earthly existence has experienced temptation.

Joe F., my neighbor and friend in the mid-'80's, taught literature and writing in a southern [...]

12 Symptoms of a Spiritual Awakening

kenandjody@comcast.net — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:06:30 +0100

12 SYMPTOMS OF A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

When hurting people first come into a 12-step program, they are seldom walking into the meeting for the purpose of having a spiritual awakening. Most, men and women alike, come to programs such as AA, Al-Anon, Nar-A-Non, or Adult Children of Alcoholics searching for relief from the pain and chaos visited upon them and theirloved ones by the co-diseases of addiction and codependency. But these diseases are diseases of the spirit first, an [...]