SPIRITUALITY

I will suggest in this post some tools that you can use on a daily basis to be drug and alcohol free that can become a part of your own personal recovery program.

Consider setting aside a quiet time every morning to focus on the fact that you are in recovery and to make a conscious commitment to yourself each morning to be abstinent from drug or alcohol use for that day. This daily discipline can become a basic recovery tool for you.At night before retiring for the day, take a few minutes for some quiet time to review the day. If you have not picked up an alcoholic drink or a drug, you can be grateful for that miracle regardless of whatever negative or positive events that have occurred. It is indeed a miracle for an addict or alcoholic to get through a day without using. Again, this daily discipline of reviewing the day before sleeping and being thankful for another day of recovery can become a basic recovery tool for you.

I am now going to suggest that you consider adding a spiritual component to your daily disciplines. I will begin the discussion of spirituality by just making a few observations and asking that the reader of this post try to have an open mind to the concept of spirituality. I use the term spirituality to include any source of strength that you are open to tapping into. Spirituality can be found in organized religions and can be based upon a relationship an individual develops with God. But, spirituality can be developed apart from organized religion and can be based on one's own concept of a source of spiritual strength. So, for now, I suggest that the reader just have an open mind about finding a source of spiritual strength.Willingness to seek a source of spiritual strength, regardless of how that source is defined, is the key to developing a relationship with such a spiritual source. The willingness often is the result of finding that one's own efforts to resolve the drug or alcohol problem have failed.

In my experience, all an individual need do is to adopt daily spiritual disciplines through which the individual reaches out to a source of spiritual strength by prayer, by meditation, by journaling, or in some other way by methodically seeking help, support, and strength from a source outside of, or within, self. It is in the seeking of spiritual strength that one builds an experience based faith in the process and a relationship with a source of spiritual strength. Of course, it is essential that the alcoholic or addict surrender to the fact that use of alcohol or other drugs is no longer a viable option.

Returning to the concept I mentioned in the first paragraph, I will describe now a simple daily program of spiritual disciplines that I have used for 29 years in support of my own recovery. I often guarantee to individuals I counsel that if they commit to such a program and abstain from drug or alcohol use, they will come to experience a serenity and strength that will sustain them no matter what happens in their lives, positive or negative. Set aside a time for quiet reflection on arising at the start of the day and on retiring at the end of the day to focus on your recovery, as follows: on arising, read something positive (for example, a daily meditation book), or perhaps meditate on aspects of your life for which you can be grateful, recommit yourself to abstinence and recovery for that day, and ask for help from whatever your source of spiritual strength may be to stay clean and sober and to strive for a loving response to whatever occurs during the day. At night before retiring, review your day, reflect gratefully that you have not used drugs or alcohol that day, and ask for help in any way that works for you to improve in your reactions that day that may not have been as loving or positive as you would have liked.

In my view, any individual in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction who can get through the day without using can claim a spiritual victory regardless of other calamities or negatives that might have occurred.Performing these spiritual disciplines in the morning and evening, not picking up a drink or a drug, and if at all possible attending a 12 Step meeting, will over a period of time result in your coming to believe in a spiritual source of strength and the process, and can form the foundation of a solid, enduring recovery.