Spirituality and addiction recovery can be an emotional topic in some circles. Part of the dictionary definition for spiritual is insubstantial. There was a time in my life when I would have agreed with that part of the definition. Someone would say the word spirituality and I would hear God.
Since my concept of God was distorted I had no use for spirituality. When I first attended 12 step meetings almost thirty years ago members spoke of the spiritual part of the fellowship; which led me to believe there was a separate part that dealt with all thing spiritual. Well that was fine with me; I had enough to do staying totally abstinent. Anyone that stays in recovery can tell you, your thinking starts to change.
You become more accepting of ideas that just months earlier you would have argued against. Spirituality came to be the quality of the relationships that were important to me. It was a few years still before I understood I was a spiritual being and would grow in a spiritually positive of negative direction. When the positive growth outweighed the negative I was able to accept God as my higher power.
Years earlier when I attended a drug rehab center I fought robustly against esoterically flavored concepts. Today I accept that inside of me there exists a spiritual life. This life, once awakened overwhelms life itself and overtakes what life had been. This awareness is not so much something we possess but a quality of our being that defies explanation. It is with this truth that I move forward in my recovery. When I stumble I have only to look with-in, not to myself but that which exists in my being.
Dan C’s career in the addiction field spans twenty-five years. He has held positions in all phases of administration and clinical services in Treatment Facilities throughout the state of Florida. He is currently employed by http://www.recoveryconnection.org