1. Spirituality and Your Substance Abuse Program
February 1, 2013
| Last Updated on Friday, 03 May, 2013 17:22
For many people, spirituality is a huge part of their recovery from addiction. Unfortunately, it is also
one of the things that keeps people from getting help attaining sobriety. Most of the time, someone
reading or hearing the word spirituality will associate it with religion, when in fact the two things are
very different. Religion is defined as organized system of beliefs, practices, and rituals associated with
a particular deity or deities. Spirituality doesn’t have a single definition.
It means different things to every person that hears it. For some it involves meditations and mantras,
for others it can be as simple as watching the sunset at the beach. Yes, you can find spirituality in
religion, but the two aren’t necessarily the same thing. It took me a long time to realize that one.
“I knew it mentally, but it still irked me when people would ask about my spiritual beliefs.”
Maybe it has something to do with being prohibited from practicing my religious beliefs by the
officials at my boarding school, their reason being “It’s not one of the five main religions, and those are
the only ones we allow.” So I couldn’t have texts or symbols for my beliefs. I still get angry over the
injustice that was done to me there, but that’s something I am working on. Anyway, back to
spirituality!
The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
In the 12 step programs, the most basic tenets are: admitting you have a problem, and finding a belief
in something greater than yourself. With these “steps” completed, you are ready to begin your journey
to recovery. The something greater than yourself can be anything. It could be a doorknob if you
wanted it to be. It can even be a flying spaghetti monster. The important part isn’t so much what it is,
as what it represents. It represents something you can put your faith in and trust in.
That door knob will be there and it will let you open that door, you have faith in that fact. It’s having
that faith that matters in the 12 step programs, not what it’s in. That’s one of the things I like about the
12 step programs, they don’t endorse a particular dogma or belief system, they just ask that you have
one. I’ve met a few atheists in the 12 step programs and I asked one what his higher power was. His
answer was “My belief in a higher power is the idea that there is no higher power.” As contradictory as
that sounded to me, it works for him. He had a year at the time.
Inner Peace
For me spirituality is seeking inner peace. This means I meditate, listen to music, read, and practice
aromatherapy. I do things like go to the beach at night and stare at the clouds and moon while listening
to the sounds of the ocean, or lie in bed with incense burning and focus on settling my body and
relaxing my muscles. For me, that is part of spirituality. For you it could be different.