What Is Spirituality?

Step 11: We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him (or Her), praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

I think step 11 sums up very well what spirituality is. It is a personal relationship with the Creator or the Spirit. It is a two-way relationship. That means listening to the Spirit and talking to the Spirit. You can find spirituality in religion, and you can find it outside of religion. You can also find religion without spirituality.

I think religion without spirituality relies mainly on dogma. These are things that others say about the Creator. Dogma is the set of rules in a religion that others have written down or say that God wants us to follow. I think dogma can really get in the way of having a personal relationship with our Creator. I think some use dogma as a shield to not have to talk to or listen to the Creator and what S/He says to us now. Some dogma is true, some is opinions, and some is outright false, I believe.

I saw on a sign outside of a church once which said, “Everything is spiritual.” I know what that means to me. My God is everywhere – in everything. My God talks to me in all kinds of ways – and I am there listening, which I think encourages God to talk to me more. There are so many opportunities anywhere you go to have spiritual experiences. I can talk to God and Goddess anywhere I go and there They are.

I love that recovery programs are not religious…. There is not a lot of writing about how to believe in God and/or how to live in order to please God. Nobody is the boss of my spirituality in recovery. I am free to develop my own relationship with the Creator. I am free to understand God the way I understand God. The step says, “God, as we understand Him.” Not God as some dumb guy understands him. Not God as is written in a book. We do not worship books in recovery as a general rule. There are no weird, or even sensible religious rituals or ceremonies in recovery. It is a come-as-you-are policy.

The Spirit to me is love, and that means unconditional love. I consider myself to be more spiritual then religious, because I don’t believe I have to do all sorts of bizarre and/or reasonable things to earn God’s love. God loves me no matter what I dress like. God loves me no matter what I do. I know that God loved me in my using days, because God and Goddess, both, found ways to communicate with me and let me know they were still there for me. I had food and often shelter, when it was available.

My impression of religions is that they seem to promote the idea that we must earn God’s love, or that somehow we are not worthy of our Creator’s love. I love me. I don’t know how to act as someone or something other then myself. I don’t do things that seem strange to me because someone else tells me that I should do them to find God’s love or grace. I can’t see the Creator any other way. Why shouldn’t God love me?

I think that is a primary change for me. I learned that I wasn’t really worthy of God’s love somehow as a child. I used to think that I was spiritual until I realized that a distant relationship with Someone who is always there is not really spiritual after all. There is no reason for that distance, and it was all my distance.

It is okay in recovery that I believe in a Goddess. It is okay in recovery that I believe in Jesus. I don’t have to go around annoying people and possibly burning bridges by preaching and trying to convert others. I know that God/dess is there for others. I know that God doesn’t expect us to always be right, or even understand what is going on. I will never understand everything about God, and I don’t even try. Some people’s hold on the God concept is fragile and my pushing my beliefs down someone else’s throat could loosen their hold or even provoke them to let go. There is usually a good reason for people having fragile relationships with the Creator.

I also don’t have to listen to people preaching or evangelizing to me. I don’t have to do things anyone else’s way. That is the freedom in spirituality – which is everywhere. Religion is not everywhere and no matter what some people think, it does not cover everything. Spirituality is all, to me….

Foundation First

I really feel as if I am still working on building a good foundation for my future yet…. Quite frankly, I am not making enough meetings for me and my needs. However I am being as honest as possible, I am willing to let my life revolve around recovery, and am open minded enough to listen and listen as well as I can at the meetings I go to and the meditations and recovery literature I read. I often have to remind myself that recovery is my priority. I have to remind myself the days in which I do not use or drink are actually successes, in spite of how bad they might have turned out.

I was languishing the first few years of recovery really. I wasn’t really into the whole idea of recovering at all. Being clean and sober was forced upon me, as I have said before. I really didn’t care about the future…. All I cared and obsessed about was getting high when I was released. I felt so hopeless about the future. After all, I had criminal charges, impossible debts, and a couple of severe/serious mental illnesses; I really felt as if I had no future whatsoever. People aren’t likely to hire someone like me for anything but minimum wage jobs…. However, I grew used to the idea of recovery about three years after being locked up and willingly went to rehab at the mental institution I was locked up at.

I discovered that I had become inextricably dependent on my higher power those first few years. People were not writing and calling. I made very, very few friends during my lock-up. I talked primarily to my Higher Power, and was answered all the time, in a variety of ways. My Higher Power was really my best friend during my incarceration. I didn’t feel that bad really. My clinical depression was treated within months of being first locked up. It was that depression which went on for more then twenty years that led to my, at first, recreational drug use and eventual and inevitable dependence. I was so relieved to have the depression finally treated that my first few years of sobriety were at worst – nice. I felt good.

My foundation, then, is based upon that relationship with my Higher Power that grew and developed oh so much during the first few years. I had never felt like I needed God or Goddess or anything much before I was locked up. And if it wasn’t for my Higher Power, those years would have been impossibly lonely. I talked to my Higher Power about everything. I asked all those burning questions of God and Goddess that had been burning in the back of my mind for so long. Believe it or not I got many answers.

I will always remember that period of my life when my only friend was my Higher Power. My only family was my Higher Power. And, it was quite alright. I was doing fine. They say the best revenge is living well, and I guess I had my revenge on those people who had all turned their backs on me during that time.

I still talk to my Higher Power every single day – most of the day, actually. I really value my friends, and I consider my Higher Power my friend. My Higher Power let me know during that time that S/He did not want me using drugs and destroying my body, relationship and mind. S/He let me know that S/He wanted me to be healthy and even, who knew? Happy.

I added meetings to my foundation. I added the fellowship of the program. I still feel like I could use more program friends/family. I probably don’t make enough phone calls to other people in the program or reach out like I should to others. However, I am still relatively new to the town in which I live and I respect and realize that it takes time, sometimes years, to build a good support system and trusting relationships with new friends.

I also am having financial problems, and would enjoy the opportunity to build a solid financial future for myself. However it is likely I will be attending online classes in IT in order to fix that part of my foundation that is more or less, unfinished.

Honesty, open mindedness and willingness are the great ingredients upon which to build a lasting foundation along with a strong relationship to one’s Higher Power. I don’t think anyone’s Higher Power wants them destroying themselves, and we can rely on that Higher Power to help build a very good foundation. I think I am doing okay in building a nice solid foundation with my Higher Power’s help, even if I am doing it rather slowly (imho). There is also humility, friendship and love – all things which I am still working on….

I think I am going to make it – one day at a time.