‎Alcoholics Anonymous How To Recover From A Spiritual Malady 2003 by Bob D on Apple Music

I believe we can unwittingly complicate our treatment of alcoholism by believing we have other conditions we see as distinct from alcoholism but which are in fact part of this condition called alcoholism. The list of emotional difficulties continues throughout the Big book’s first 164 pages. Thus my original point is not semantic, AA was not founded by one person, it was co-founded as we alcoholics achieve sobriety with the help of other alcoholics. Dr Bob, it is aid, went on to help over 5,000 alcoholics achieve sobriety and died sober.

Everyone in recovery has secrets they would rather not disclose, but there are not many “original” sins as one suspects and that haven’t been shared in 12 step recovery. The solution to your alcoholism is the same as the solution to their alcoholism.

Admitting Powerlessness

The information provided by Find Addiction Rehabs is not a substitute for professional treatment advice. © 2022 | Find Addiction Rehabs Find Addiction Rehabs is not a medical provider or treatment https://ecosoberhouse.com/ facility and does not provide medical advice. Once you’ve found something that you can believe in, it’s important to remember that your Higher Power is there for you when you need it.

• Thoughts like we can eventually manage our liveswhile in active addiction.
• But first, it’s crucial that you understand the difference between a spiritual experience and a religious one.
• I had many old ideas and prejudices that had to be examined and released.
• We often take them to grave sooner rather than later unless we decide to be open and share our secrets with another person.

One set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base necessity of procreation. When we were finished we considered it carefully. The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong.

What Does AA Mean By “Spiritual Malady”?

Finally, self-reliance can be dangerous because it can lead to complacency. When people become too self-reliant, they may stop working on their program entirely. This complacency can then lead to a sense of entitlement which is extremely dangerous for people in spiritual malady recovery. Entitlement leads to unrealistic expectations, which often leads to disappointment and resentment. Whenever you find yourself feeling irritable discontent bored with your life or depressed it is likely that you may have skipped meditation or prayer.

We are far from being Saints but have a solution Saints would approve and achieve a kind of transient sanctity in this 12 step solution of letting go and letting God. I also impressed upon him that mostly I can manage this emotional dysfunction but often I fail to and get into a resentful anger. I would have had empathy for where the newcomer “was at in his recovery” as I had been there once too. The guy was probably in guilt too as he could been working on his recovery more. I explained to him that his pride had been hurt, he was in shame and his “apparent” depression every since was simply prolonged self pity. This seems compounded by not always being able to read our emotions or somatic states.

There is a map of Emotional Responding Tattooed on my Heart.

My step 4 and then 5 showed me that I did not have the natural ability to deal with my negative emotions. In other words, I had not processed these episodes emotionally and embedded these events in my long term memory like healthy more emotionally mature people do. The mature way to to access, identfiy and label how one is feeling and use this information to reasonably express how one is feeling. This way we do not retaliate, fight, flee or freeze. Instead our emotions do what they are supposed to do. They are suppose the tell the fronts of our brains to find words for our feelings. Not to tell the bottom of our brains to fight back or run or freeze.