[kin]

The Spiritual Laws of Addiction Recovery (A guide to reclaiming life from addiction)

These laws have created the life they (addict) are currently living and how they can use these same laws to recreate their lives in recovery.

Law of Consent
By giving others consent to help us look at our experience and our life, we are able to arrive at some truth about our alcoholism and/or drug addiction that we can’t do on our own.

Embracing the Spiritual Law of Consent entails opening up to the “we” part of the 12 step recovery process. The addict has a disease of denial and that disease prevents us from seeing the truth about being powerless over alcohol and drugs.

The Law of Consent opens us to questions from men who have been down the road of recovery from their own addiction. It is through the use of these questions that force us to look at our own experience – not anyone else’s – that we begin to get a glimpse of our powerlessness. It is from this position we can begin to recover.

Law of Caring
The Spiritual Law of Caring is based around the principal that what we deeply care about, we can achieve. If we don’t truly care about living a permanent life of sobriety, we will never achieve this. This is the reason that it is so critical to develop a vision of our life after sobriety that we are truly passionate about achieving.

The law of caring is powerful. If we deeply care about our own life and health and understand sobriety to be a way to achieve our best life, any life we choose is possible. We can spend countless hours learning about the steps necessary to become sober, but if our ACTIONS do not reflect those of a person who is set on becoming clean and sober we will never achieve the life we desire.

Family members can benefit from understanding this law. We can lead the horse to water but we can’t make the horse drink the water. If an alcoholic or drug addict’s actions indicate they do not care about getting sober then we cannot make them care. The flip side is if their actions show they care about getting sober we can then assist them in this process.

Law of Cause and Effect
This law teaches us that what we put out into the universe must come back to us at some point in time. If we put out anger, pride, resentments, and fear, at some point in time it will come back to us. If we are kind and loving, express compassion, forgiveness, giving that too will return to us. If you’ve ever wondered why everything seems to go right for some people and quite the opposite for others, you’ve likely experienced the law of cause and effect. Positive people aren’t that way because everything goes right for them – things go right for them because they are positive.

This concept is difficult to believe for those who haven’t experienced it. However, the most exciting news is that you can experience this change today just by changing what you send out into the world. Try being positive for just three days. Don’t say things that are negative, self defeating, or gossip about others. You may still have these thoughts, but don’t verbalize them. Instead, speak only things that are positive. You may find that you have nothing to say when you filter out the negative in which you’ll have to begin searching for the positive side of life.

Try to make people smile. Compliment others, talk about the good things you see happening in the world, in your community, in your life, and in others. You’ll be amazed at how different your life can become when you positively harness the Law of Cause and Effect.

Law of Use
The Law of Use simply dictates that if we do not use something, we lose the ability to use it. This law is easiest seen with the physical body. When we do not exercise on a consistent basis, the muscles begin to lose their strength and endurance. If you let a car sit for a long period of time, you will experience difficulties when you attempt to start it. We see this law in effect everyday in many ways.

The same is true for our spiritual practices. If we do not use these spiritual practices on a consistent basis we will lose conscious contact with our Higher Power. Without our Higher Power and the understanding that there is a greater purpose for all that happens, the world is becomes a place of constant fear and anxiety because things do not go our way. With losing this ability to connect with our Higher Power comes the awful experience of going through life relying on ourselves and slipping into the cycle of addiction all over again.

Recovering addicts continuously lose their sobriety because they do not apply and work with this law. No matter what we call our Higher Power and no matter what our practice is to stay connected with our Higher Power, we must do it everyday to stay on top of our game. What is it exactly that you can do to connect with your higher power each day? If you’ve lost the ability to connect with Higher Power, you are already experiencing the negative effect of the Law of Use.

If we do not use, practice, and nurture our spiritual communications, we lose the ability to connect. Fortunately, there is a way to change this. Begin a practice of connecting with your Higher Power today and use this each day for 2 weeks and begin to experience noticeable differences in your outlook on life.

Law of Responsibility
Our Higher Power will not do for us what we are supposed to do ourselves. This law upsets a lot of people because it places responsibility of our lives on our shoulders. If we want to eat, we must get a job, earn money, and buy food. If we want a car to drive we will have to do the same. We cannot expect other people or some higher power to take care of our every need while we shirk our responsibilities. If we have failed, then it is of our own doing. Other people and situations may have made or continue to make it more difficult for us to succeed than for others, but this is still no excuse for not taking the reigns of responsibility in our lives. The more we assumed responsibility for our life in all areas such as physical, financial, spiritual, mental, and emotional, the more fulfilling our life becomes.

Waiting on the side lines for our life to take off is its own is not sane thinking. What is even worse is placing our happiness in the behavior of another human being. Only when our sense of self is derived from within and we take complete responsibility for our life do our lives truly begin to flourish.

Law of Substitution
The Law of Substitution is one that will require daily practice to perform. It is said that of the 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts our minds have each day, most of the thoughts are repetitive and that many of them are very negative.

We must become keenly aware of when we are engaging in the self-destructive negative self talk. We must vigilantly master the art of turn off this negative internal dialogue and actively choose a different voice.

Whenever we stop actively substituting this negative inner dialog with positive self-talk, it will quickly and silently creep back into our daily existence. If we “fall asleep,” or lose our way, we must take the opportunity to listen to our negative internal self-talk. It is then that we can feel that the thoughts in our mind affect our body with a negative emotional charge that does not bring us to my highest good. When our internal self-talk is not of love, we must first become aware and then actively turn these negative thoughts into thoughts of love.

Law of Relaxation
Let us consider that we have two separate minds; a working mind and a thinking mind. The working mind handles tasks such as setting goals, making appointments, and paying bills while our thinking mind evaluates the world around us. It is simpler to use only our thinking mind because when we do, we never have to face our true self.

If we identify only with our working mind we can become impatient, shallow, and fearful. If we were only as deep as our thinking mind, life would have little purpose.

Much of the activity of the thinking mind runs in the background on autopilot. Never allowing yourself to explore the more creative and intricate parts of your mind and only staying busy with the working mind leads to a life of stress and non-fulfillment.

It is critical that we learn to tap into our thinking mind if we truly want to change our lives on a fundamental level. In order for the thinking mind to understand what it encounters, it filters new information through my pre-programmed assumption of the world. Each new piece of information runs through a series of filters including our fears, our judgments, and our conditioning of what is right and wrong If we never give ourselves the opportunity to explore the thinking mind that shapes our perception of the world, we will never truly change our lives.

The use of meditation offers us the chance to disengage from our thinking mind; to observe it while we are present to our working mind. This process allows a relaxed, gentle, and unhurried experience.

Law of Subconscious Activity
As soon as our subconscious mind accepts an idea it will immediately begin to find ways to make this idea a reality. We have the power to bring into our lives exactly that which we accept as possible – both good ideas and bad.

If we write out our specific list of goals, read and re-read them, and then speak them out loud, it is amazing how things begin to fall into place that will manifest our intent and goals. Some goals may be reached quickly while others take a longer time to manifest. It is critical that during the process of reaching our goals that we have faith that the Law of Subconscious Activity is at work and that the universe is setting things into motion for us to achieve this goal.

Create goals in a variety of categories:
• Spirituality and recovery goals
• Relationship goals
• Financial goals
• Career goals
• Physical body goals
• Thought life goals
• Goals that involve being of service to others

We then suggest that each individual read their personal goals on a daily basis as often as possible and then relax into their day and let the day unfold, remaining intensely focused on and fully accepting of what is in front of them at the moment (we call this the “IS-NESS” of the moment), while allowing their bigger goals to unfold in their own time. We have witnessed amazing results with this process of creation and hope that you will as well.

Law of Practice
Practice is the price of proficiency. This law is undeniably apparent when our residents follow a daily schedule for the full 90 days, whether this means doing meditation or working out in the gym.

Each minute, hour, and day that goes by that they continue to practice the disciplines of steps ten and eleven in the Big Book, they begin to realize that they are becoming more proficient in many different aspects of their lives. It is amazing to watch a man in his first day with us and then witness that same man 90 days later as a result of the law of practice. Each time, the change is astounding. The man that enters the recovery center and the man who leaves bear almost no resemblance to one other.

That which we spend our time practicing, we become. Each of us has the ability to choose what we will become by making a conscious effort about what we will practice each and every day.

Law of Forgiveness – Forgiving your heart and to all…
To truly actualize the experience of the Law of Forgiveness requires a great deal of practice because of how our minds and ego work. Whenever we felt hurt or threatened, a part of us immediately reacts with anger that is driven by fear. We tend to engage in a mental dialogue, asking “how could they have done that to me!?” We then become stuck in resentments which separated us from our true self, from our Higher Power, and from others. This type of reaction serves no benefit to anyone. Instead of continuing this way, we can chose to adopt the law of forgiveness.

Human beings are conditioned and programmed from birth in terms of all of our belief systems. We see our role models practicing resentment and fear based anger far more than forgiveness. As a result, we have not developed the skill of forgiveness and do not understand the magnitude of how forgiveness can impact our lives for the better.

When we realize that most people are not choosing to create harm to us, but are simply driven by their own conditioning and programming it becomes easier to forgive. This, coupled with the belief that if more people were awake spiritually they would cause fewer

Law of Growth – What we think upon grows…
It has been said that our thought-life contributes to that which manifests in our lives. Having been in alcohol recovery and worked with countless people during the recovery process, we have found this to be undeniably true. Thoughts become “things” and manifest if coupled with intent and desire. We must learn to pay attention to our thought-life as if it were just as real as our physical life.

When we begin to work with a language of positive words, thoughts, and emotions, we begin to see these thoughts manifesting as reality in our lives. If my thoughts are kind and loving, I experience kindness and love in life, both of myself and from other people. If my thoughts are decisive and insightful, I become more decisive and insightful.

When we embrace this law of the universe and it becomes a daily practice, it is amazing how quickly a person’s life can change – either for the better or for the worse, depending on the nature of the thoughts. Try thinking positively and watch the results grow into reality of your own design.

Law of Intent
When we set our intent, we watch it manifest in our life through action By paying close attention to our thought-life, which is the vehicle we use for creating our lives, we can begin to set intent for our lives. Through diligence, belief, and action this intent will begin to manifest.

Setting our intent is critical to the actualization of our goals. If we have a deep intent to get sober, to lose weight, or to accomplish any other goal in my life, we must put that intent into writing. We must speak that intent to the world and then pursue a course of action to realize that intent.

Trust in this law and you will begin to see your intents manifest in your life as a reality. Intention is a powerful tool to creating a life of abundance.
 
 

[Author]

Posts