Finding Your Way to a Spiritual Recovery from Addiction

The individual steps of a typical 12-step addiction recovery program are imbued with an overriding sense of spirituality. 12-step nostrums such as “reaching out to a higher power” and “asking a higher power to aid in addiction recovery” all reflect the power and ability of a spiritual approach to addiction recovery. Recovering alcoholics and addicts, however, might run into difficulties in achieving a spiritual recovery based on resistance to spiritual programs or an inability to understand how spirituality should be factored in to a complete recovery. Those individuals will most benefit from the assistance of a counselor or therapist who appreciates the concept of a spiritual recovery.

Spiritual Recovery from Addiction

Recovering from substance addiction and achieving long-term sobriety requires an alcoholic or addict to become a whole new person. Addiction separates a person from his inner spiritual sense and replaces that sense with an intense focus on feeding a person’s physical need for an addictive substance. Recovering addicts will first need to appreciate and understand that gaining control over their addictions will require a spiritual awakening that reunites his spiritual self with his physical presence. From this perspective, a spiritual recovery is not the same as embracing an organized religion. Many recovering addicts are leery about the spiritual aspect of recovery due to their confusion of a spiritual awakening and acceptance of a specific religious theology. A spiritual recovery will be effective for all persons, including atheists and agnostics, because it separates the addict from his physical connection to abused substances while reuniting him with his essential personality.

Strategies for Spiritual Recovery

A recovering addict can implement a number of different techniques to work toward an effective spiritual recovery. Meditation and yoga practice are common examples, as are focusing on a sense of gratitude and remaining mindful of his surroundings and existence. A spiritual recovery can also be approached by consciously releasing any judgmental approaches that might be fostering a sense of negativity and self-destruction in an addict’s path to sobriety. Judging others generally implies that the addict is focusing on his own values and self-esteem, whereas abandoning the standards that the addict uses to judge other people will allow the addict perceive matters outside of his own narrow point of view.A spiritual recovery is not a binary accomplishment in the sense that an addict will either achieve that recovery or fail to reach it. Rather, recovering addicts and alcoholics need to work toward a spiritual recovery every day through the remainder of their lives. Addiction is a chronic disease that never fully disappears. Addicts are prone to relapses even several years after they first became sober. Working toward a spiritual recovery will help an addict avoid relapses and gain real sobriety that rejects any negativity and self-destructive behavior.

The Last Resort Recovery Center near Austin, Texas, can give you more information and guidance on approaching a spiritual recovery to address your substance abuse problem. Please call us at 512-360-3600 to schedule a confidential consultation. We can provide suggestions and techniques that will work for you within the context of your own lifestyle.