Discussion on Divine Therapy and Addiction: Step One

I learned about the power of the First Step early in my recovery.  Admitting my powerlessness by simply repeating the words, which I didn’t quite understand, gave me relief from the pull and agony of my addiction.  I didn’t know how it worked, but slowly and surely I came to rely on the truth contained within the First Step:  I am powerless!  At first the admission felt like defeat, but the letting go and the surrender became my freedom.  Putting my worries and anger into the hands of HP and learning how to turn it over was a new way of life.  In getting sober I discovered that my mind was filled with judgments about myself and others, expectations that could never be met, and self loathing.  Like Father Thomas writes, I was trying to find gratification and happiness from self-centered instinctual needs that could never make me happy.  I finally knew what I had been running from all those years. I finally understood the role my addictions played in keeping me alive—they kept me distracted from myself.  Then ten years into sobriety I was introduced to Centering Prayer.  Getting beyond my mind, finding the space between the thoughts, is the treasure that I have found in meditation.  There’s a world beyond my thinking that dwarfs the illusions of happiness that kept me running for so long and almost killed me.  Recovery, like nature, is a never ending process of death and rebirth where I find peace, inner strength and a mind that can manifest the promises of the program.