Addiction and Recovery

Since Kristopher seems to have run out of book suggestion for me, (what is up with that!!! I don't think he was prepared for me to go through the books as fast as I did. I spend A LOT of time waiting for kids at appointments. I ALWAYS have a book in my purse), I had to go with another book that someone from the Addiction Recovery Program suggested to me. I have mentioned it before but I should clarify that the Addiction Recovery Program is based off the 12 step AA program.

This book is about "Using the Book of Mormon and the Principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as They Correlate with the Twelve-Step Program to Overcome Compulsive/Addictive Behavior and Other Problems". By Colleen Harrison.

I went to the LDS church's Addiction Recovery Program meeting last night. If you are not LDS you would still be welcome to come. I hope anyone struggling, and wanting to struggle their way closer to Christ, would know that this is the place for that. No matter your religious beliefs.

This program...is truth and beauty and love and sacredness, wrapped up in a room full of the most beautiful, humble, people you will ever meet. If nothing else, I go there for peace. Peace is the Addiction Recovery Program's middle name. It should be called the Addiction Peace Recovery Peace Program. Really, it should.

If perhaps there are people who are judgmental of the thought of going to one of these meetings or needing one of these meetings, I understand. I actually was nervous when I first went. Would people think I was a porn addict or drug addict or something? It took less then one meeting for the Spirit in those meetings to touch my core. And I learned...

 I am not better than them. I am actually the same as them. "100 % hopeless, apart from divine help." (AA "Big Book")

I love them. And I am asking you to love them also. Because you, in your own way, addicted or not addicted, are them also. "100% hopeless, apart from divine help."

"It is very humiliating to admit such complete and personal powerlessness and neediness, but addicts must admit it or die. The stark and startling truth, however, is all of us, without exception, come short of the power to save ourselves. No matter how minimal we've been able to keep our list of sins and shortcomings, no matter how much will power and self-discipline we've been able to muster, we still fall short of His glory." (He Did Deliver Me from Bondage)

These people at these meetings are truly beautiful people. In most cases, they are leaps ahead of me. I consider it an absolute privilege to be able to attend these meetings with these people. An absolute privilege to be among them fighting the fight to reclaim, or like me, just claim, a relationship with Jesus Christ. An absolute privilege and gift and pleasure to be accepted as one of them at those meetings.

I remember the first meeting I was surprised by the gratitude people had for addiction. But they did. They had gratitude for addiction. Because without it they would not have been brought to the bottom where they had no choice but Christ.

Remember this book?

Did you read it yet? I loaned it away so I can't quote it but she talks about how the people in Africa, the people with nothing, were happy and knew Christ. Because their situation was so dire that He is ALL they had to turn to. And maybe that is why sometimes God leaves us desperate. So we can come to realize that Christ is all we have also.

These are the things that are going through my head. Christ. How do I have a true relationship with Him? How do I learn to rely on Him instead of my family and friends, and my Kristopher, to get me through painful times. How do I do that? The closest I have come to learning how is through this 12 step Addiction and Recovery Program. The closest I have come is seeing these other broken hearted people figuring it out also.

"I have found that the Twelve Steps are nothing more (or more accurately  nothing less) than a bare-bones, step-by-step guide back to the Lord, Jesus Christ" "I believe the Twelve Steps are a set of "baby steps" that lead to the "giant steps" found in the gospel." Karlene B. forward to the book, "He did Deliver Me from
Bondage"

THE 12 STEPS

Step 1-Admit that you, of yourself, are powerless to overcome your addictions and that your life has become unmanageable.

Step 2-Come to believe that the power of God can restore you to complete spiritual health.

Step 3-Decide to turn your will and your life over to the care of God the Eternal Father and His Son,

Jesus Christ.

Step 4-Make a searching and fearless written moral inventory of yourself.

Step 5-Admit to yourself, to your Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ, to proper priesthood authority, and to another person the exact nature of your wrongs.

Step 6-Become entirely ready to have God remove all your character weaknesses.

Step 7-Humbly ask Heavenly Father to remove your shortcomings.

Step 8-Make a written list of all persons you have harmed and become willing to make restitution to them.

Step 9-Wherever possible, make direct restitution to all persons you have harmed.

Step 10-Continue to take personal inventory, and when you are wrong promptly admit it.

Step 11-Seek through prayer and meditation to know the Lord’s will and to have the power  to carry it out.

Step 12-Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, share this message with others and practice these principles in all you do.

The author of the book, He Did Deliver Me from Bondage, shares her story. It is also my story. She talks about how basically her life had become unmanageable. (step one). My life, my weight, my need for food, had become unmanageable (step one). This lady reached out to a friend.  That friend had no answers but led her to a friend who had been attending an over-eaters addiction program. The author says "I was to realize later that from the moment of my admittance of personal powerlessness, of my absolute need for HIM, He had taken over."

One year ago, this month in fact,...my life had become (and frankly in MANY ways still is) unmanageable.  I had no more hope. And thankfully,... God had already taken over.

Phew. It is a nice place to be when He takes over. A really, really nice place to be.