The Missing Piece: The Spiritual Malady Residential Recovery Program & Addiction Transitional Sober Living Home

Spirituality in addiction recovery involves exploring and reconnecting with one’s sense of self, purpose, and connection to something greater than oneself. It can involve practices such as meditation, prayer, mindfulness, or participation in support groups that emphasize spiritual growth and healing. In our quest for understanding and meaning, we often encounter obstacles along our spiritual journey. These hindrances or disturbances of the spirit are commonly referred to as spiritual maladies.

FAQs on Issues of Spiritual Malady

Here we have an abnormal reaction to alcohol and for some alcoholics a maladjustment to life. The magic of the the steps is that they seem to reveal  the patterns of behaviour that our actions have prompted over the course of our lives. It helps us see ourselves and our condition of alcoholism and how it effects us and others. By sin I mean negative emotions that cause distress to me and others.

Common Misconceptions About Spiritual Maladies Debunked

The important thing is that you stay committed to your sobriety and continue working the program – eventually, everything else will fall into place. Anxiousness, depression, and boredom are a few other factors that contribute to being spiritually maladapted. For a while, that seemed to work for us but once we stopped using substances the discontentedness came back to the surface in sobriety. We become so fixated on it that almost everything we do leads us to think about getting intoxicated. The mind and alcoholism are so cunning, baffling, and powerful that we often cannot fathom how we ended up intoxicated when relying on our strong willpower to stay sober.

Thoughts of Recovery – No.17 – The Spiritual Malady – Step 1

When we are threatened, we also have two defensive phenotypes. One is a mobilization response to threat where we can prejudge, react, attack, argue, criticize, blame, and experience interpersonal disconnections. This is frequently referred to as “fight and flight” physiology.

• So long as we make an active effort to address our spiritual malady every day, we will find relief from it, one day at a time.
• The magic of the the steps is that they seem to reveal  the patterns of behaviour that our actions have prompted over the course of our lives.
• Also we need to be aware what we project on to other alcoholics is the same thing as they project on to use and sometimes we project if back.
• We must live our lives selflessly and show our gratitude to a higher power for the lives that we live and the opportunity to have a second chance at life.
• On page 62 the text explains that “Selfishness-self-centeredness!
• This journey requires introspection, self-compassion, and a willingness to challenge long-held beliefs or patterns that may no longer serve us.
• It is strange paradox, the more you focus on helping others, the more you discover how much you matter.

We use everything and everyone, even when we stop using alcohol and drugs to cope with these feelings of being unsatisfied and uncomfortable in life. The more we focus less on ourselves we allow a god of our understanding to enter our minds and work in our lives. Anyone can be spiritually maladapted, but as an alcoholic, we use alcohol to deal with having a spiritual malady. Many people say that alcoholics have a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. The summation of physical threats, spiritual threats, shadow threats, and existential threat is our total threat load. A chronically high total threat load will lead to maladaptive physiology and maladaptive behavior, and will lead to illness and disease—both physical and spiritual.

BIG BOOK CHAPTER 5

While an addict’s spiritual malady triggers a compulsive need to use drugs, other people’s spiritual conflicts may take the form of a gambling problem, anxiety, depression, or eating disorder. When the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous was written and published in 1939, the times and language of those times was incredibly different than modern times. This is one of the reasons that Big Book study groups have become so popular among recovering alcoholics. Apart from dissecting the Big Book so as to have a firmer grasp on the 12 Steps and program and in general, it also is designed to help us decipher the intricate language and wording used from a different time period.

• We have to be aware of this phenomenon in everything we do and we have to be willing to look directly at this reality to be aware and correct course.
• You are merely instructed to be open to the idea that you are not the end all be all, that there exists out in the universe something that is greater or more powerful than yourself.
• One way to think of a Higher Power is simply as a force that is greater than yourself.
• It simply means we are spiritually blocked off from the Power of God, which enables us to remain sober, happy, joyous, and free.
• It is also the reason why many of us relapse because we cannot stop “obsessing” about drinking and/or using.

But we were never satisfied, because but the living presence of God can quench our parched souls. Addicts and alcoholics may rid themselves of their drug or alcohol dependency by completing the Twelve Step process. This will allow them to undergo the required shift in thought that will free them from their addiction.

While a sense of spiritual emptiness is an experience familiar to many people, it is extremely common for those who struggle with addiction. While the absence of spirituality in no way causes addiction, it is generally accepted that addiction has a spiritual component. This acknolwedgement led to the incorporation of spirituality as an important ingredient in the process of recovery, and provides an important intersection between Western psychology and psychotherapy and twelve-step recovery.

All treatment calls are accepted by drug and alcohol centers advertising with the Call Affiliate LLC network. For instance, when breaking free of their negative thoughts, they may come to realize a newfound appreciation of things before unseen – such as the beauty of a sunset or the feeling of freshness of a morning spring rain. These traits defy written or verbal description, as they convey an innate understanding of the cosmos and are also transient, meaning the experiences do not last forever. Also, they are passive, in the sense that people do not have an influence over the phenomenon.

Carl Jung viewed addiction as a spiritual malady and addicts as frustrated spiritual seekers. He believed the craving for altered states of consciousness reflected a spiritual thirst for wholeness, and that only those who have a spiritual awakening could successfully overcome addiction. Jung’s spiritual malady position was ultimately incorporated into twelve-step recovery, specifically Step Twelve. When left unresolved, a spiritual malady will continue to lead to restlessness, irritability, and discontentment. It can also lead to other problems, such as alcohol abuse or other addictions.