Blog entry for:

the force of addiction: a POWER that fuels my recovery and provides for all my needs. here, at least for me, is where the rubber hits the road. unlike many of my peers, i do not see this POWER possessing any human characteristics or attributes. i now understand when a man i was sponsoring a few years ago, stumbled when i asked him to describe what attributes GOD possessed. if asked a similar question today i could vocalize an answer, but could not name a single human characteristic or attribute i have attached to my concept of a HIGHER POWER. in fact the last set of steps i worked, completed a process that started a long time ago and moved my concept far from the norm and stripped any and all definition from that concept. that POWER simply is and i have FAITH that i will be given what i need to stay clean today and have my needs met, and IF i pay attention to the world around me, i will be given the opportunities to get a whole lot more.
as i sit in the rooms and hear my peers share about GOD, there once was a time, when i denied that i just could not buy into their concept, but did so anyhow. i was afraid of being “different” and lacked the confidence to go my own way. as a result, i followed the path of least resistance, despite an certain unease in the air and allowed myself to use the suggestions of the group and the literature to craft my belief system. my thought was, IF that concept could work for them, that POWER would certainly work for me as well, and it did, right up until i started my last set of steps. it is not as if GOD stopped working in my life, nor did i all of a sudden become an atheist or agnostic again, i just felt that concept was inadequate to explain what i felt and that a revision of sorts was called for and the step process brought me through that process, intact and with a stronger than ever concept of a POWER greater than my addiction.
as i moved from my diminishing FAITH in deities and theism, i became increasingly distressed that i was singling myself out for the pain and misery, of being too “different” to remain in the fellowship that had brought me this far. in fact i was more than certain, that would be the case and started looking for something else, halfheartedly. what i came to believe, over the course of those twelve steps, is that how i saw the spiritual side of recovery, need to match anyone else's and i could surrender my will and my life into the care of a concept i could not explain, define, see, taste and feel. that concept was part of the whole and that whole is what sustains me today. the interesting part of this journey out of my heart of darkness, was where i arrived, when all was said and done, i had found FAITH. finally i was at a place where my recovery program was not based in FEAR and had grown beyond one based on HOPE. all of this has led me to a place where i no longer cringe when my peers speak of GOD, miracles and the power of prayer, as i see it all of that as part of something greater and certainly more. and as i have often said, i always want MORE!

∞ DT ∞