Spirituality

[MajestyJo]

Al-Anon is a spiritual program. I am posting reflections and questions from the new revised edition of Blueprints to Progress.

Reflections:

"I came to believe in Al-Anon first and that good feeling that I got when I came into the meeting room. Many weeks went by with me saying the Serenity Prayer and referring to Al-Anon as the Power. People also suggested I think about this Higher Power as fate, nature, or anything that is good. And it started to work. I turned my will and my life over to Al-Anon, fate, and nature."

(... In All Our Affairs, p. 34)

[MajestyJo]

Questions:

1. My Spiritual Background

What was my childhood experience of a Higher Power?

How has my concept of God or a Higher Power changed through the years?

What evidence do I have of a Higher Power in my life?

What have I trusted to my Higher Power so far?




HUGS NOT DRUGS, IT IS A FAMILY DISEASE.

[MajestyJo]

I was raised in the Gospel Halls. Everything was "thou shall not!" and I went to church three times on Sunday and on Wednesday was prayer meeting. I sang as soon as I could talk. I taught Sunday School when I was sixteen. This didn't stop me from becoming an alcoholic or a prescription drug addict. In fact, I was put on Valium at sixteen, because I couldn't deal with life.

I walked in fear with the feeling that the wrath of God was going to strike me down at any moment and I had a lot of resentment, anger, and feelings of rejection and abandonment concerning God, the church and my family.

There was no acceptance of who I was and I felt that I had to mould myself into a person that I didn't feel that I was or couldn't identify with.

I was told that Jesus loved me, and my attitude was, well if you tell me so I will believe, yet I didn't have faith that God, Jesus, or whoever, had any time or love for me, because I didn't think, feel, act, etc. the way they said a good little Christian girl should.

Religion was a box that I wanted to break free of and felt like I was able to do that using drugs, alcohol, relationships, work and food. because they allowed me to suppress the feelings, shut down and shut off the all the words that made me feel unloved, shame, guilt, etc.

[MajestyJo]

When I came into recovery, I thought I knew who God was, but I didn't believe I was insane.

As I grew in the program, I knew that I had been insane and I didn't have a clue as to who God was.

At one year, I started my spiritual journey, and God has to come to mean many things and has revealed Himself in many forms. I believe God was an old tape like most of my youth, and I had to find out who God meant to me. I had to make God personal. Today, God is all things. Everywhere I go, God is there. I can't take a geographical cure, because where ever I go, He/She/It is there.

[MajestyJo]

I know God is, because I am alive. I was on my way to being dead a couple of times with no desire to live.

I shared a story a week ago when I told my story at the Henderson Hospital of how I went looking for a hug because I felt so, so bad because my friend had been using. I couldn't find anyone when I went looking but when I surrendered, said the Serenity Prayer and a prayer for my friend, the people happened along and I got the hugs I had been looking for.

When I was sick a couple of years ago, I went to the store to get my broken glasses fixed. I had been isolated all winter and hadn't been out to meetings. In the twenty minutes that I was gone from my apartment, I met eight people. Two of those I saw twice, and they all carried a big message for me. This is a we program, of myself I can not do this program, I am cut off from the Sunlight of the Spirit.

I have trusted God with my life! Especially my health, my son, and my journey in recovery.