October 18

DISCIPLINE MONTH: DAY 18: “If deep in our hearts we suspect that God does not love us and cannot manage our affairs as well as we can, we certainly will not submit to His discipline.” ― Elisabeth Elliot

This is a great quote for Step 3 also. But we cannot do many of these things in recovery because of our old ideas about who and what God is.

Some of us come to this with long years of religious indoctrination, others with observations gathered over a lifetime of censorship, judgment and cynicism by so-called religious bodies. The whole concept of God has kept this world in conflict since the very beginning; and even that is up for dispute.

So, we should continually grow our ideas of who and what our Higher Power, Creator, God, whatever name we use, is to be. If we don’t, we risk coming to a place that is painful and abusive for us and we cannot heal in recovery with that dynamic.

The Higher Power, or God, of 12-step recovery does not ask for a great deal. Only that we relinquish ego-based concepts of what we are doing to the guidance of a spiritual way of life where we strive to let go of selfish concerns and move into the mainstream of community in ways that are productive for us and that community.

So, the discipline we submit to in this case is far less stringent than most communities will dictate. It is fluid and easy to navigate. You may have any name you wish for this Power, but you will need to freely adopt certain principles to remain in the Grace of not drinking and using drugs each day. The guidelines of the 12 steps are counter-indicated by addiction.

None of them is hard, although that is the battle cry of every person who is asked to do these simple things to maintain freedom from active addiction. They are, in fact, many things, but not hard at all.

The resistance to what is being requested makes them feel difficult, but many of us are here to show that we could easily perform these tasks and have lived to not only survive, but fully thrive with their completion.

Not hard; but new, different, unusual (for us!), sometimes uncomfortable, many of these things. To contemplate life without substances is equally unusual, different, uncomfortable, new, and so on; but what a great life it is!

Step 10 asks us to make a true and fair assessment of our own behaviors and attitudes at the end of each day. When this is done consistently, we become more honest each day. We can begin to dig a bit deeper and to do valuable work to prevent relapse into old ideas and patterns of behavior. This is OUR job. Although we may have a sponsor and recovery friends to guide us, it is our job to maintain what we have obtained.

It becomes quite clear to the rest of our community when this is not part of our daily recovery process. We may hear things from those closest to us about our slide back into old ways of life.

The other side of this coin is to not beat ourselves with a perfectionistic idea of who and what we are supposed to be. I believe that one of the deadliest things people believe about recovery is that they are here to “get good”. And this IS deadly!

We are not bad people here to return to a state of innocence or light. That is what happens to many of us in religious settings. We see our humanity and our human frailties and cannot sit with that and the dogma of religion. The “Thou Shalt Nots” become bludgeons with which we attempt to beat ourselves into submission. We begin to seek “forgiveness” or attempt to give it.

These are not human constructs with which we can work. As recovering addicts, we must seek only the Grace of recovery. Human beings are not capable of forgiveness, only acceptance. We must strive for acceptance and progress.

When we believe in a punitive Higher Being, we are doomed, because there is no room for Grace in that life. We are beings who are granted Grace, the Grace of this recovery life that we did NOTHING to deserve. We cannot EVER get good enough to deserve recovery. We can only accept the Grace of an unearned gift of recovery and do the very best we can to maintain it and do our part to help others be here too. That is precisely what Step 10 is all about!