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Thankfully, the“spiritual malady”is no longer a“missing piece”of Step One for me. It is a reality of my powerlessness and unmanageability and enables me to see why I so desperately need to seek a Power Greater than myself. And unless this malady is recognized, and a course of action is taken to enable God to remove it, the root of our alcoholic illness can lie dormant and burn us when we least expect it.

how to fix a spiritual malady

I have sought refuge from my negative emotions in alcohol, drugs and other addictive behaviours. It is this that propelled my addictions, this inability to deal with my negative emotions. I dealt with them externally via addictive behaviours, not internally via emotion https://ecosoberhouse.com/ processing. I really struggle with the “spiritual malady” idea. As an alcoholic I have found I needed to grow up mentally and emotionally and I agree with the idea of emotional dysfunctionality which I believe is caused, probably, by past trauma or attachment issues.

Don’t go it alone.

Recovery is possible, and not just for drinking and drug use. Relief can be found within our own selves, and treatment is available. You deserve to be free from all addictions and to enjoy a healthy life. This is why we at Jaywalker Lodge prefer the spiritual approach of the 12-Step program as outlined in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. As best as we can tell, this method is crucial to helping alcoholics and addicts recover. Alcoholism and addiction is a disease, but not a typical one. The physical allergy, mental obsession, and spiritual malady will be with the sufferer all their life.

What are the 3 methods of prayer?

Adoration – Praising God for His attributes (who He is). Confession – Asking and claiming forgiveness for the sins you have committed. Thanksgiving – Expressing gratitude for His blessings, answers to your prayers (which He has done).

Often, when an abstinent addict relapses, the relapse is preceded by a cognitive dysfunction that selectively disables his willpower in relation to his substance. The cognitive dysfunction that precedes relapse is caused by stress.

Staying sober in a country that has a drinking problem

I would have had empathy for where the newcomer “was at in his recovery” as I had been there once too. The guy was probably in guilt too as he could been working on his recovery more. If we leave self pity to fester long enough it becomes depression, that is my experience anyway. In fact the Big Book gives me a good idea of the “sins” or “defects of character” I have when I have a resentment but does not explain why I have resentments in the first place. One of my own difficulties is realising I am hungry or tired and I can often end up exhausted by over-doing stuff especially manual work around my house. My stop button broke a long time a ago and probably did not work very well to begin with.

how to fix a spiritual malady

Quotations from Alcoholics Anonymous are from the first edition which is now in the public domain. Any quotations from sources other than the first edition of the Big Book are reprinted with permission. There are as many different definitions of what spirituality means as there are alcoholics in recovery. A spiritual awakening in the life of any alcoholic in recovery is a very personal matter. Step 1 in the AA programme is “ We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable”.

Spiritual Malady: A spiritual unmanageability.

Other methods may work for certain people, and they have every right to explore the help available to them. We tried many other methods, and we still found ourselves in desperate need of real help. The 12-Steps is what finally worked for us, though we had to be willing to follow the program as it is outlined. Initially we “tried” the 12-Steps and did not find success. Once we finally took the 12-Steps with earnest willingness, honesty, and humility, we found ourselves, and our lives soon transformed.

  • This spiritual malady, or spiritual disconnection, is the driving force behind our addiction and self-destructive behaviors.
  • I am amazed at the self-awareness that is stimulated for so many of us when we put our energies into this personal and unique process of gaining a new self-awareness of the real me.
  • There are no individualistic programs or people simply doing their own thing, it is a collective program of action.
  • Our minds and bodies are familiar with depending on something to comfort us.
  • Greater than the mind is reason; and greater than reason is He – the spirit in man and in all.

Instead we let Him demonstrate, through us, what He can do. We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight. Christians, out of a need to confront those who view addiction through the lens of the medical model, will often too quickly polarize in defense of the biblical position that addiction is rooted in sin.

Understanding What a Spiritual Malady Is

Now, by finding answers to questions which were never asked and if they were asked, were not much help. Not that we didn’t want to share, but that we didn’t have an answer.

What is the 11 Step prayer?

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted; to understand, than to be understood; to love, than to be loved. For it is by self forgetting, that one finds.

Many people have no problem understanding the way addiction causes a spiritual disconnection. That unfortunately didn’t happen but my obsession with alcohol had gone, there’s far less fear in my life, and I’ve this whole new positive attitude that I’m not eloquent enough to explain in a few sentances. When I first read the word ‘spiritual’ it had connotations of ghosts and speaking with the dead for me. Show spiritual malady him the mental twist which leads to the first drink of a spree. We suggest you do this as we have done it in the chapter on alcoholism. Now I’m in the life-long process of trying to maintain that phychic change by working on my spiritual fitness; not always an easy task for me. It’s a funny this spiritual malady thing; I actually had to look both words up in the dictionary to understand what it was implying.

This seems compounded by not always being able to read our emotions or somatic states. We seem to compulsively seek to relieve an inherent distress of not having what we set out to get. Our decision making seems fueled at times by this need to relieve distress rather than the intrinsic value of what we are seeking. I am assailed externally by fear of what other’s think about me and internally about what I think of me – when these two line up it can have a powerful and damaging effect on my psyche. I have seen in myself how fear and shame seem to drive most of my maladaptive behaviour. We have difficulties in our relationships with others, these relationships are often unhealthy and ill.