Spiritual Journey

Since 2014, I feel like a lot of my recovery journey has been about my spiritual experience and needs. There have been some great successes in my search and also some unexpected challenges as I search for this most critical part of my recovery. I had a recent experience in this journey that has set me back some. Some of my best writing tends to come in these moments of confusion so here I am back writing again. 

Many people have told me over the years that the "God" thing of AA is what kept them away or caused them to walk away from AA. I was fortunately in that I had a strong sponsor who really put this whole "God thing" into context. The founders of AA had what they referred to as a spiritual awakening. That spiritual awakening can take so many different forms and can happen for each person in a totally different manner. My understanding is that the "God" of AA can be equally as diverse. If you read through the steps of AA/NA that have "God" in them, there is a second phrase "as we understand Him". The term "Higher Power" (or HP as we often refer to this entity), came about to defuse the "whole God thing" that turns people away because of many reasons, mainly a bad experience with religion. For many God equals religion. Spirituality is not religion. Many will find spirituality in religion, as many can find spirituality outside the structure of religion.

During my drinking years, I never stopped believing in God in the more traditional religious sense. I got awfully mad at God on a pretty regular basis during my active addiction. "If God really existed", I would say, "He would never let anyone go through this type of misery." I tried to tell people that I didn't believe in God, but I would often pray at night for God to intervene. The struggle was I wanted God to make me a normal drinker again, not get rid of my addiction to alcohol. Well, God didn't really ever answer that prayer. He did bop me over the head a few times letting me know that if/when I wanted to get better and stop, help would be there. My moment of clarity came swiftly one early morning at 4:00am on 02/08/2010. By 10:00am on 02/08/2010, I was admitted to detox with a spot in treatment 5 days later. Ask and ye shall receive, right?

Around 2013, I became restless. The novelty of starting school had worn off. The "high" (no pun intended) was wearing off of new recovery. I had a period of time of deep depression. I had a long-term relationship that fell apart after 5 years of hoping I would become some type of priority in this person's life. I wondered if I had made a mistake in going back to school to be a counselor. I wondered what the future would hold. Late in that year, I was offered an amazing opportunity to go to Honduras. I was a volunteer for about 4 years with a small non-profit and they offered to pay for me to go on this trip as "payment" for the years of service with them.

Early in 2014, I went on this trip. I made some new and wonderful friends. I experienced many new and totally different things I had never done in all the years I lived over in Europe traveling around. It was at that time I was invited to attend a new church. It was then that I realized that my restlessness was related to my spiritual growth or lack thereof. I can pray easily enough. I can talk with God. While I can have issues with structured religion at times, I need a place to talk about faith and this journey of life. I need to feel inspired and moved. Church is the place where this started happening for me again. If you look at many of my entries over the past few years, I am often inspired by the messages I had heard after attending a church service.

I try as hard as I can to understand messages that God is trying to give to me. I know I am not the first person to get the message wrong or maybe not understand it. I had been feeling inspired to work through my church to combine my recovery and the religious structure of my faith. I pushed for it and made it to a point of almost leading a group for addiction care. I was excited and feeling like I was achieving something that was sitting on my heart for a few years now. I took a risk and it was coming to fruition.

This opportunity did not pan out for reasons that I don't want to discuss here. What I can say is that there are things that I need to look at in terms of reconciling my personal beliefs with that of a structured religion that is bound by one thing or another. I have made the decision to take a break from church and try to reevaluate what the next steps in my spiritual journey are. I am sitting here tonight trying to break down what happened, what went wrong and most importantly, what is the message/purpose of this breakdown. Was I missing something all along? Was I going down the wrong path? Is there another direction that I should be going? Deep questions with few answers. 

Spirituality is never black and white. I hold an ideal in my mind of how I want my spirituality and faith to be combined. Things abruptly changed and I have some decisions to make about how I want to proceed moving forward. What I know right now is that I feel in a lonely spiritual place. I feel like a piece of me is suddenly empty. 2013 was a long year for me in terms of finding inspiration and motivation. Over the past 5 years, that momentum and inspiration had been building. I took a risk to move into something I hadn't done in the past and it didn't work out. In my "all or nothing"/"black and white" addict mind, I drew a line and my spiritual journey needs to take a new direction. I just don't know what that looks like. I hadn't been thinking about it. I do feel the back up plan needs to be generated quickly because I don't want to go very long without that part of inspiration in my life.

I had a cup of coffee this evening with a woman I met through another AA member. I talked a little about this spiritual void I was experiencing at the moment. I feel like my heart has been broken. I want some answers about the purpose of all of this. We chatted about spirituality and how our connection over that cup of coffee was a spiritual moment. I heard God a little through our conversation tonight. Things happen for a reason. Maybe I attempted to assert my own will into something that was not the direction I need to be going in. Maybe there was something I needed to see. Maybe there is another space for me. Those "maybes" are not really enough for me right now. It will be down the road and I hope that I will find the answers I need.

​For now, I need to go through my grief process. Honestly, I am in the anger phase of that right now. Unfortunately for me, when I get angry or feel betrayed, I get out my shovel, dig my trench, pour some concrete in there and jump in. I don't want my mind to be changed. I want to be angry. I won't listen and I don't want to. Basically, "you pissed me off, now deal with the repercussions of that." I know from previous experiences that this type of anger will keep me stuck. That anger will consume me as long as I hold on to it. I've got some soul searching in my future. Can I reconcile my beliefs with a structured faith? Can I find my experience elsewhere that is as meaningful and fits my ideals? Am I expecting too much? Can I have enough faith to know this all serves a purpose? I made it through 15 years of despair while I was drinking and God answered when I was ready and willing. I suppose when I am ready and willing to become unstuck from this anger, I may be offered at least some of the answers I seek. Until then, I will have to decide where to go next. God will hopefully offer me a ray of light to at least tell me the direction I need to be looking. Right now, I am not looking in any particular direction. In fact, I am just looking down, feeling disappointed and sad. In the famous words of AA, this too shall pass. I am looking forward to that in a big way.

Julie