Spirituality for Recovering Addicts: And for Anyone Seeking Spiritual Growth

By Father Richard Bulwith

Many people have confused spirituality with religion. Religion and spirituality are not the same. As Father Bulwith says, I found God in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, and not the church. True spirituality encompasses ones whole being. This book will give you new concepts of spirituality. It will offer you practical Twelve Step Meditations to enhance your own personal growth. It will offer you life-giving prayers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477207758

Father Richard Bulwith

Many people have confused spirituality with religion. Religion and spirituality are not the same. As Father Bulwith says, “I found God in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, and not the church.” True spirituality encompasses one’s whole being. This book will give you new concepts of spirituality. It will offer you practical Twelve Step Meditations to enhance your own personal growth. It will offer you life-giving prayers.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Rejection of Spirituality by Recovering Addicts

Before counselors or anyone else helping the addict can even begin a discussion of spirituality it is important to be aware of attitudes, feelings, and traditional religious values which some addicts possess which lead to a rejection of any concept of spirituality, mention of God, or higher power.

Whenever I encounter addicts who are ready to walk out of a Twelve-Step Meeting because they don’t want to hear about God or spirituality I try to encourage them to stick it out. I tell them that, if they don’t believe in God, it’s okay. Just take care of your problem. Take from the meeting what will help you right now to arrest your addiction. Don’t worry about God and all the spiritual messages. Just have an open mind and listen. In fact, you will come to hear about a different God than the one who you might be upset with at this time. Give it a chance. You don’t have to believe in God right now. To fellow alcoholics I suggest that they read the Chapter, We Agnostics in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I also share with them that I found God in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Some addicts are angry people. Some of the anger is directed toward God. Frequently, addicts feel that God has given them crosses that are impossible to carry. Many times they feel that God is heaping a great deal of punishment on them for many irresponsible and hurtful things that they have done, that the punishment is too severe. Many times also, these people have sincerely prayed to God to help them find a way out of the self-destructive way of life that is theirs, and God has not answered their prayers. They hold God responsible for burdens that have been laid upon them by their churches, the minister, the priest, the rabbi.

From the very beginning of time fear driven religion has co-existed with the call to any true intimacy with God or higher power which has been taught under the guise of faith, diluting and adulterating that faith.

The recovering addict in the recovery process will be called upon to develop a faith or belief system in his/her best self and in powers greater to help himself/herself. Addicts need to develop a faith which is solid and life-giving, a faith which is not connected with a religiosity that is not spirituality.

Many addicts grew up in a specific religion or religious denomination or sect. Faith is an essential element in religions with their religious beliefs, but all too often that faith has been confused with religiosity. Religiosity can be seen in the recitation of beliefs, performing rituals or religious acts to be seen, compulsive praying. It is like doing religious acts, going through the motions on the surface of one’s life, but nothing is happening to one interiorly. The danger then for recovering addicts is to inadvertently relate to God or to a higher power out of a spirit of religiosity, even when they are answering the call in the Twelve-Step Programs to a deep and life-giving faith in God or higher power.

Jesus addresses religiosity in the Bible in speaking to the Pharisees: Be careful not to parade your good deeds before men to attract their notice. So when you give alms, do not have it trumpeted before you. This is what the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win other’s admiration. And when you pray, do not imitate the hypocrites. They love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues and at the street corners for people to see them. What Jesus is basically saying is that there is no interior growth happening in the lives of these people.

I emphasize that spirituality is all about interior growth.

Many addicts have confused spirituality with religion. The fact is that spirituality is not religion. Religions are organizations of groups of people who profess a specific belief system. These belief systems will have differences from one religion to another. Spirituality is essentially positive growth and development of one’s life and relationship with a God or higher power which is an essential and integral part of religion. All religions should be teaching and developing a life-giving spirituality in which people will be enabled to grow and develop in their life with God. However, we have seen in the past some religions not helping people to be deeply spiritual in a life-giving way.

Wesley (1979) identifies seven characteristics, any one of which he perceives as an infallible sign of the presence of religion or religiosity as opposed to a life-giving faith:

1) Relating to God out of fear,

2) Feeling the need to appease an angry God,

3) Relating to God out of self-interest, i.e. attempting to get him to do our will,

4) Viewing ourselves as little and unworthy in God’s sight,

5) Holding that there are two world’s—one in which we live and another in which God dwells,

6) Holding that some things in the world (e.g., sex, strong drink, pleasure, etc.) are in themselves evil, or

7) Violating the freedom and personhood of another by doing physical or psychological harm to one in the name of the Lord.

These seven characteristics are not true elements of spirituality. I will explain how each of the above characteristics can be seen in addicts.

1) Relating to God out of fear: Some addicts have been afraid of God because they were told that God was punishing them for their addiction and its consequent behavior. And the truth is that addiction is a disease. Why would God punish a disease? It is the disease of addiction that causes all the problems and unmanageability. Addicts have been in serious car accidents, some near death. Cars have been totally demolished. Some addicts woke up in a hospital bed after a blackout only to find themselves faced with broken limbs. Addicts were fired from their jobs. Families literally threw them out of the house because they would not seek help. Some lost everything that they owned and became homeless walking the streets. Addicts blamed God for all the things that were happening to them. And yet, I have encountered many people who embraced the Twelve-Step Program who today say that there is a God who loves and cares for them because he saved their lives. Addicts are taught in the programs to relate to a God out of love as opposed to fear.

In 1970 I was in the midst of my alcoholism. I was driving home one night from a bar. As I was driving in a blackout I was involved in a head on collision with another car in which there were other people drinking. Through the grace of God I only experienced a small cut on my knee. Those in the other car did not have serious injuries. The next day when I went with a friend to get my car I was in shock. The car was totally demolished. My friend said to me, How did you get out of that car alive? I looked up into the heavens and just said, It was the hand of God. That accident only stopped my drinking for a while. My addiction continued. I know why I am alive today, because having found the program I came to realize that God spared my life and prepared me to help others by working in the field of alcoholism and drug addiction.

2) Feeling the need to appease an angry God: This is where the addicts says, If I say all these prayers and even go to church, everything will get better. Many addicts tried this. I know of spouses who told their spouse, You need to go to Church. That’s why you can’t stop your drinking and drug addiction. The addict went to church and prayed. Unfortunately the addiction did not stop. The addiction needed to be taken care of more professionally. I can recall dealing with some spouses who dragged their spouse to church and told me that was the answer. The addict went to church and the addiction did not stop. Addiction being a progressive disease, it got worse. The non-addict spouse couldn’t understand. I responded that the addict needed to get help in treatment and/or the Twelve Step Program. I suggested the program of Al-anon for the non-addict living with the addict. When the addict finally got into treatment or the Twelve-Step Program and sometimes through tough love by the spouse saying, If you don’t go for help, then either you or I are getting separated or divorced, did things get better.

3) Relating to God out of self-interest: Here’s where addicts attempt to get God to do their own will. Its like placing demands upon God, controlling God, or bargaining with God. I’ll do this for you, God, if you do that for me. Get me out of this jam, God, and I’ll never succumb to my addiction. If you get me out of this predicament, I’ll donate some money to charity. How often one escaped the jam, but the addiction continued. I can recall many mornings waking up to a phone call after a night of drinking and saying, Oh God, please don’t let that phone call be someone calling because I’m in trouble for what I did or said while drinking, and I’ll never drink again. The phone call wasn’t one I expected. I escaped the jam. Soon I was drinking again.

In my later years of drinking and seeing how worse it was getting I was at wits end. One night I was driving in my car, grabbed the steering wheel very tightly and cried out in a loud voice, Jesus Christ, please help me with my drinking. It was no coincidence that a few days later right before I was to be going on a retreat that I was confronted by a priest who I was working for. He told