Clean4ever

Steps 1-10 have prepared me to move on to Step 11.
"We Sought Through Prayer and Meditation "TO IMPROVE"
Our Conscious Contact With God...." To Improve means to me I have some reference points in my Recovery. In Step Two I started to Believe in a Higher Power. In Step Three I decided to allow this power which I call God to run the show to the best of my ability. In Step Five I shared my secrets and assets to God and another person. In Step Seven I ask in the spirit of Humility....And Now in the 11th Step I'm asked To Improve My contact with this Power that has kept me clean and allowed me to relapse and come back...... Ready to 'DO' the 'WORK' I need to do. We all hear in meetings how Steps 10-12 are maintenance Steps. Rightfully so. We read in the Basic Text on page 44 that..."We learn to maintain our lives on a spiritually sound basis". There is so much that can be said about this Step that I feel inadequate...But this is just a little part of my experience, strength, and hope..We can all add to what Ive said in This Step and previous Steps. My Sponsor and I spoke for hours on this Step and we were just touching on some of the major points.... What is Prayer ? What is meditation ? One thing I have learned in Recovery is that we all have a right to feel, think, and believe whatever it is we want to believe. This is not a Religious program. In the Basic Text on page 45-46 It Says..."It is easy to float back out the door on a cloud of religious zeal and forget that we are addicts with an incurable disease". To Be Continued.......Clean

Clean4ever

Yeah..I remember having some time in recovery and floating out the door on that religious high...I had all the answers and I was going to prove it by quoting the book. The more I knew the less I needed the program...."Or So I Thought"...In a short period of time I started getting sick again. I wasn't using yet but I ended up in a mental ward talking about how much I know about God, "but addiction 'IS' such a cunning enemy of life I had lost the power to do anything about it"...{Why? Basic Text}...Slowly my defects and obsessed mind started to think that "Maybe if I drink a little wine I'll be okay. Or maybe some beer, as long as I don't sniff coke or smoke crack I'm okay"...I"m an addict. I need to abstain from ALL drugs in order to recover...INCLUDING ALCOHOL...Before I knew it I was buying 2 ounces of weed and drinking five 40 ounces of colt 45 with a few shots of vodka to calm down my defects. I never did relapse back to the crack pipe but I wrote that to show that this is a spiritual program. "I sought help through religion and psychiatry and none of these methods were sufficient"...It doesn't say that their not good.. it says they are not sufficient...Is this fellowship the ONLY way to get clean. NO...But it is for me. I've seen people utilize many ways and it works for them. My father 45 years hardcore drinking. Just got sober. I don't understand that but it worked for him. This is a Spiritual Program. I believe in The 12 Steps. This program has done for me what I could not do for myself..Which is stay clean one day at a time. We use Step 11 to..."Improve and maintain our Spiritual condition."(Basic Text Step 11)...That's what its all about. At Least for me. Learning to live a Spiritual way of life for me means so much. However..I will never be perfect....That 5th Step assures me of that...lol "Praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the Power to carry that out"...... That says it all. I can't add anything to that other than search and you will find what works for you. I have a little system of praying and meditating that works for me. When I don't practice Step 11 my resentments come back....My defects come back and if I'm not careful that desire to use may too. I'm Ready for Step 12...Thank you Peter F :ghug3