Buddhist recovery groups
 

Anyone ever tried them? I see there is now Recovery Dharma as well as Refuge Recovery out there, when before there was only the latter.

I keep changing my mind regarding AA. Some days I wanna get more involved, some days I don't feel it at all.

But either way my sobriety is rock solid. Utterly rock solid.

And it feels good to write that.

Haven't tried any Buddhist recovery groups but have read some books with 12 step slants.
The Zen of Recovery by Mel Ash
The 12-Step Buddhist by Darren Littlejohn
One Breath at a Time by Kevin Griffin
Thanks for the name of two groups. Gonna do some investigating. Appreciate it.

Have you worked the steps yet?

This is a great post, thank you! I l love Eastern religion and I would love to learn more!

Night!

I love Buddhist teachings as well.

Thats all my twitter feed has on it and I read every day.

It helps me ground myself and is so beneficial emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

Well I'd say I've definitely done Step 1. The rest I'm really not sure I can fit into my whole belief system. But I'm still keeping an open mind about it.

I ordered the Refuge Recovery workbook, but I was still drinking so it is in the back of my bookshelf. I am on day ten today. I will pull it out and look at it. Thanks for this reminder.

So I went to a Recovery Dharma meeting! It was in a room where I have also been to AA meetings! And it was similar in other ways too. There is a programme involved, with equivalents of inventories and making amends (though the higher power concept doesn’t come into play, obviously many Buddhist teachings do). With shares you took turns like at SMART (and just say ‘pass’ if you don’t want to). This followed a guided meditation.

I have to admit I’m still not sure what I even feel about meditating, let alone the various similarities and differences between programmes. Intuitively SMART makes plenty of sense to me but like I even said at this RD meeting, ‘I need more than CBT to fill this void…’ But yeah overall this Recovery Dharma thing was a nice experience, and I was one of several newcomers which rarely seems to happen at my regular AA meetings.

AA is obviously the most convenient and where I’ve made friends; I just wonder if I can deal with the highly prescriptive programme/HP thing. I need to re-read ‘Recovery’ by Russell Brand (I read it when I was in active addiction) and I’ve also heard good things about ‘Common Sense Recovery: An Atheist’s Guide to AA’ by Adam N.

One thing with AA is I relate to much of the Big Book, an alcoholic being someone with an obsession of the mind, an allergy of the body (or compulsion as I read it by today’s standards), suffering from a ‘dis-ease’ within themselves. I was actually struck by this when leaving the RD meeting, how much my problem is just me, living in my own skin, anxious to the core, something I hear a lot of at AA.

I effectively believe I was born an alcoholic, and this is quite a powerful revelation to me.

But practically speaking my life is all out of balance right now, with depression, unemployment and housing issues, so the answer of what to do next might yet become clear down the road.

As Lao Tzu asks in the Tao Te Ching (about as spiritual as I get):

Do you have the patience to wait
Till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
Till the right action arises by itself?

I think I like the freedom of where I’m at currently, but long-term I might have no figurative home. I’ve managed to get over eight months sober through going to whatever meetings I feel like (thankfully that’s been an option in this city) and SR.

But will the time come to really get with the programme? At least one of them?! Does it even matter?!

One thing I’m pretty sure of is I need IRL support. Thanks for reading my ramblings anyway. The journey continues...

Dear Textrax,

Sorry to hear, as you tell us, that "practically speaking my life is all out of balance right now, with depression, unemployment and housing issues."

Your posts evince such a high degree of self-awareness, I have no doubt that "the answer of what to do next [will] yet become clear down the road."

In fact, I hope it is not too presumptuous of me to add that from this vantage it appears the right action is already arising.

Ok maybe not all by itself imho (but I'm no Buddhist, so what do I know).

Congratulations on 8 months-plus, from an 8-dayer here. And whatever IRL support is, I hope you have it, or find it.

I love this passage. It reminds me to let go of my need to figure everything out today. I find the more I just try to figure out today, today and that I will figure out tomorrow, tomorrow; the more I experience peace.

I read this and in the beginning, I loved the way it read and his attitude. I thought it was going to be great. But honestly, by half way through, it felt more like he was just bragging about his wealth and fame. He wandered off topic only to work in more self importance bragging and eventually would get to a point. It got so annoying I stopped 3/4 the way through.

I recently bought a book called, "Staying Sober Without God: The Practical 12 Steps to Long-Term Recovery from Alcoholism and Addictions", but haven't started it.

I've done some refuge recovery and it's good. As far as what path to take, I'd stick with the advice of the the Tao Te Ching and the Temple of Apollo at Delphi

"Know thyself" and "Act in accordance with the nature of things".

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