Secular Humanism (a good recovery starting point?)
 

One thing for certain in my own recovery from gambling addiction is Change. My thoughts, beliefs and approaches have altered dramatically over the years, What seems to be the case even during my zealot years was a common thread of Humanism. It was later that I was able to bring in and embrace things like critical thinking, mindfulness and reason, skills I am still learning. I always wondered within the structered recovery programs I followed, whether these skills would have been a great set of tools from early on. I think that would of helped and prevented some suffering along the way. I would like to hear what others have to say. (For a definition on what Secular Humanism is Wikipedia is as good as any)
Thanks

sounds simplistic: we can only start from where we are.
whatever that looks like and includes or excludes.
later, along the way, we may be able to include or embrace things we could not initially.

I think secular humanism is a good place to start for those who are secular humanists or folks who are simply not inclined to engage in religious or spiritual endeavors. In terms of recovery, this means each individual is responsible for his or her own actions, and that causes and consequences (in this case addiction) are seen as matters of natural science as opposed to any belief in divine intervention. In my case, for example, I could say that there is evidence that the trauma of my early life and my environment were contributing factors to my eventual addiction, but that repeated, chosen behaviors led to the development of strengthened neural pathways that eventually caused increased difficulty with moderation in relation to those habits or repeated behaviors. From a scientific or secular humanist point of view, overcoming addiction, then, is a matter of behaving differently in order to develop alternate neural pathways while weakening the pathways contributing to addiction. In other words, I may have been genetically and environmentally predisposed to develop addiction, but I chose the behaviors that led to the addiction and it is my responsibility to change my behaviors in order to recover from the addiction. From a secular humanist point of view there is no higher power, so recovery is entirely the individual's responsibility. That has been my stance for the past four clean and sober years. Meditation and mindfulness have certainly helped, but I had to develop the discipline to practice. Social support helped, but I had to be willing to seek it and accept it. Prayer may help (though I don't know to whom or what I would pray), but even then, it's up to the individual to choose to pray.

Ooooh this is a good post zero! This is the way I think about recovery too but I don't think I could have articulated it as well as you did here.

Love your post zero.