Someone should have told me earlier that the journey toward enlightenment was so fascinating and full of love. I wouldn’t have waited so long looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, wallowing in the hopeless well of addiction by drinking my way out of pain. Six (Light) sober years later, I find the path growing brighter each day.
My pathway in sobriety is a little unconventional. I went to some AA meetings. I followed a Twelve Steps program. I wrapped myself around Step Three: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.”
I thought I knew God. I went to catechism classes as a girl. I watched The Ten Commandments faithfully every Easter. I prayed to God in the throes of addiction to stop the pain, thinking that He would. My prayers were never answered in addiction. Now they are answered without fail.
I found the right people who placed the right tools into my hands at the right time. My first jewel was Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda. All I can remember was feeling that same longing to be loved that he yearned for so deeply. I cried to think that any love could be so great from a patient God that waited, however long it took, for His faithful to come to Him.
Before one can surrender one’s mind to the fullest understanding of God, Source, your Higher Power or whatever you choose to call that which you entrust your life to help you stay sober, it is vital to embrace Its existence and infinite desire to help you. I lovingly choose to call (this) force, God.
As beings of Light, which we all are, the worst thing we can do to our souls and our higher power is to cut off the energy from Source. This is exactly what is done under the influence of anything that controls your life. Alcohol, drugs, nicotine, obsessions – they all alter your energy flow away from Source until you lose that divine flow of love and light. They bandage problems. None of them solve problems. Addiction forces you to give away your true connection to strength and power to an alternative method of relief.
God can no longer hear you.
It’s as though you’ve taken the steering wheel from Source and handed control to an alternative, lesser source.
Sobriety becomes an understanding, embracing and re-establishing of your true relationship with Source. To begin you must allow knowledge to seep in that God wants to help you. And to do that you must understand God.
I read voraciously everything I could get my hands on from the world’s religions. The vast and varied messages these sacred texts gave all came to the same conclusion – that God is Love. The monumental task in sobriety is coming to the knowing that this Love will never fail you. It is far easier to ease the pain with a drink, a drug or a cigarette instead of turning the pain and stress over for God’s loving handling.
Look at young children. They’re happy, playful, creative, unencumbered and inherently trust that they are taken care of. They grow older and life circumstances slowly chip away at that innocence. By the time we’re adults, we’ve all but abandoned trusting our lives over to God, taking our lives into our own hands. The noise of life means God hears us less. Addiction prevents God from hearing us completely.
Stress doesn’t go away. Often I envision laying myself in God’s arms and asking He take care of me. I’m tired of the battle, and I turn it over to God. God never fails me. I only fail myself by losing my joy, my connection, and giving away my true power and Light when life’s obstacles are thrown at me. What is stress anyway?
I wrote in my last article (January 09 Edge Life) that stress is the universe’s loving way of gently nudging you back toward your connection to Source. Before, I would drink. Now I face the cause and try to enlighten myself to its source, and when I cannot, I turn it over to God.
Knowing and understanding the depth of Divine Love and Light is the most noise-proof way of keeping the connection to Source open and of calling God to help you with life’s burdens. And know that the Light is always, always on.
