What is Spirituality?

When people hear me say spirituality, the statement I most often hear back is, “I’m not religious.” Contrary to that thought though, spirituality does not mean religion, as I often try to explain to people. I tell people that religion is great in conjunction with spirituality in the 12 step process. My belief is that for long term recovery, you need to attain some spirituality in your life.

People are scared by the word spirituality. They think that we are going to have them praying to a statue or make them go to church every other day. That is not what this is about though.

The other issue people have with spirituality is that most addicts are “show me” people. This is not something that I can show them though, not something I can lay out in front of them. They have to just have a little blind faith. One thing I always tell people is that there are a lot of things out there that we cannot see, but that we know are there.

For instance, you really can’t see wind, but you can see the result of the winds as the trees blow. You cannot see electricity, but you can see the results through having light.

What I like to tell people as I was told before, is that you have to take a look at the things that have happen in your addiction, and realize that there had to be some greater power outside of yourself controlling your destiny. For me personally, there were some blaring examples early in my recovery. One was the fact that I had overdosed three times and still are standing here to say it, whereas my best friend overdosed and is no longer with us. In addition to that, there were numerous car accidents, and I walked away from it all.

Looking at those scenarios gave me a belief in something, in a higher power which helped me to grasp the concept of spirituality.

Most of us in recovery get healthy physically first, then we clear up psychologically. But after that, the spirituality piece is how we grow in our recovery. What I have been shooting for is what everyone should be shooting for, and that is constant spiritual growth.

I equate spirituality with serenity. For me, that is what I was looking for and that is what I believe people should be looking for, piece of mind, gained by being a spiritual person.

Again, it is not religion. I have always felt that organized religion is for those who are afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who have been to hell.

I am in no way opposed to organized religion. If you are though, you can still have recovery with spirituality in your life.