Read Part 1 of this series on addiction and Saint Benedict’s Twelve Steps of Humility. We turn to what I believe to be the most important and common denominator present at the origin, escalation, and outright enslavement of any addiction, and that which certainly...
“To get completely away from our aversion to the idea of being humble, to gain a vision of humility as the avenue to true freedom of the human spirit, to be willing to work for humility as something to be desired for itself, takes most of us a long, long time” (Twelve...
Addiction and unhealthy attachments can be powerful drivers in our lives—drivers that put us on a course of destruction, pain, and insanity. Below are four ways that addiction and unhealthy attachments create insanity in our lives. A Repetitive Cycle of Suffering...
In part one of this series, Mark L. writes about how the surrender he thought he needed to embrace to rejoin the Father might be more aptly described as yielding to the wooing of a lover who is always quietly beckoning him. Yielding to God’s will to move from...
What does the term “unmanageable” even mean? I asked Google Bard AI for a definition, and here is what it returned: “Unmanageable means difficult or impossible to control or manage. It can be used to describe a person, an animal, a situation, or an object.” Synonyms...
Everybody in any kind of recovery knows how cunning and patient those old thought patterns are, just waiting to sneak back up on us in the middle of a stressful day. So it really wasn’t any surprise to me when, on one of those recent stressful days, I was passing by...
When I was younger, I thought I would never be the type of person that was going to have a history of opioid addiction. I was the “good girl.” I was homeschooled. I was one of seven kids who had Christian parents (my Dad was a pastor!). Drugs were never even on my...
In his book Change or Die, Alan Deutschman details the three phases required to undergo lasting change in our lives: relate, repeat, and reframe. This is also what we do to find healing and freedom in recovery. We relate to others by joining a recovery community that...
The world would be uninteresting without uncertainty. There would be no fear, yes, but also no surprise. There would be no pain but there would be no joy or wonder, either. That’s why people enjoy scary movies in which the monster isn’t revealed until Act III or never...
As a faithful member of Catholic in Recovery and Alcoholics Anonymous, I’m abundantly blessed to have so many avenues at my disposal to remain sober and grateful to be able to share my experience, strength, and hope with others. But what if I told you that even with a...