The leaves are off the trees. Thanksgiving has come and gone. And stores and shops are playing Christmas music. As Christians, we are preparing now for the birth of our Savior. And specifically as Catholics, we are in the midst of Advent, which marks the end of the...
Step Five: “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” My journey into a lasting and more abundant sober life coincided with my diving deeper into my Catholic faith. I had been in, out of, and around AA for 14 years. But...
During my own recovery, I have found C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters to be particularly useful in navigating the emotional fallout from a relapse as well as an aid during periods of temptation. The Screwtape Letters is a fictional work detailing a collection of...
Step 11 - “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God.” Coming from a background in Evangelical Christianity, I was always cautious when hearing someone talk about meditation because I had learned to equate the word with New Age...
At some point quite a few years back, I set up a meeting with my pastor to talk about my life and, in particular, my use of pornography. I don’t remember much about the conversation, but I do remember that he gave me a book titled Unbound that I read and enjoyed. This...
Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Step 10 is considered the maintenance step for good reason. It’s imperative to sustaining quality sobriety and drawing us to closer communion with God, ourselves, and others....
Difficult times often challenge us to rethink, renew, and deepen our commitment to being faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. Because we lacked many of the things we rely on to nourish and support our faith during the pandemic (and some of us still do), we’ve been...
When I was a little girl The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie were popular on television. The kind and loving father figures on these shows made my heart ache for the kind of love I saw acted out on screen. My best friend’s father affectionately called my...
Addictions strike at the very roots of our physical and spiritual nature. As physical beings, our lives can be full of all the pains and difficulties of animal life. Yet, we also endure suffering through our souls, intellect, and memory. As C.S. Lewis put it, we live...
In the first article of this two-part series, I shared with you the benefits of regularly participating in an hour of Eucharistic adoration and offered some advice on how to fully experience freedom from sin, temptation, and addiction. I want to now explain how...