By shaping our thoughts with spiritual ideals, we are freed to become who we want to be.
Basic Text, p. 101
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Addiction shaped our thoughts in its own way. Whatever their shape may once have been, they became misshapen once our disease took full sway over our lives. Our obsession with drugs and self molded our moods, our actions, and the very shape of our lives.
Each of the spiritual ideals of our program serves to straighten out one or another of the kinks in our thinking that developed in our active addiction. Denial is counteracted by admission, secretiveness by honesty, isolation by fellowship, and despair by faith in a loving Higher Power. The spiritual ideals we find in recovery are restoring the shape of our thoughts and our lives to their natural condition.
And what is that natural condition? It is the condition we truly seek for ourselves, a reflection of our highest dreams. How do we know this? Because our thoughts are being shaped in recovery by the spiritual ideals we find in our developing relationship with the God weve come to understand in NA.
No longer does addiction shape our thoughts. Today, our lives are being shaped by our recovery and our Higher Power.
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Just for today: I will allow spiritual ideals to shape my thoughts. In that design, I will find the shape of my own Higher Power.
I can definitely relate to this reading. Addiction controlled my thinking and behavior. Not only was I obsessed with drugs and alcohol, but I also had an addict mentality. I was very negative, cynical, selfish, and judgmental. In recovery, I am overcoming that addict mentality and replacing it with one that is much more positive, hopeful, non-selfish, and tolerant.
