I have been in NA a while now..... I work in a recovery center and have been neglecting my personal recovery work lately....... I have been thinking a lot about having the courage to change recently and would really appreciate some input form you guys..... I believe that courage springs from having strong faith... but how do I build and strengthen my faith... I feel like I have been losing faith and at the moment it feels like my faith is at an all time low.... any suggestions? Thanks .............
For me, I had to take suggestions people had and just do it, even though I wasn't sure what would happen. I had faith that if I went to meetings, got a sponsor, worked the steps, etc. everything would be okay. As I did these things, my faith in the program (and in my higher power) became stronger because I had tangible evidence that it works.
I have been where you are. As a matter of fact I'm kinda in that place right now. I pray for faith. Even when my prayers are weak I still pray. It's time like these when having a strong recovery routine really pays off. If we have been consistent in prayer, meeting attendance, calling sponsor, and working steps then when we are feeling down or disconnected we just continue doing what we have been doing. I know that my depressed feelings will pass. They always do. It sucks to feel the emptiness of the lack of spirituality, but just keep following the program and the spirit will return.
Hi mate.. my experience is this: Ask yourself what are you really talking about...words like "faith" are coded and value laden....what the hell do they mean...? What are you really talkiong about. Building faith.....in what?? Are you talking about God or belief in yourself or your life...what? Becoming more accurate in the language of the question helps us find the answer. What is the question?
I CAN RELATE - IT WAS TOLD TO ME TO STICK TO THE BASICS AND IT WILL LEAD ME DOWN A SPIRITUAL PATH. SO WHEN I GO TO MEETINGS, SHARE HONESTLY, REACH OUT, READ MY NA LITERATURE AND WORK STEPS WITH MY SPONSOR - I GET MORE CLARITY - AND FOR ME CLARITY IS MY HP'S WORK - NOT MINE - I AM CURRENTLY GOING THRU SOMETHING - SO I GO TO MEETINGS, REACH OUT, SHARE HONESTLY AND WORK THE STEPS WITH MY SPONSOR - IT IS MY JOB TO DO THE WORK AND CLAIM WHATEVER IS GOING ON IN MY LIFE - GOOD OR INDIFFERENT AND TAKE IT TO PRAYER - YES I SAID PRAYER - PRAYER AND MEDITATION TO IMPROVE OUR CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH OUR HP..ITS TRUE AND IT WORKS
Thanks to everyone for all the replies...... as usual it seems like I have over-complicated things for myself....what I love about this program are the simple (though not necessarily easy!) solutions to problems that have grown into these huge mountains inside my head. It still stops me in my tracks so often and reminds me all over again that I need other recovering addicts to remind me of these things when I can't see the forest through all the trees!
And there is no substitute for going back to basics and doing the work..... I tend to become impatient and compare my progress up against some imaginary standard that I have created about "how much better I should be by now"....
... I have been thinking and thinking about what you said and what i really meant and I think I meant "faith in myself".... which then brought me to thinking about what that really meant which was (and I shared this with an old-timer) "why do I not have faith in myself that I can change".....
........ and realised that also was not really correct because I have changed some over the last few years so then the old-timer said with a smile "What.... you think you are not changing fast enough?" which was the moment I realised that my real question roughly translated to "why have I not changed completely and NOW"
.......and just like that the question was answered... so.. cheers for that!
