Twelve Steps

Some of you reading this know that I have someone very close to me that is a recovering heroin addict, others of you had no idea until just now. It’s not something I like talking about, for obvious reasons. Drug addiction means a lot of different things to me. It’s sad, heartbreaking, maddening stuff that tears people apart. It takes a person and turns them into someone you don’t know.

Over the past couple of years I have become more aware of drugs, alcohol, rehab and everything that goes along with it. I know how heroin addicts “get the bad stuff out of the drug” so that they dont overdose. I know that if you have a ball point pen, a lighter and a spoon you’re better off than the next guy. Needless to say, I now know a world that I would never have walked into if it weren’t for this person. It’s been a long couple of years. Years filled with nothing but faith and praying. Boy was there a LOT of praying. When people talk about faith, I now get  what it is to have it.

Very long story short, this person and I have remained close. I have been there for them through everything. The countless trips to rehab, the calls at four am that say they have overdosed and finally the mile marker of being clean for five months.

I’ve been told different drugs and the recovery process from them is hard, (DUH) but heroin is probably one of the hardest to beat. I am astounded that God could intervene in enough time. Really. A pastor told me that you shouldn’t doubt the Lord.. yeah yeah. I wouldnt say I was doubting him, but when you see someone this low, what some would say is lower than rock bottom, you get a little skeptical.

So, here I was visiting this person in their Recovery House, I was talking to them about the twelve steps.. what were they? How do they work? etc. I proceeded to listen to how many step they have completed and the stories that went along with each. As I sat there listening I realized these steps weren’t just for drug addicts or alcoholics, but for everyone.

I decided in that moment that I would work through the twelve steps with them.

I know you’re stitting there shaking your head. Kels… you’re not a heroin addict, you’re not an alcoholic, you have no obvious addictions… You’re right I don’t. However, who’s to say it won’t help.  The foundation of the twelve step program is believing in a higher power. Whether that be God, Budda, the government or whatever. I think it will help me become more spiritual, more aware of the way I’m acting, and to center my life more around good rather than evil.

The twelve steps are as follow:

• We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
• Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
• Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
• Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
• Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
• Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
• Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
• Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
• Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
• Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
• Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
• Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

**Now I obviously had to change a few things because like I said earlier, I’m not an alcoholic.

 

I’m on step four. Some of these steps I’ve done pretty quickly, while others may take some time. It’s an interesting proccess and I already feel better about my life and the way I’m living it according to these steps.

This isn’t an excercise to make me reflect on drug addicts and alcoholics. This is an excercise on how I’m getting back to the reason God created me in His image. After all, If I continue to go along without taking in to account what Jesus did for me, then I’m just as lost as a heroin junkie. And I for one, don’t like to be lost, think of this as my Google Maps App to life. 🙂