My position is that I encourage anyone who is suffering from addictions to try anything and everything they can to find relief. I’ve found mine in an integrated, comprehensive, multifaceted approach to recovery that includes, but is not limited to full participation in 12-Step groups, psychotherapy, medication, community service and involvement with Buddhist and other spiritual communities. Incidentally, there is a difference between spiritual and religious. Many methods are listed in each chapter of the 12-Step Buddhist book. You might not need all or any of them. But in my case, some are sicker than others. If you’re like me, and are tired of suffering, then it makes sense to try anything and everything you can.
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Using Technology to Stay Sober. I’ve been on Facebook for a couple of years, but just started using it this past year. Same thing with Myspace, though I’ve used it a big longer. I collect friends by searching for who’s friends with whom, using search terms like Buddhism or recovery and similar methods. It has definitely helped me make connections that I wouldn’t have ever made. 
In the old days of my 12-Step recovery, they used to say that if you were going to make it in sobriety, you had to learn to “get naked.” I mentioned this in a meeting recently and got a strange reaction. What they meant was that we needed to drop our rock, join the parade, and become emotionally vulnerable with another human being in our 5th Step, “We Admitted to God, to Ourselves and to Another Human Being the Exact Nature of Our Wrongs.” In recovery, our sponsors were about the closest thing to a guru that most of us ever had. 
I was recently thinking about this prayer and what it means to me. This is after I kind of got in trouble the other day at the end of an AA meeting for requesting that we do the Lord’s Prayer instead of the Serenity Prayer. Someone was upset that I went against the group conscience and got confrontational with me about it. Then my friend the secretary said she hated the Lord’s Prayer because it’s patriarchical and guilt inducing. So it made me think about the prayer and my history with it as a spirtual device. |
Portland Recovery Meditation Groups
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Want Cheese With That Whine: The Voices of Self-loathing and Self-love
I am the voice of self-love. I’ve heard everything self-loathing has to say. It’s OK. Nothing new there. My job is to support the self – no matter how he’s feeling. I’m here, and have always been here. In fact, I was Present before the seed met the egg. When his mother was stressed, didn’t want to be pregnant, smoked cigarettes and got sick, I was here. I’m the real nurturer. In me, the self can always feel safe.