Appendix 1B; Looking at the 12 Steps of AA as a Cycle
Is your goal simply to abstain from alcohol or is it to regain control of your life?
Shifting your Perspective
Addiction to any substance (food, drugs, alcohol, people, money, etc.) has a way of reorganizing your priorities in life so quickly that you don’t even realize it until it’s too late. (See hitting bottom section below for more on that subject.) Your natural reactions* to the stress of addiction affects you not just while you are addicted but follows you until you have fully recovered. (*Flee the scene, fight for what you want and freeze so you remain buried underneath your burdens.) Any kind of drug addiction alters your mind (gives direction to), your soul (gives the energy to), and body (reacts to physiological and hormonal changes sparked by your senses). Your emotions take the lead and end up controlling your body which is why trying to control your senses (through abstinence) to defeat addiction is not a long-term solution. You have trained your senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) to perform the addictive activity and that activity became the base for a dysfunctional psycho-social lifestyle.
If you can visualize God as the base that holds your psycho-social balance together, you’ll gain the power to not only control these reactions to your senses, but as a Christian you’ll be able to maintain peace as you work through the circumstances that threaten your balance. By turning to God, you become equipped with the faith (part of the fruit of the Spirit) to make lifestyle changes. This is an oversimplified statement, but think of His faith as a force inside you. God waits until you make a decision to invite Him into your life so you can make other decisions that you'll be strengthen to reach to overcome anything that is not of God. This is depicted in the Bible as a Christian who wears the armor of God and wins the fight(s) that are meant to sway you away from achieving victory and freedom.
Maintaining your sobriety as you live out life "one day at a time" is easier to do when your attitude aligns with your behavior and your persistent hope is an anchor for a fickle soul. With faith in a confident hope, you can muster the energy it will take to stabilize and recharge your life by changing unproductive behavior, be it in thoughts, words, or patterns of behavior. While Alcoholics Anonymous relies on your ability to shift your perspective enough to realize you can't tackle the addiction problem on your own, it falls short in that it doesn't address the root cause of why you became addicted in the first place. What may have started as fun social activity, grew out of proportion, and became a central part of your life, growing like a hurricane that tears away your other priorities. When you get to the point where you want to get out of the addiction, you find yourself trapped in the clouds surrounding the eye of the hurricane. In the end, addiction leaves you in a weekend state. You come out of the storm with a weaker, fragile self-concept. When the difference between self-concept and identity becomes apparent, you realize why you need "a Power greater than" yourself to fully recover.
Your self-concept is a collection of personal beliefs, perceptions, and evaluations you have about yourself. These beliefs may be true or not and are influenced greatly by your family upbringing and what you were taught about living life. Identity is different. The Bible teaches that when you turn to the Christian God, you take on a new identity (1 Peter 2:9, Hebrews 6:19). It’s identity, not self-concept, that will pull you out of an addictive life style. Your new identity in Christ, the Holy Spirit in you, steers your problem-solving, decision-making and resulting actions because you have the mind of Christ, which enables you to approach situations from God's perspective (1 Corinthians 2:15-16). It is necessary to see your recovery from this humbled perspective. This is the first major shift in perspective.
Humility is when your identity is "grounded in a self-view that something greater than the self exists" (Nielsen, R., & Marrone, J. A. (2018) p 807). Humility is what brought you to enter rehab and is the attitude needed to maintain your sobriety when you leave. If you exit rehab with an unaltered self-concept, you'll be leaving with the same defense mechanisms that makes it hard to see this. This lack of awareness will sabotage your change because long-term change is not be sustainable without a new identity and a lifestyle that supports it.
Humility is a dispositional attitude and is the key to each one of the 12 steps to Alcoholics Anonymous. Possessing the character trait of humility makes you open to trying the direction advised by your Higher Authority. Recognizing defenses that surround your self-concept is very hard to discover on your own. When you are going through recovery, a relapse is one way that lets you know that something is still awry; shedding light on your identity issue and subsequent "psycho-social" imbalance. The process of finding a new sidewalk to go down, therefore, is darkened and may take many attempts before you see the essential need for an identity in Christ to accompany you down the sidewalk that leads to a new neighborhood.
-
Review the poem in the Introduction tab.
-
Read about how why humility is essential to personal change below in “Something Greater than Yourself Exists”.
Another perspective shift is needed to recover from an unhealthy addiction and that is in the way you picture the 12 steps of recovery. Do you see the 12 steps as linear, a checklist that needs to be done in order until you finally get to number 12? Or can you picture it as a lifestyle change; a circular diagram representing that forges a state of living? The first picture is an example of a perspective shift brought about by viewing the linear step-process as a continuous cycle. The second graphic is intended to show the key words that when added to each other create a force that makes a change happen. The words are depicted as rolling, the first word gains more force when joined with the second, together they gain the momentum to move the next two and this culminates in a new hopeful attitude that matches your new behavior (ABC’s). When you compare the description of the 12 step process, below, to the pictures you can relax and trust the process because the change you seek is not going to be reliant on your own efforts, but from your understanding of God's place in your life.
1. Admitted you were powerless over alcohol—that your life had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than yourself could restore you to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of God as you understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself.
5. Admitted to God, to yourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of your wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked God to remove your shortcomings.
8. Prepared a list of all persons harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when you were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve your conscious contact with God as you understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for you and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all your affairs.
The change needed to free you is a lifestyle change that includes your thought life, your habits and your social reinforcement (Marlatt, G. A., & Donovan, D. M. (Eds.). (2005). Your will power alone isn't enough to sustain a lifestyle free from unhealthy dependences on drugs/alcohol. Steps one, two and three of AA relies on the character of your God/god to be with you so you can do the hard work of discovering your psychological, emotional and/or social hurts that stifled your growth and left you depending on unnatural means to find joy in life.
Step 4 is a deep look into yourself to try to understand your behavior in light of your values and then identify the motives that led to your actions. Your beliefs about yourself, God and your family and friends along with how much you value approval, all play a role in identifying your self-worth. Self-worth influences your interactions with others and is often a stumbling block to implementing change. Some people try to rush past step four and move on without getting to see the root of their problem. Do you set your eyes on the future before you've had a chance to assess the past?
With God, you can face and address emotional issues that may not have uncovered yet. When you dig deep and reach the core, you'll realize that to break your psychological, physiological and social patterns, you need the strength of the Holy Spirit so you can align your reality with the truth determined by the Creator and Sovereign Christian God. By incorporating God into your perspective, you can change your attitude. A secure identity energizes you to navigate and persist through the hard times that you'll encounter when trying to break free from an addictive, unproductive, lifestyle.
View the 12 Step Recovery Program of AA as a Cycle using a Christian Mindset
It's that same trait of humility that gives you the awareness and emotional capability to discern that Step 12 is not the end of the list, rather, you see it as a connector back to step number one. Remaining humble and grateful to God will enlarge your perspective so you take your psychological change and apply it socially, creating a new normal lifestyle. Your lifestyle change solidifies when you "give it away" to others by helping them walk down a new sidewalk.
-
Read Appendix 1K to see how pride may obscure your vision and influence choices that may sabotage you permanent recovery.
Step 12 brings your attention to the importance of establishing a new social climate, one that exemplifies the often overlooked benefit of prosocial behavior. A deeper and stronger resilience is built up in you when you “give it away” to others. By coming along side other people who share in your same struggle with an unhealthy addiction, you can practice your own accountability while helping them learn about their responsibility to regain a healthy lifestyle. Don’t try to continue your recovery on your own by clinging to OLD friends with habits you have decided to give up. Make a change in behavior and begin with making new friends with similar goals and values. Going through a significant change in your life is much easier when you rely on and are in a community of people who rely on God’s strength to guide their life. You are not abandoning your old friends, but rather are setting boundaries with them. Perception shapes results because the decisions you make create your reality. If you want to obtain lasting results from your decision to stop the negative impact of addiction on your life, then find others who can encourage you to look at beyond the problem of addiction to find a root cause.
-
Read more at Appendix 1K on how pride blinds you and Appendix 1D on how this skews your thinking and blocks change.
-
Read more about the social aspect of recovery is the subject of the second main tab entitled “Manage Self in a Social World”.
-
Read more about how a mentor (in addition to a sponsor) can encourage a lifestyle change in the "Personal Support" tab.
The Concept of Hitting Bottom
Hitting bottom is relative depending on who defines the word "bottom". You or God?
-
When does the difference between kicking a bad habit and making a lifestyle change finally creep in to your awareness?
-
Is your cry to God for help shallow and temporary so that it doesn’t stay a priority any longer than what is necessary to see you out of unwanted circumstances?
What you may think is your bottom, may not be. Many people get confused and discouraged when they are still stuck in addiction, even when they feel like they've "hit the bottom" and are willing to change. Part of an addiction problem is that it skews your perspective and distorts reality. Your thoughts and your will power are not enough. You may desire relief from your addiction, but God knows the root causes of your addictive lifestyle. God sees the bigger picture - from your past to your future, and wants you to be well (3 John 2, Isaiah 46:10). Without this level of God-awareness, you will be saying you want to quit your habit, and have committed to giving it up, but you will find that your cravings and your old patterns of thinking and doing overpower your desire to quit the addiction.
God knows your heart condition and when you are ready to make the necessary exchanges required to leave unhealthy addictive habits behind. It's your faith that triggers the power of God to lead you through the change necessary, one that requires not just psychological, biological, and social but Spiritual too. When you have arrived at the place where you are convinced that there is no other way out than to take the hand of God (so He can pull you out of the hole you are stuck in), then you'll learn how to walk down a "new sidewalk".
-
Read about how King Nebuchadnezzar didn't regain his sanity until he turned to God, as stated in Daniel 4:34.
When you remain dependent on God and trust that He knows your "bottom", you will stay committed to recovery by continuing to ask Him to reveal your idols (what you favor more than God in your life). When you believe with your heart, soul, mind, and strength that God's love is worthy of your sacrifice of self-rule, than by sticking to your new priorities, you will experience the work and results of faith (John 6:28-29, James 1:3, 1 Peter 1:7, James 1:22-23, Appendix 2P). Rely on God to expose self-deception and learn to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit so you are willing to change and are open to receiving support from an uplifting community (Proverbs 23:7, Galatians 5:16, 22-23). This single-minded focus is what it looks like to love God first.
Why does God wait until you cry uncle?
God’s Word says that, “when you seek me with all your heart, you’ll find me” (Jeremiah 29:13, Matthew 6:33, 7:7, Mark 12:29-31). God is faithful and will listen to your plea when you call on Him in prayer. But this scripture reveals more than crying out in words through prayer. It is refers to you crying out with a single-minded heart (Mark 4:16-19). Only with a pure heart, can a trustworthy relationship with God develop because it is at this point in your psyche that you accept the sovereignty of God and are willing to work together on rebuilding your life. You exchange your view of a relative reality for God's Truth and you become willing to develop new habits that guide your behavior and break the physical and psychological bonds of addiction (Psalm 19:8, 1 Peter 1:22, Romans 12:2, 8:28). Your heart-felt change* sticks! Respectful behavior shows itself in personal changes demonstrated in attitude and behavior that align with the nature a Holy, Sovereign and Loving God (Mark 4:20, Ephesians 2:8-10, John 15:4-5, Jeremiah 10:23, Appendix 1I).
*A heart-felt change can't happen when your perception is skewed by a "relative reality". Relativity is your version of the way it is (the way life works), which leads to misguided actions resulting in unintended consequences and disappointment from defense mechanisms like the use of blame, denial, justification, rationalization, etc. Your recovery correlates to your willingness to accept and align with God's Truth not wishful thinking (Psalm 145:18). It is Truth that breaks through a faulty perception. Beating addiction won't happen until God changes your definition of truth and these truths shape the way you perceive, understand and implement the truth into every aspect of your life, starting with the 12 step method of recovery. A heart-felt change will set you free from unhealthy addiction because your humility towards God is the connector that turns the steps into a lifecycle and sustains your D(A+B)C . It's when you appreciate God's grace and want to pass it along to others that you realize the kindness of God and understand the workings of grace (Ephesians 2:8-10, Titus 3:3-11, Appendix 1E).
Be conscious of the Holy Christian God in your life and show your dependency on Him as your "Higher Power" by daily prayer and practice of God's Word while you await changes to take root in your life (Romans 12:12, Hebrews 6:12). Cling to scripture verses like 1 Corinthians 10:13, 1 Corinthians 6:12, 1 Corinthians 15:33, James 5:15-16, Romans 5:3-5 and personalize the Bible messages as you step out in faith! (Hope drives faith-filled actions; Hebrews 3:14, 10:23.) While you are waiting expectantly upon God, continue to take action on the next right step you know to do (Matthew 6:33-34, Ephesians 1:18-21). Soon, you will look back and see that your whole lifestyle changed because your heart has been purified by God because of your heart-felt request to Him for help (James 4:8, Hebrews 9:13-14). When you have changed your perception and bent your will to align with God's character, you will discover that there is freedom in the boundaries of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:17, Galatians 5:13, Ephesians 3:12, Romans 12:2, Appendix 1F, Appendix 2H).
D
Something Greater than Yourself Exists
When you read the Bible, you have Godly Christian thoughts that will increase not only your options but your confidence when making daily choices. By knowing "right" according to the written Word of God, by studying the living example of Jesus Christ, and then by choosing to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, you can make decisions and take actions that lead to your well-being. A healthy identity in Christ is necessary to withstand the psychological and social pressures that entice you to fall back into a lifestyle of unproductive habits that you had already decided to give up when you enter a recovery center (Colossians 2:9-10). The Holy Christian Triune God proves himself trustworthy (Psalm 18:30). You will not have learned that God's ways are better than our ways until you try them (Proverbs 11:2, Isaiah 55:8-9, 1 Peter 5:5).
This foundational perspective shift (away from yourself and on to a Holy God - worthy of your
dependence) is one that, unfortunately, some graduates of AA do not realize until they've been
through the program and have experienced relapses. It is through retrospect that a strong-willed
person becomes open and vulnerable enough to try to understand the reason for their failed
attempts. An examination of your hear-felt beliefs can uncover the disconnect between God's
Truth and your personal beliefs that effect the selection of your moral values (Psalm 19:9-11,
2 Timothy 3:16-17, Hebrews 4:12).
Adjust your attitude and your ways so you align with the Truth according to the One who created the world rather than your personal interpretation of it (Genesis 1:1, Psalm 86:11, 25:5, John 18:37, Acts 9:31). Choose to rely on Him (Psalm 62:7-8). Be willing to try God's ways. The Truth, as recorded in the Bible, that you do implement will change your attitude, behavior and consequences and eliminate your unrealistic expectations and misguided actions because of a self/people-pleasing attitude (Ephesians 6:6, Colossians 3:22, Matthew 6:19-21). The confirmation bias affects how we interpret information, but it also plays a role in how we observe and recall situations, information and/or people, and this can taint future decisions. Read about “confirmation basis” at https://www.britannica.com/science/confirmation-bias.
-
Read about voluntary personality transformation in the "Transformed to be a Child of God" section in Appendix 1K.
Trust the Lord for the strength to endure the change process and to withstand the temptations that you will face as you live out your new lifestyle (1 Corinthians 10:13, Psalm 56:4). Trusting God is an example of not just working out your salvation with fear and trembling, but responding to the issues in life with faith-filled actions motivated by awe for who God is in comparison to finite men (Philippians 2:12, 1 Corinthians 2:3, Mark 5:33, 2 Peter 1:3-9).
-
Trust reduces anxiety in proportion to knowledge. For more read the article entitled "Subdue Your Soul" in the Still Anxious tab.
Your perception is your unique way to filter incoming information so you can make decisions efficiently and this is how other people can read your attitude (your usual disposition). When your beliefs line up with Truth, you'll develop the confidence you need to make healthy choices. When you name the Triune God as the highest power in your life and personalize this multi-level relationship with Him, you choose (willingly align yourself) to believe His truth and imitate His behavior. In doing so, you gain access to the strength needed to do the next right thing according to His ways, (a result of your decision to believe in and use your belief to access God's power that comes from accepting "Christ in you" (Colossians 1:27, John 15:4, James 1:5, Philippians 4:7, Hebrews 4:12-14, Matthew 4:4).
Gratitude and praise to God shifts your thinking, aligns your decisions with your heart and loosens the chains of addictive behavior so you can develop new value-based habits that lead to a healthy balanced lifestyle
(Colossians 1:11, 3:17, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Ephesians 6:10, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5).
Cling to the truth of God's Word and practice your beliefs among a like-minded social group and you'll achieve the peace of Christian cognitive consistency
(James 4:8, Psalm 119:113, 160, 165, 1 Corinthians 15:33, Romans 15:5, Proverbs 17:17).