Category Archives: Conversion

My Daily Bread

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Time for another VERT prompt. Owen this time asks his bloggers to write about a book we are reading now, or, a book that helped us come home. For me, that would be My Daily Bread by Anthony J. Paone, SJ; Confraternity of the Precious Blood; Brooklyn, NY; 1954. Still in print, and I’ve seen it in the devotional racks of Catholic bookshops, where prayer books and missals are kept. Major Catholic mail-order catalogs offer it.

It’s a small book, it can be read in one sitting, but I think that it is best if you use it as a daily meditation and read one chapter a day. This would give you time to savor, meditate on, and incorporate each chapter into your spiritual development.

It is divided into 3 parts. “Book One” is “The Way of Purification”, and is subdivided into “Conversion”, “After Conversion” and “Temptation”.

Book Two is “The Way of Imitation”, and is subdivided into “Following Jesus in Daily Life”, “Virtues Leading Directly to God”, “Man’s Relationship with Neighbor and Himself”, and “The Spiritual Combat”

Book Three is “The Way of Union”, and is subdivided into “Union Through the Holy Eucharist” and “Union Throughout the Day.”

The above gives you a very good idea as to the intensity, the scope and breadth of the book. It is intimate. Not as in small, but it takes you deep inside yourself and assists you in starting or continuing your conversion process. If you’ve been Catholic for a long while, it will help you to develop your Catholicism far more seriously, and far more deeply spiritual than it was before.

You will learn about the importance of the interior spiritual life, the need to become closer to God and to be obedient to the authentic teachings and legitimate authority of the Catholic Church, and how this is liberating, and not confining.

The book is basically a boot camp on getting your soul in order. It explains how adopting the proper perspective towards God, the Bible and His Church frees you from the narrow, limiting human way of thinking, which follows the passing fancies of the World. This helps you to understand God, the Bible and the Church better. Too many people approach them from a human point of view, this book helps you to adopt a God-centric perspective (as best as any human can do that).

My Daily Bread was key in my thinking that the Catholic Faith can and should take primacy in maintaining ones’ sobriety. The universality of the Church and Her teachings, along with her primary task of safeguarding the Gospel and Apostolic Truths, are driven home. Much of the Gospel is about healing, and peaceful, proper, holy living. No better textbook.

It was the first step that led me years later to start Sober Catholic.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

The healthy do not need a physician

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From the Gospel Reading for Saturday after Ash Wednesday:

Luke 5:27-32

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.
Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house,
and a large crowd of tax collectors
and others were at table with them.
The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying,
“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus said to them in reply,
“Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

The season of Lent is the season of repentance. Lent is probably the best time of the Church’s liturgical year for people to focus on the interior life of conversion. It is that time when we seek to identify those aspects of ourselves which demand improvement or shedding.

We cannot do this on our own. As recovered alcoholics we still suffer from the disease or disorder of alcoholism regardless of how long we’ve been sober. We need a physician, as does anyone who is sick. Jesus is the Divine Physician, He comes to minister to us.

Our alcoholic past produced much pain, both in ourselves and in others. In our recovery from alcohol we needed to clean up that past and to make amends. This process resulted in the healing of our self-inflicted wounds and maybe the wounds inflicted on others. This continuing process of amending our life produces the results of our recovery. We attend to our conversion process, we continue to grow and develop.

Jesus is our healer. He heals us when we petition Him, but does so in His own time, not ours. The duration spent in healing (the waiting I feel is a part of it) helps us to grow and develop our relationship with Him. We learn from our patience and from our suffering, and we carry this education in our dealings with others. Everyone is suffering in some way. Everyone is a wounded soul. The wise know this, the fools delude themselves.

As we come to terms with our past, we move forward and learn from our experiences and the pain caused. “We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.” (from Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 2001, pg 83). We have divorced our pain from the memories associated with the past actions, but we retain the experience. The memories push us forward into wanting a better future with others and with God than our past indicated. And so we repent.

“I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners,” Jesus says in John’s Gospel account. We are all sinners, but us alcoholics and addicts have perhaps been a little selfish in accepting and acting on that part of our nature. By repenting, we are truly sorrowful and contrite in our admission of our past actions. We turn to Jesus and beg forgiveness and continued healing. The graces from God are freely available in the sacrament of Confession. It is a sacrament of healing. Guilt is removed and you are restored.

Let the healing begin. Go to Confession.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Ash Wednesday-Lent begins

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Today marks the beginning of Lent. For the next 40 days (Sundays excluded) we prepare for the Passion of Christ (the trial, sentencing, Crucifixion and Death of Jesus , the Son of God).

Forty is a significant number in the Bible. It usually marks a time or period of trial or a passage through some thing to somewhere (symbolizing conversion). It rained on Noah and company for 40 days and nights. The Israelites wandered about the Sinai desert for 40 years. Elijah spent 40 days traveling to Mount Horeb from a spot in the desert outside Beersheba. Jesus went into the desert for 40 days and was tempted by Satan.

Fasting and abstinence marks the period of Lent. Catholics are bound by certain obligations regarding such. You can check with a priest to learn what they are (usually listed in the parish bulletin) or you can go to the EWTN website in the sidebar, click on “Lenten Reflections” and then click on “Fast and Abstinence”. Trying to link to it in yesterday’s post caused me much trouble and made me lose the post.

Anyway, fasting involves not eating. There’s more to it that just that. When a Christian fasts, they are linking the act to prayer. Their sufferings of the fast are being offered up to God as a sacrifice. This transcends ordinary prayer, which is powerful, but as you are linking a physical act to the prayer, it is more poignant. God hears all prayers, but the prayer of fasting rings through more clearly and is an acceptable offering pleasing to Him.

Abstinence involves not eating meat. Again, like fasting, abstinence involves much more than the Lenten regulations. The forsaking of something and offering it up as a prayer assists you in detaching yourself from worldly concerns and desires. It liberates your mind to dwell more deeply in God’s Truths, eschewing merely human concerns. Abstinence is the “What are you giving up for Lent?” question. But you do not have to just “give up” something. You can take on additional tasks. Increased prayer and meditation, especially on the Lord’s Passion are fruitful, as well as doing things for others. By doing things for others, it can be said that you are abstaining from the self.

Lent is also and excellent time to start work (or continue) on ridding yourself of character defects and personality problems. What better time to focus on and accelerate your conversion than the season of Lent? It’s perfect, because you are not alone on the journey. Other Catholics are along as well.

Have a productive Lent.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Accepting the Cross

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From the Gospel reading for Friday, February 16:

Mark 8:34-38

Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the Gospel will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
What could one give in exchange for his life?
Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words
in this faithless and sinful generation,
the Son of Man will be ashamed of
when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

The life of the Christian is not intended to be easy. No special material or other worldly favors are granted those who are followers of Jesus. As the above Scriptural passage indicates Christians are expected to accept the cross of Jesus and and all the contradictions that go with it. “Lose life to save it…” and so on. Christ died on the Cross and saved us from damnation, we must “die on the cross” to free ourselves from our worldly orientation which says “Suffering is bad. Flee from it any way you can.”

We can see the parallels in our suffering from alcoholism. We turned away from the troubles of life, to ease our pain from them, by seeking medication in alcohol. This did not make our troubles any easier, or make them go away. It appeared so at first, because like normal drinkers who can use alcohol to “take the edge off”, we also found things soothing at first. But not for long.

To be a Christian means to accept suffering. One cannot avoid it, it is a natural part of human existence because of Original Sin. To avoid it only makes it worse. We need to recognize this and make a turnaround in our approach to suffering.

By accepting the cross, that is, to accept suffering as a part of our lives means to allow Jesus to assist us. By resisting suffering, we refuse Jesus’ help. We become one with Him, when we take up His cross. He becomes to us what Simon of Cyrene was to Him, a person pressed into service to bear the weight of suffering.

By turning into it, instead of fleeing, the trials and tribulations of life seem lesser. They aren’t, but by fleeing from them our perception of them makes them seem scarier. By turning into them and acccepting them, they are cut down to size.

This is not easy. We are like an ocean liner or oil tanker which takes miles of travel before turning. But eventually, and with persistence, it will work.

There will be backsliding. Times when things seem too much and we scream “ENOUGH!” But if we have the fortitude, we’ll recognize these for what they are and orient ourselves properly.

All this does not mean that we seek out suffering. We do not become masochists and take pleasure in it. We simply humbly accept whatever burdens come our way, acknowledge them and work through them. We roll up our sleeves and say “This pretty much sucks, but complaining about isn’t gonna help.”

In a way, we become martyrs, but without all the blood. That part of ourselves which yells “Run away! Run away!!” becomes quieter, and we become stronger, more able to overcome.

Face the monster of suffering. Make it shrink.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Selfishness – self centeredness!

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“Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root or our troubles.” (from Alcoholics Anonymous , 4th Edition, 2001, page 62.) The paragraph details further aspects of this, namely self-delusion, self-seeking and self-pity. Another section of the basic text of AA talks about alcoholism as “self-will run riot”. (I can’t find the page, sorry.)

I think the key word in the above paragraph is “self.” Alcoholism can be a world view turned inward upon the self. We alcoholics have certain problems with the world. It is not ordered according to our liking and God did not consult us. Therefore we turn our backs on the world in a selfish manner and seek to recreate it in the fantasies aided by alcohol. This increases our isolation from the world and escalates our negative attitude towards it. The world is an even more unfair.

One thing that AA teaches is that in recovery we have to change how we react to things. Since our worldview was messed up to begin with we reacted in a way in keeping with our delusional, fantastic interpretation. If the world is against us everything is sucked in through that filter. We react in a way that mirrors the world’s perceived hostility. And the world get more hostile.

Therefore we need to change how we react to things. The world is just there. It is indifferent to us, although we are an important part of it. (Hence Jesus’ Death and Resurrection) People do not go around plotting ways to cause our demise or tick us off, although many times it seems that way. Through a slow process of conversion initiated by whatever got us to stop drinking, we gradually begin to reprogram ourselves and change how we interpret the world and what it does. Our recovery starts with an admission of our powerlessness over that which brought us solace (and others pain).

As we continue down this path or recovery, we gradually repair our relationships. Our physical, mental and finally our spiritual healing develops as we also repair our relationship with God and then others.

We can continue this outward sign of our recovery by a further giving of ourselves in service and volunteering. I wrote about this a few days ago. When we give of ourselves without expecting anything in return we enhance that healing and the world looks different. You begin to feel and sense joy.

This is not an overnight happening. It takes time and courage to keep going this route. But the giving of oneself, in a sense almost a sacrificial offering, is a saving act. We are bringing ourselves closer to God. We cannot save ourselves in the sense of meriting heaven by our own efforts, but we can open ourselves to God’s graces by being in service to our community.

The Church teaches that God never sends anyone to Hell. Hell is chosen by those who reject God. Their rejection is so total because they are consumed entirely by the self. There was no room in them for genuine love and sacrifice.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Here I am, send me!!

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An excerpt from the First Reading from today’s Mass on the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time:

Isaiah 6:5-8
Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

He touched my mouth with it. “See,” he said, “now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” “Here I am,” I said; “send me!”

The Twelfth Step of AA reads: “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.”

We were doomed, with unclean lips, unworthy due to our alcoholism (it seemed to us). Yet as a result of our conversion, our recovery from alcohol, our wickedness has been removed (so to speak) and our sin purged.

Now anew, “new wineskins” receiving the “new wine” of the Gospel, are we prepared to seek out and carry out this message of redemption? That no matter what our past, we are now qualified by those experiences to bring the message to those who still suffer? And are we knowledgeable enough about our Catholic Faith to use it in bringing forth the fullness of Gospel and Apostolic truth that is the Catholic Church?

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Christian recovery websites and blogs. Almost all are Evangelical or non-denominational. That is one reason I started Sober Catholic.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Love is…

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1 Corinthians 13:4-8 “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

This was taken from the Second Reading from today’s Mass, the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Take out the word “Love”. Substitute the name “Jesus” in its place.

We are Christian. We are to “put on Christ”, in other words, to be like Him. Now read that passage with Jesus’ name substituted for love. That is what we ideally aspire to.

Now go back to the original reading. Again take out the word “Love”, but this time substitute your name in its place. How far from the ideal do you feel?

Yeah, me too.

That is the destination of the lifelong conversion process we are on. That is the happy destiny we trudge towards.

(Anonymous thanks to my priest for my adoption of a portion of his homily for today. 🙂 )

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Apostle (2007)

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Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the Apostle. As a result of his conversion, in a rather direct and not-too-subtle manner, he went from being a persecutor of the followers of Christ to being their leading apologist (defender) and evangelist. Christianity was largely shaped by his efforts to spread it beyond Jewish communities and into Gentile (non-Jewish) lands.

What does this mean to us sober Catholics? Paul, previously known as Saul, lived a life fixed on a certain course. He was firm in his convictions, even though they were at odds with God. Despite the fact that he was essentially a faithful Jew practicing and defending his faith from what he perceived to be a threat to it, his life was going contrary to what God had desired for it. God could have raised up a Jewish convert to Christianity to spread the Word. Someone without Paul’s baggage of Christian-bashing. But no, God instead chose someone with a known reputation for doing wrong to the Church to instead be its chief protagonist.

In AA’s Step Three we are learn that we must turn our will and our lives over to the care of God (as we understand Him). Paul did that. (Incidentally, Scripture records that Paul’s conversion was during his vision of a white light. See the readings from the Acts of the Apostles for today: Acts 22:3-16 or Acts 9:1-22. The basic text of AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, also records that AA’s co-founder, Bill Wilson, describes a “white light experience” as a starting point for his conversion towards a sober life. Not implying a direct connection or comparison between the 2 events or men, but it’s an interesting point to ponder.) Paul lived a life of his own will, carrying out his own agenda, an ultimately was met with a Will greater than his own, and he surrendered. Again, not drawing any moral comparison between Paul’s pre-conversion life as a Jew and the life of a practicing alcoholic, but the similarity is in the direction of will, and its orientation to God. Paul’s will was his own, until God intervened. Then Paul surrendered and proceeded to carry out the Will of God. Paul’s life was no longer his own, but God’s. He gave it back and did God’s Will.

As sober Catholics, presumably by the grace of God through some conversion experience that led us towards the sober path, our lives are no longer our own. (No life really belongs to the person who holds it, all life belongs to God, the difference is whether you recognize and acknowledge this. This is the beginnings of humility.) As Paul was on the road to Damascus with a subpoena for the city’s Jewish Christians, we were on our own road. Paul’s intended destination had an original intent, as was the practicing alcoholic’s. Through a conversion experience, the road may essentially be the same, (but re-paved?) but the destination is different.

AA’s Step 12 reads “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.” Like Paul, we had a spiritual awakening. Like Paul, our destination is different. And like Paul, we may be needed to carry this message to other alcoholics. And more so like Paul, we may be needed to carry out the Catholic Church’s message to people who suffer from alcoholism and addictions. Many newly sober people end up in AA or alternative sobriety programs and stop there. They abandon the Faith of their youth because the message of the program seems sufficient. Or they just pay it a certain amount of lip service. The program is their way of life, Church is just flavoring.

It shouldn’t be like that and that is what this blog is about, to show Catholics who are struggling with alcoholism, (or maybe defeated it years ago) what their Faith can offer to maintain and safeguard their sobriety. The Catholic Christian Faith can and should be the primary tool for one’s sobriety. AA or the alternatives can serve in their capacity to directly address the affliction. The Faith can serve as an all-encompassing way of life, in which alcohol and other addictions simply have no place, and are not even a regular consideration. No more “struggling with alcoholism” or “struggling with sobriety”, in which the need to attend numerous meetings a day/week/month are needed to cope. A way of life in which alcohol, or the avoidance of it, is not on the agenda. Maybe on occasion it is considered, in weakness or in times of stress and anxiety, but not in the normal course of coping. “I didn’t feel the need to have a drink today” is often stated at meetings as a preamble to a member’s sharing. Why would I even need to think I might have needed one? Or to declare it? Aside from the occasional brief passing thought, it should eventually be a non-issue.

That, to me, is what recovery is about. To recover a life that might have been had one not picked up that drink, (or had not been made an alcoholic. I won’t bother with discussing the origins of addiction, as it’s beyond the scope of this blog.) To give back to the program for its initial early help is grand, but to maintain that for years to come is in my opinion misplaced direction. The model for AA (and maybe other programs) can be newly sober (or sobering) people can join, stay for few years and leave, to be replaced by additional newcomers. To counter any arguments that this would leave AA bereft of experienced members and thus be dominated by people in early sobriety, I would point out that when Alcoholics Anonymous was first published in 1939, it was written by AA’s first members, none of whom was sober for more than 4 years. Not bad for a bunch of ex-drunks in “early sobriety”.

See you on the road to Damascus.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

New wine

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Mark 2:21-22 “No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”

This is a call to conversion. And for recovered or recovering alcoholics an interesting one to consider what with the wine metaphor.

Nevertheless, as alcoholics who seek out the message of Christ as revealed through the Bible and His Church, we are the new wineskins. We now receive the message of Christ that we didn’t hear before, or heard somewhat disconnectedly. We cannot receive as our old selves, we have to cast off that old cloak, that old wineskin if we are to receive.

We may initially use the 12 Steps of AA to identify what was wrong or flawed before, and then rid ourselves of our defects, either through prayer and meditation or through effective work with the Steps and with other alcoholics. Nevertheless, after a fashion we stand ready to take the Gospel and live it as we did not previously.

Whereas before we loved alcohol and sought its charms in relieving us of our troubles, we now turn instead to Christ and His Church and use them as our refuge. We no longer run from our troubles and towards the bottle to feel better, we instead run to Jesus and the sacraments with our troubles to find relief.

We react to things as Christians, and not as frightened beings, unable to deal effectively with our lives. The new wine transforms us.

This takes time, but the journey helps us to know ourselves much more intimately than we otherwise could.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Reconciliation

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From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1422 Those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from God’s mercy for the offense committed against him, and are, at the same time, reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by their sins and which by charity, by example, and by prayer labors for their conversion.”


1423 It is called the sacrament of conversion because it makes sacramentally present Jesus’ call to conversion, the first step in returning to the Father from whom one has strayed by sin.
It is called the sacrament of Penance, since it consecrates the Christian sinner’s personal and ecclesial steps of conversion, penance, and satisfaction.


1424 It is called the sacrament of confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament. In a profound sense it is also a “confession” – acknowledgment and praise – of the holiness of God and of his mercy toward sinful man.
It is called the sacrament of forgiveness, since by the priest’s sacramental absolution God grants the penitent “pardon and peace.” It is called the sacrament of Reconciliation, because it imparts to the sinner the live of God who reconciles: “Be reconciled to God.” He who lives by God’s merciful love is ready to respond to the Lord’s call: “Go; first be reconciled to your brother.”


We sin. We turn away from God. We use things intended for good in a bad way, or in a manner for which they were not prescribed. Whether it is a person, a place, or a thing, the way in which we use them can be for good or for ill. In choosing to do ill, we sin.

A relationship has been harmed. Our relationship with God, because we turned away from Him; with His Church because we violated Her precepts and rules, and with others because when we sin, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ, when one part is sick, the Body is wounded.

As alcoholics we have harmed ourselves by abusing our bodies and minds with liquor. We have harmed ourselves spiritually, mentally and physically. There is nothing moral or immoral about alcohol, it is a substance that can be used for pleasure and conviviality if not abused. The use of it can be immoral if that use is contrary to the intent. Something which can be pleasurable in the company of others becomes an exercise in selfishness when used in excess. Because in excess we are seeking to pleasure ourselves in a manner that is irresponsible.

In our drinking we have harmed others, whether family, friends, co-workers and employers. Relationships need to be healed and that will take time. Trust cannot be built quickly, it has to be earned over time. But the primary relationship that needs to be healed is with God.

In coming to Confession we acknowledge our sinful nature, our sins, and our humility. We go to a priest not just because it is required, but because the priest, acting in the person of Christ, is the only person that God can work through in the remission of the harmful effects of the sin to one’s self.

One can confess directly to God, but inasmuch that is a prayer, there is no guarantee that the prayer is answered to the penitent’s satisfaction. No absolution of sins is given with surety, and no penance is granted. It is much like committing a crime, then confessing one’s guilt to the judge, and then sentencing oneself. Only through the priest will one receive absolution and penance, and the sacramental graces that heals the soul harmed by sin.

Even 12 Step Programs acknowledge the need to go to another in confessing the misdeeds of the past. Step Five is “We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs”. Perhaps in admitting to another person our sins or misdeeds we are not just facing someone else with our wrongs, but facing our wrongs themselves, and acknowledging the harm they’ve done. Once we admit and recognize that, we are on the road to our healing. The sacramental graces strengthen our conversion and assist us in getting closer to God, and to others. Where were were spiritually sick, we are now healing.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)