Category Archives: Musings

A Spiritual Axiom: a Disturbance of the Spirit

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A few years ago while in very early recovery I had the time to spend getting deep into the 12 & 12 and culling from it what I could. (The “12 and 12” is a book of essays on the Twelve Steps of AA: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1981)

While going through the chapter on Step Ten, which is:

“Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it”,

there is this line on page 90, which is often quoted in AA meetings:

“It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us.”

Lynn, over at Addictions / Trust God – Clean House – Help Others wrote an interesting post on this “Spiritual Axiom”. She asked me to write about it but I had to take a break after my Our Lady of Lourdes Novena for Alcoholics (novenas tire me out) so I’m taking up her request now. Here goes!

To me, what is “wrong” is the disturbance. It is wrong inasmuch as the hurt gets us “off the beam”. We’re hurt, in pain, suffering and emotional. This is the “wrong”. It is not wrong as in “error”, but wrong as in “imperfect” and lacking serenity.

There are two more quotes from page 90 which I think support my point:

If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also.

And…

Few people have been victimized by resentments than have we alcoholics. It mattered little whether our resentments were justified or not. A burst of temper could spoil a day, and a well-nursed grudge could make us miserably ineffective. Nor were we ever skillful in separating justified from unjustified anger. As we saw it, our wrath was always justified. Anger, that occasional luxury of more balanced people, could keep us on an emotional jag indefinitely. These emotional “dry benders” often led straight to the bottle. Other kinds of disturbances – jealousy, envy, self-pity, or hurt pride, often did the same thing.

Therefore, the disturbance, whether it be jealousy or resentment and so on, is what is wrong. This disturbance has the potential to lead us back to drinking as we seek an immediate solution.

I took a day to ponder this, thinking perhaps like many alcoholics in recovery after having read that axiom, that we are what is wrong. We are the problem. Not so. Although we are imperfect beings, this disturbance introduces into our interior life an additional imperfection, one that may be very temporary although very dangerous. This axiom tells us that the external disturbance is the focus of our spiritual progression in recovery and that our reaction to it lies in recognizing it and dealing with it in a sober manner. This removes the disturbance and restores us to health.

Reciting the Serenity Prayer may help in coping with the problem. The entire prayer is posted here, not just the first part that most people know:

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.

Amen.

–Reinhold Niebuhr

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!!)

Death as a passage

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What do you think of death? Is it something to be feared, avoided and denied? Like many people do you ignore it and hope it never bothers you?

I have had a relationship with death stretching back to my childhood. Not that I lost anyone close to me during that time, but I feared that I would. My Mom had celebrated her 47th birthday 11 days before I was born. Dad turned 50 a few months before. I thought nothing of that until I went to school at age 5. At school events (choir, plays, etc.) I noticed right away that the other kid’s parents seemed different. I discovered that they were younger. They were farther away from death than my parents were. Death… as in going away permanently. I didn’t much like that. I was convinced that at any time Mom and Dad were going to die. I developed the habit of checking their chests while they were napping to see if they were breathing. This continued long after I reached adulthood during vacations home and after I returned home to care for Mom.

My adult experience of death has been defined by my Mom’s dying in November 2005, and the subsequent griefwork (grief counseling, namely online discussion forums, in person counseling and grief support groups.) After the initial period which lasted well over a year, I developed the notion that death isn’t something to be feared. Sure, I would rather have my Mom and other loved ones still around, but as I moved past the pain and agony of the loss, I was able to see and understand the “Communion of Saints” doctrine of the Church as something of a comfort. This great “cloud of witnesses” that St. Paul writes about in Hebrews 12 may include our beloved dead, gone on before us. They form a part of the Church along with us. Those in Heaven being members of the Church Triumphant, while we still on Earth as a part of the Church Militant. Together with the Church Suffering (those souls in Purgatory) we all comprise the Mystical Body of Christ. We are all members of a community of believers, and as a community can still have a relational bond.

Through prayer and devotion to the deceased, we can still maintain our relationships with them. They are not completely gone. We obviously cannot interact with them as we once did, but it is uncharitable and cynical to regard them as forgotten or “gone”. They are just beyond from where we are.

Therefore, death ceases to be a means by which our beloved are taken away and are gone. Death becomes a passage through which our beloved experience the joy of entering into the presence of God, the domain of eternity where He is.

Ultimately it is a passage that we need to think about and meditate upon. Unlike most times where we focus upon the destination rather than the road, this passage is significant unto itself. Everyone will experience it. Regardless of what you believe happens after death, it is universal. Happens to everyone. This means you. Whether the passage of death leads one to Heaven or Hell depends upon the choices we make while alive. Therefore death as a passage forces this consideration of our daily living. How do we live? How are you “trudging the Road of Happy Destiny?” Catholic teaching puts that AA slogan in a new light.

If your attention is focused upon Heaven, and you consciously yearn for that place which is our true home, the death is to be welcomed and not feared. Perhaps not desired, but certainly not looked upon with dread.

It is our way home.

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!!)

Deadly Sin

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There is a death beyond which you cannot imagine. There is a thing which can kill you forever and from which there is no relief.

That thing is mortal sin.

Mortal sin is that sin in which you cut yourself off from God completely, from which there is no eternal life if you die with it on your soul. You condemn yourself to Hell for all eternity.

1 John 5:16-17;

If anyone sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly, he should pray to God and he will give him life.

This is only for those whose sin is not deadly. There is such a thing as deadly sin, about which I do not say that you should pray.

All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses mortal sin at length in the following paragraphs:

1855
Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.

Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.

1856
Mortal sin, by attacking the vital principle within us—that is, charity—necessitates a new initiative of God’s mercy and a conversion of heart which is normally accomplished within the setting of the sacrament of reconciliation:

When the will sets itself upon something that is of its nature incompatible with the charity that orients man toward his ultimate end, then the sin is mortal by its very object . . . whether it contradicts the love of God, such as blasphemy or perjury, or the love of neighbor, such as homicide or adultery. . . . But when the sinner’s will is set upon something that of its nature involves a disorder, but is not opposed to the love of God and neighbor, such as thoughtless chatter or immoderate laughter and the like, such sins are venial.

1857
For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”

1858
Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: “Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother.” The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.

1859
Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

1860
Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest.

1861
Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.

I write about this as there is the real possibility of mortal sins having been committed in our alcoholic past. Granted that there is a serious mitigating factor in that our will was compromised by our addiction, but still our moral reasoning may be in need of correction after sobering up. A strong examination of our alcoholic past in our moral inventory is likely to turn up some unsavory behaviors. Exposing them to another in 12 Step work isn’t enough. It does help clear the past and set us on a straighter moral path, but the stain of sin remains from these past actions.

These need to be taken care of in our return to the Sacrament of Confession. The chance need not be risked that our alcoholism or any other addiction can be used as an excuse to avoid Confession.

Supposition that we’ve suffered enough from them is not good enough, we need the sacramental graces from Confession and the absolution cleansing our soul to save us from damnation.

Our eternal life depends upon it.

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!!)

Happiness from People, Places and Things

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A realization came to me at work some time ago (I think last summer, 2008). It was a bad day at work, and I was wondering about why we have to endure certain things. I know I’ve written a great number of times about the need to accept suffering as evidence of our willingness to follow Christ, but at times I still wonder about happiness, and its place in our lives.

I think that happiness is illusory, we cannot depend upon others too much for our happiness, and if we look inward we become self-indulgent and then block out other people. Places change. The things of this world are passing, we cannot depend upon them either.

People come and go, the things of this world fade away, too. Some people stay with you for a long time, but they are a minority.

Places deteriorate, or you have to leave them for other places.

Things that the world offers are definitely not a source of happiness, at least not long-term healthy kind. They tend to take you away from God and the spiritual.

The only true source of happiness comes from following God’s will as best as one can discern it and following that will to Heaven, our true and eternal home.

It is sometimes necessary then for Christians to be “disconnected” from the world, to be “in the world”, but not “of it”. We participate in it, but realize that it is only a way station, and not a place of permanence.

This is what Sacred Scripture and The Catholic Church teaches. And this is why the Catholic faith was very instrumental in helping me overcome my alcoholism. I, like many other alcoholics, sought out people, places and things to satisfy a need. When we drank, it seemed that these illusory and transitory things were permanent.

Matthew 6:33: “…seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.“

(Via USCCB.)</p

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!!)

Purpose behind God's love

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One thing that has gotten me through trials, at least since sobering up, is that God has a purpose for me. I am reminded of this passage from Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 1:5

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.

Atheists and skeptics generally believe that we got here by random chance. How horrible, no wonder they usually sound angry and anxious.

Anyway, as a believer I know that God has a purpose for me. This may be a response to depression and anxiety, at least I hope it is.

Since I do not believe that God operates by random chance, and that things are brought into being for a reason, I think that when the day is dark and I am feeling out of sorts, I am going to remind myself that the Almighty God of creation didn’t create me in a moment of whimsy, but He had a reason for me. This is what the Catholic Faith has taught me. We are not the result of random chance. We are the result of a Divine decision.

No matter what garbage may be tossed my way, I have to remind myself of this.

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!!)

Enduring suffering

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As I had mentioned in a previous post about This too shall pass , I had gone through some trials at work for much of last summer (2008). It had gotten somewhat better when I realized that others were basically treated as I am, I perhaps worse as I was new and had struggled a bit more. Anyway, what I have gleaned from all this is the acceptance of enduring.

I endured all that. I have four 10 hour shifts every week. I had gotten stronger as a result of patiently enduring all the nonsense I was going through. Quietly putting up with all the stuff has enabled me to appreciate other people’s suffering and made me more tolerant of other’s flaws and faults. Not that I was indifferent to them, but perhaps God needed to sharpen that aspect of my personality.

As a Catholic Christian who longs for going to my true home, Heaven, this has also helped me cope with my Earthly exile.

Trials and suffering strengthen us. As we succeed in coping with these events, we are better equipped to deal with greater issues as we progress along in life (“trudge the Road of Happy Destiny”). All life is suffering interspersed with moments of happiness, joy, wonder and beauty. Those are a foretaste of Heaven.

Enduring can be likened to forging steel. It is tempered to the precise strength needed to do its purpose, whether to form part of a building or to aid in battle as a sword.

This may seem as if I am boasting, but it is not. I went through no small amount of pain, and survived. Just passing along personal experience.

If I accept suffering and patiently endure it, I can be a strong edifice or battle weapon for doing God’s will.

Pray we all succeed in this.

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!!)

A sense of balance

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When one area of my life is out of whack I have found it important to have something useful to serve as a kind of counterweight to it.

Having a life outside one’s job (for example) provides a sense of balance. When we work full-time we have a sense of displacement in our lives. Work occupies so much of our time that the things outside it like family and home are often shoved to the margins or ignored or otherwise given second-rate status. The need to provide income to support the family gets in the way of fully realizing what is truly important, and that is the family and home you are working to support.

Not rejecting the importance of providing for the family, there must be a realization that something must be done to restore a certain sense of balance to the whole equation. Time must be carved out of whatever “free time” you have off from work so as to devote to family and home.

Why is this important? Because when all this is out of whack, there lies the path back to drinking. An easy way to cope with the stress and anxiety is to drink. Bad idea.

Eliminate distracting non-essentials. Television really isn’t that important. It isn’t quality time spent with family. (Perhaps the occasional movie or ballgame being an exception. I also make room for the Star Trek sagas, but I actually haven’t seen them in over 2 1/2 years due to not having cable TV or satellite.The DVD’s are too expensive.) Anyway, a productive and meaningful life outside of work is healthy and sober. I am married and my wife is cute, funny and intelligent. Way more fun than TV. We spend lots of time outside putting gardens in or touring the countryside. We “go outside to get outside.”

I also blog. Writing is an avocation for me and it helps me improve my sense of self-worth. I hope to eventually do it full-time (blogging and fiction writing). At any rate, all these do provide an effective counterweight to work. Not always 100% effective, but more certain than moping and zoning out in front of the TV. Or drinking.

I am also Catholic. My faith is important to me and it has helped me weather many storms since becoming sober. It provides fulfillment and a healthy disconnect from the ways of the world so that I am not sucked into its madness and silliness. I am in the world, but not of it. Jesus came to heal the sick, and His Church is one of healing. The Eucharist and Confession are excellent ways to clean up the wreckage of the past. The sacramental and prayer life of the Church are also wonderful ways of maintaining that sense of balance. Nothing like raising your heart, mind and soul up to God to gain a real perspective.

“This, too, shall pass.” Only if you’re moving along.

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 Road of Happy Destiny

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The title of this post is in reference to a line in page 164 of AA’s “Big Book”, (a/k/a Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th edition, New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 2001). It reads:

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past… We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny. I’ve always liked that line about the Road. It’s mentioned a lot in AA meetings. I like its imagery of the path of sobriety being an ongoing one with a destination, and that recovery and conversion are lifelong events.

It has helped me to learn that answers to problems do not arrive quickly, that as slowly problems develop, so do their resolutions. Life is a road, there are potholes and you get around them.

The “Happy Destiny” part helps me to raise my head up and know that the race isn’t won with just not drinking. We will die someday and what happens next is something to think about. It is why my Catholicism is indispensable to me. Catholicism liberates you from the constraints of contemporary times.

The “here and now” is fleeting. We are all meant for something better, both now and for all eternity.

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!!)

Came to believe

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A few Sundays ago there was this Gospel reading at Mass:

John 2:13-22: “Since the Passover of the Jews was near,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money-changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money-changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
‘Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.’
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
At this the Jews answered and said to him,
‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’
Jesus answered and said to them,
‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’
The Jews said,
‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and you will raise it up in three days?’
But he was speaking about the temple of his Body.
Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this,
and they came to believe the Scripture“

(Via USCCB.)

The phrase “came to believe” jumped out at me and made me think of the Second Step of recovery movements:

“Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

Both the disciple’s and an alcoholic’s “coming to believe” happen after some seismic event in their lives. The disciples had to witness Jesus’ resurrection to come to believe in His divinity and the Scriptural basis for His being, and the alcoholic had to fundamentally declare his or her own weakness about their addiction before “coming to believe” that God can effect change in their lives. For the disciples faith was the result, for an addict it is sanity.

Some may have a hard time reconciling faith with sanity, for faith is belief in the unknowable, and only crazy people believe in things unseen by any method. Maybe for us alcoholics in recovery it is not such a difficult thing. Our experience in recovery gives us an insight into the situations that are otherwise unexplainable, except by faith. Our ability to cope with this (or relish this) implies a sanity.

Where are you in “coming to believe?”

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!!)

Our Lady of the Rosary: year in review reflection

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Today was the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. That link is a post I wrote last year.

It has been quite a year for me since that post. In that year I relocated to a new city to be closer to my then-girlfriend (after commuting weekly 360 miles/580 km round-trip for nearly 2 months), took a low-paying part-time job just to be near her, got a new job a few months later – just before the actual wedding, and endured a lot of change and trials on that job these past 8 months on it. I proposed to her 10 months ago today on the Vigil of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Rose said “Yes” but made me propose again the next day as she felt it was more proper to do so on the day of the feast instead. Women… (!!!). ) All in all, a new life, and a year that most people would have taken several years to live out. No boasting, just a lot of life development and such all packed in to one year, that others would have experienced over a longer period.

A strong faith and strong sobriety was key in my surviving this past year. There was much that could have undermined my sobriety, ask any long-term member of a 12 Step group and they would have said something about too much change too soon. Change, or big change and a lot of it, isn’t good for any recovered/recovering alcoholic. Having something worthwhile to achieve (like a great lady) helps.

From Romans 12:12: “Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.”

(Via USCCB.)

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!!)