The Art of Consciously Healing Our Addictions

Step 1 To be responsible and honest with ourselves is the first step in the precious gift of self-growth. Let us not confuse responsibility with guilt. The first step of our healing is to recognize that we are powerless. Although we do not need to be completely honest with any part of our external realities, we definitely need to be entirely and brutally honest with ourselves. We need to admit and accept the image of who we are in this moment of our existence. This recognition is essential in the dismantling of the confusion and darkness that is present in our addictions. Let us be responsible without being guilty by responding, recognizing, admitting, and accepting our confusion and darkness. There is nothing bad and there is nothing good, no adjective, and no comparison. That is the way it is. To have a deep understanding that we are powerless creates a magical awareness that helps us restore our power and our capacity to be powerful. We discover more power in ourselves when we recognize that we are powerless and our lives have become out of control. We do not necessarily need validation or recognition of our powerlessness from any part of our external reality, but we definitely need to understanding of our own weaknesses. We honestly need to accept and understand that we have relinquished our power to the object of our addictions. Unfortunately, addictions alienate us with the illusion that we are going to recover our sanity through the continued relationship with the object through which we choose to release our distress. The automatic repetition and continuation of these ill relationships are at the core of our powerlessness. Unless we honestly open ourselves up and admit our powerlessness to the addiction, our healing is not possible. Our responsibility is primordial to our healing. Taking responsibility is to admit and to respond to our challenges and our hurdles. Unless we become responsible, we will not be in charge and our powerlessness will follow. In the addiction, we cannot find our responsibility, but because of the addiction, we can feel the necessity and the right to regain our responsibility and our power. Unless we become responsible, we will not be able to be in touch with our beautiful true reality that is spiritual in nature. Throughout all the teachings of the twelve steps, there is implicit core knowledge of spirituality, self-responsibility, and self-understanding, that the awakening of our spiritual natures is primordial in the restoration of our health. I continuously state in my two previous books and to my patients that we are created in God’s image. In other words, we are an image of God, and in that image, all the possibilities are not only happening now, but they have also already happened and will continue to happen. We are part of all these possibilities, and our imagination is continuously conspiring to find and to own the true power of ourselves and the magical creation of our realities. We need to be more responsible for the healing of our own self-images. We are in the process of continuously rediscovering ourselves. We are in the process of continuously finding easier and more comfortable realities. The addictions are one of the many challenges that we place on ourselves as nightmares that only serve to help us to understand who we are, where we came from, and where are we going. Within the first step, our need for forgiveness is implicitly established. We will talk more about this through the course of my comments on the twelve steps. For now, it is important to recognize that we are continuously changing, the more we are aware of our changes, the more we take responsibility, and the more we can recognize our imperfections. For now, it is important to recognize that the heaviness and uncomfortable repetitive patterns of thinking, feeling, and behavior are part of the memories of the past that we need to release. Later on, when we find our freedom, we will be able to be more comfortable with responsible for what we created and actually happened to us. Responsibility is essential to our healing, to our well-being, to our self-growth, and to our enlightenment. Responsibility is essential for us to find the fun and success in our realities. It is essential for us to have the right to be responsible. During the following chapters, I will have more to say about the need to respond consciously to our experiences. Always remember that fear and guilt is not part of the freedom that we are looking for. Instead, dignity and hope will be the pillars of our realities if we take responsibility for the reprograming of our selves.