How many times do you lay awake at night wondering if your child is OK because you know they’re out there in the madness of addiction?

How often do you feel like all hope is gone and you will never have the person in your life as they once were, before addiction grabbed hold of them?

How many times have you had to eject a loved one from your life because of their choice to put drugs above and beyond anything else in their lives?

And how many times have you come to the conclusion that your loved one doesn’t love or care for you or their other family and friends at all, because their actions and words, in active addiction, show their heart is gone?

How many tears have you cried? How many night’s sleep have you lost? How many times have you felt like you have been robbed of life’s greatest moments due to a loved one’s addiction to drugs or alcohol?

And finally, how many of you have had to bury a loved one whose life was taken by a ravaging addiction? Do you ever think — this is not fair? This is not just? Was it all deserved? What part did you play or what part could you have done differently?

Truth is, most likely, you couldn’t have changed the path that was laid before you or the loved one who was/is in addiction. Some things are just the way they are, and no matter what we see others do or become in addiction or alcoholism, there is/or was nothing we could have done to change the behavior or actions of those addicts or alcoholics we loved or still love today.

The only thing I know, the only thing I can see, from a recovering addict’s view and frame of mind, is that it takes a spiritual experience and a spiritual awakening to change the addict’s or alcoholic’s state of mind, and even their entire state of being.

I was raised in a Christian home, by loving parents who were actively involved in a loving, God-ordained church. After going to church as an adult and trying my best to live a Christian life at different points in my life and after thousands of prayers, asking God to change me, take drugs from me, or end my life altogether, I still couldn’t truly grasp the idea of the spiritual existence of God, much less connect with Him on a level that you can actually feel in your heart.

Yes, I know in those times of not using, God was there with me, and was the one responsible for those moments of clean and sober living.

God does work miracles; I believe in ways of instant healing in many. In my life, however, I wasn’t one He chose to heal with the breeze of the wind or the snap of His fingers. For me, it took learning and practicing a 12-step program to even connect with God.

The 12-step programs are in many folks’ opinion a complete waste of time, but how can anything, if honestly worked, that leads to actual spiritual enlightenment and growth, be a waste of time?

How can we say that if you choose to live right you will be fine? How can we say that to people who don’t even know how to connect to a higher power?

Even if you can connect with God and find a more peaceful and spiritual serenity by the means and methods that work for you, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work for others the same way. Many times it’s just not possible.

An addict has to want a new way of life all on their own, for themselves. I wanted it, but couldn’t attain it on my own. I had to be forced into treatment where I could begin to learn how to work a program and plan which led me to spiritual experiences and now a spiritual awakening.

I had been drug free for as many as two years at a time, but always craved that which I was addicted to, so I would pray and ask God, how can I possibly stay clean for the rest of my life with such extreme cravings?

I see now, what I felt deep down then but couldn’t see. I’m OK with that. Today I don’t think about yesterday or all the yesterdays before. My only focus is on this day. What comes tomorrow will come. Tomorrow, if I wake at all, I will work on what needs to be done then.

It is often said by believers that if it’s not a faith-based treatment center it won’t work. Your beliefs about trying to get your loved ones into treatment should never be based on: Do they teach the Bible? Do they go to church? Do they believe in God?

The 12-step programs are designed to help folks like me, who cannot comprehend a real spiritual connection with a higher power (God), or how to truly obtain that connection with Him on their own, because there is no known cure for what addicts and alcoholics are dealing with. There is only treatment. Treatment that is based on the spirituality of a higher power. Treatment that actually guides, step by step, a way and means to reach that higher power.

A recovering addict,

Phillip Lee