I related and all my negative emotions retreated to source like a evening tide on a beach. I am not only fearful I have reacted to their arrival via shame based defence mechanisms and reactions. I am shamed and disgusted that my neighourhood has come to this. I am dismissive of them, intolerant, https://ecosoberhouse.com/ impatient and arrogant towards them. However, there seems to be a problem specifically with a patterned mesh of negative emotions which are activated when someone upsets me. I was drawing up a web of my emotional dysregulation, a route map of all the wrong ways to go, to emotional cul de sacs.

Even after someone is completely detoxed and has all alcohol or drugs removed from their body, they will still obsess about drinking or using. For me this is saying that out of my emotion dysregulation “stem all forms of spiritual disease”. What we used once to regulate negative emotions and a sense of self has eventually come to regulate our emotions to such an extent that any distress leads to the compulsive response of drinking. Alcoholics had become a compulsive disorder to relief distress not to induce pleasure.

What About God?

The common way to get this transformational change in your psyche is by doing the 12 Steps that are written in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. If you are an alcoholic, then you know you cannot just put the plug in the jug and quit. If it were as easy as not eating a peanut anymore, then you would have stopped long ago. Greater than the mind is reason; and greater than reason is He – the spirit in man and in all. What Power is it that drives a man to act sinfully, even unwillingly, as if powerlessly. …….I am working the 12 step again with the Guidance of BBA.com Group.

• After reading ‘The Doctor’s Opinion,’ ‘Bill’s Story,’ and ‘There is a Solution,’ in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, we came to an understanding that we have no control whatsoever over alcohol or drugs.
• First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure.
• On page 62 the text explains that“Selfishness-self-centeredness!
• Most active ingredients accounting for AA’s benefit are social in nature, such as attending meetings, and the 12 steps mention “we” 6 times but not “I” once.
• These core beliefs make it harder for us to connect with a god of our understanding.

Behavior become driven by defenses that function to keep from feeling bad. Reality becomes distorted to further protect the self from poor self esteem. The transfer of blame to someone else is an indicator of internal shame. I realised when doing my step 4 that that I had not previously been able to leave various supposed slights and abuses from my past in the past because I did not have the emotional maturity to look at these episodes reasonably and objectively. I had an argument with a guy once who suddenly proclaimed he was upset by what I had said. I was amazed as this guy was reading his emotions, identifying verbalising/expressing them to me in a way I have never been able to do.

thoughts on “The Spiritual Malady”

We are in a sense co-dependent on other people for our sense of esteem. We rely on others in terms of how we feel about ourselves. A decade of therapy also showed Bill Wilson he has two default settings in his relationship to other human beings – he either tried to dominate them or he became dependent on them for his sense of self and emotional well being. In other words, spiritual malady he became dependent on others, on external means for approval and elevating his self esteem. As Bill Wilson noted, we seem to get distressed when we don’t get what we want or feel people or trying to take away what we have. Learn why honesty is a critical characteristic in sobriety and recovery. We should be able to just put the plug in the jug and move on with our lives.