I am an addict in various programs of recovery. But the most problematic, the most egregious cast me by the fortunes of Divine Providence into the fellowship of SPAA, Sex and Porn Addicts Anonymous.
Inside the bottomless pit of that abyss of hopeless enslavement to edging, when I admitted to myself my utter powerlessness over mastery of this disease...I took Step One. The first of the twelve steps of the ladder I climbed to freedom out of the abyss.
Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson co-founded the movement that constructed the manual of suggested instructions on how to work these twelve steps.
Simple, but not easy, but for those of us who had no choice but to live or die, die literally and figuratively, who chose life---the 12 step work incarcerated these addictions in a maximum security prison, an Alcatraz so to speak.
The continual working of the steps provided to me the security of that prison by a spiritual growth vibration of frequencies of alert living in the moment. The bad vibes rear their ugly heads not withstanding.
Onto another branch of the tree.
I cannot comprehend how, with a limited capacity to comprehend. The Higher Power for this man grows on a tree, it's a Pinecone. The Higher Power for this woman? The Universe itself. No Higher Power exists for this other man, an atheist who nonetheless has been clean and sober for decades.
Based on a variety of personal experiences, my conception of a Higher Power is a Risen Lord Jesus Christ. A man who thirsted grasps thirst. A man who grieved the death of a dear friend grasps grief. A man who suffered physical torment grasps physical torment. A man who grasps glad joy grasps the gladness of joy. In these manners, my Higher Power intimately grasps my humanity because, in my conception, He IS truly human, and truly God, and His Divinity empowers capacities in me of which I am not capable.
The working of the 12 Steps had granted access to this Power which has brought and is bringing a life to me "beyond my wildest dreams."
