Recovery—The Sacred Art

Rami Shapiro

Description

Deepen Your Capacity to Live Free from Addiction—and from Self and Selfishness

"Twelve Step recovery is much more than a way to escape the clutches of addictive behaviors. Twelve Step recovery is about freeing yourself from playing God, and since almost everyone is addicted to this game, Twelve Step recovery is something from which everyone can benefit."
—from the Introduction

In this hope-filled approach to spiritual and personal growth, the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are uniquely interpreted to speak to everyone seeking a freer and more God-centered life. This special rendering makes them relevant to those suffering from specific addictions—alcohol, drugs, gambling, food, sex, shopping—as well as the general addictions we wrestle with daily, such as anger, greed, and selfishness.

Rami Shapiro describes his personal experience working the Twelve Steps as adapted by Overeaters Anonymous and shares anecdotes from many people working the Steps in a variety of settings. Drawing on the insights and practices of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and Islam, he offers supplementary practices from different religious traditions to help you move more deeply into the universal spirituality of the Twelve Step system.

Foreword v
Introduction: Addiction, Spirituality, and the Process of Uncovery ix
A Note on Anonymity xxv

Chapter One: The Gift of Powerlessness 1
Chapter Two: The Hope of Restoration 25
Chapter Three: Deciding to Be Free 39
Chapter Four: Searching the Ego 55
Chapter Five: Confessing Our Wrongs 73
Chapter Six: Defect Removal 91
Chapter Seven: Asking for Freedom 99
Chapter Eight: Naming the Harmed 111
Chapter Nine: Making Amends 125
Chapter Ten: Attending to the Moment 139
Chapter Eleven: Conscious Contact with God 149
Chapter Twelve: Carrying the Message 167
Chapter Thirteen: First Step, Last Step 183

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous 189
Notes 190
Suggestions for Further Reading 194
Index of Practices 200

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Self-help
• Spirituality
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 19 octobre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781594733659
• Langue: English

Extrait

Recovery-The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice
2010 Quality Paperback Edition, Third Printing 2010 Quality Paperback Edition, Second Printing 2009 Quality Paperback Edition, First Printing 2009 by Rami Shapiro Foreword 2009 by Joan Borysenko
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or reprinted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information regarding permission to reprint material from this book, please write or fax your request to SkyLight Paths Publishing, Permissions Department, at the address / fax number listed below, or e-mail your request to [e-mail].
The Twelve Steps and brief excerpts from The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous are reprinted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS). Permission to reprint brief excerpts from The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous does not mean that AAWS has reviewed or approved the contents of this book, or that AAWS necessarily agrees with the views expressed herein.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shapiro, Rami M. Recovery-the sacred art : the Twelve Steps as spiritual practice / Rami Shapiro. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-59473-259-1 (quality pbk.) ISBN-10: 1-59473-259-0 (quality pbk.) 1. Twelve-step programs-Religious aspects. I. Title. BL624.S4825 2009 204'.42-dc22
2009014735
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
Manufactured in the United States of America Cover Design: Jenny Buono

SkyLight Paths Publishing is creating a place where people of different spiritual traditions come together for challenge and inspiration, a place where we can help each other understand the mystery that lies at the heart of our existence.
SkyLight Paths sees both believers and seekers as a community that increasingly transcends traditional boundaries of religion and denomination-people wanting to learn from each other, walking together, finding the way.
SkyLight Paths, Walking Together, Finding the Way, and colophon are trademarks of LongHill Partners, Inc., registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Walking Together, Finding the Way Published by SkyLight Paths Publishing A Division of LongHill Partners, Inc. Sunset Farm Offices, Route 4, P.O. Box 237 Woodstock, VT 05091 Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] www.skylightpaths.com
CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction: Addiction, Spirituality, and the Process of Uncovery
A Note on Anonymity
Chapter One: The Gift of Powerlessness
Chapter Two: The Hope of Restoration
Chapter Three: Deciding to Be Free
Chapter Four: Searching the Ego
Chapter Five: Confessing Our Wrongs
Chapter Six: Defect Removal
Chapter Seven: Asking for Freedom
Chapter Eight: Naming the Harmed
Chapter Nine: Making Amends
Chapter Ten: Attending to the Moment
Chapter Eleven: Conscious Contact with God
Chapter Twelve: Carrying the Message
Chapter Thirteen: First Step, Last Step
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
Notes
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index of Practices

About SkyLight Paths
Copyright
FOREWORD
MEETING THE HOLY RASCAL
I have a penchant for reading a book and declaring to all who will listen, This is the best book I ve ever read! But here is the truth. This is the best book I ve ever read. If you re holding it in your hands, you can celebrate two acts of grace. The first-the fiercest grace-is that whatever addiction brought you to rock bottom has opened the door to spiritual awakening. The second is that Rami Shapiro is one of the wisest and most accessible spiritual teachers of our time-humble, funny, authentic, and deeply grounded in the world s great wisdom traditions.
If you are addicted to anything-and all of us are addicted to the delusion that we are in control of our lives-Rami opens the door to freedom through a deep inquiry into the Twelve Steps and a stunning collection of practical exercises that will guide you to your true nature, the soul within you that is beyond habits, beliefs, and opinions. The soul that is, despite your past actions and current afflictions, always pure.
Dubbed a Holy Rascal by the Native American Catholic nun Sister Jose Hobday, Rami lives up to that description with unabashed joy. He is a rare bird-an iconoclastic spiritual powerhouse who busts through stale doctrines, dogmas, and assumptions so that we can connect authentically-eyeball to eyeball and moment to moment-with the deeper reality of which we re a part. The words rare bird were chosen deliberately, since his Tweets on Twitter (he calls them Jaded Wisdom ) are outrageously outside the box. Sign up for his daily dose of crazy wisdom and you ll see for yourself.
Rami has been a friend and teacher to me since 2003 when we met on a sweltering September day at The Crossings Conference Center in Austin, Texas. I was there giving a seminar on optimizing brain function as part of my ongoing teaching in mind/body/spirit healing. Rami was one of the presenters at an interspiritual conference taking place on the same weekend. Interspirituality is a word coined by the late Brother Wayne Teasdale, referring to a universal spiritual experience that transcends belief systems. It is the common ground of deep interconnectedness where we all meet when we re in the moment, free of the need to be whoever we re not.
As Rami writes, we often don t come to that spiritual ground until we ve hit bottom and have tasted the medicine of heartbreak. Only when we truly surrender to our powerlessness over life can we touch something larger than our own egos. Whether you are an atheist or a Christian, a Jew or a Muslim, an indigenous person, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or a member of any faith tradition, authentic spiritual experience is the same for us all. That is where this book will take you, drawing on Rami s lifelong experience of the world s wisdom traditions, which he shares in a practical way devoid of the dogma he so respectfully (and often humorously) leaves behind.
When I told my group at The Crossings that Rabbi Rami, Father Thomas Keating, a Muslim Imam, and a number of other spiritual luminaries were on site, we decided to suspend our compelling Powerpoint Marathon (I m big on left brain information) to attend one of their experiential sessions.
Our ragtag band of spiritual interlopers was welcomed warmly into a huge, sunlit room where we joined Rami in an ecstatic dance that took us beyond words into the timeless realm of the present moment. And that s exactly where this book will take you. It is more than words. It is a direct transmission of the wisdom you need to recover from the primary addiction that almost every human being suffers from our addiction to the illusion that we re in control of our lives.
Joan Borysenko, PhD
INTRODUCTION
ADDICTION, SPIRITUALITY, AND THE PROCESS OF UNCOVERY
First of all, we had to quit playing God.
-Bill W.
Here is the heart of Twelve Step recovery-quit playing God. 1
Most of us tend to equate Twelve Step recovery with specific addictions, such as alcohol, drugs, gambling, food, sex, and shoplifting. If we suffer from one or more of these addictions, we may seek out a book like this; if we don t, we won t. That s a pity. Twelve Step recovery is much more than a way to escape the clutches of addictive behaviors. Twelve Step recovery is about freeing yourself from playing God, and since almost everyone is addicted to this game, Twelve Step recovery is something from which everyone can benefit.
What does it mean to play God? It means living under the delusion that life is controllable. It means constantly struggling to maintain the illusion that you are controlling it. It means lying to yourself all day, every day, insisting that, with enough effort, you can get life to do whatever it is you want it to do. It means having to mask your failure at controlling life by blaming others-your parents, your spouse or partner, your children, your colleagues, your friends-for your failure. It means having to dull the pain of failure with booze, pills, television, overwork, or whatever your method of numbing yourself to the reality of life s uncontrollability may be. It means spiraling into the madness of delusional thoughts and addictive behaviors that make sense only to a mind drunk on the insanity of its own divinity.
Addiction is a disease. Most people in Twelve Step recovery assume that their disease is physical: an alcoholic s disease is the inability to drink moderately, just as a drug addict s disease is the inability to cease taking drugs, or a compulsive overeater s disease is the inability to stop eating when full. I disagree. My assumption is that alcoholism, drug addiction, compulsive overeating, and any other addictive behavior are physical symptoms of a deeper psychospiritual disease, a state of mind that all humans share. The real disease from which almost all of us suffer is the disease of playing God, of thinking we are or should be in control of what happens to us in life. As long as you maintain the illusion of control, you are fine, but eventually and inevitably life slips out of control, and you are faced with a very difficult choice: Quit playing God, and abandon the delusion of life s controllability, or find some way to escape reality and maintain the illusion that you are in control.
Most of us opt for the latter. Rather than admit that we are powerless over life, we redouble our efforts to regain control. This is like a hamster on a wheel who, wishing to get off the wheel, keeps running faster, hoping in that way to come to the end that much sooner.
Like the hamster, our quest for control always ends in exhaustion and failure. How you deal with that failure determines what kind of addict you may be. Failure to control life leads you to take refuge in alcohol, drugs, food, sex,