Many people say that alcoholics have a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. Thankfully, the“spiritual malady”is no longer a“missing piece”of Step One for me. It is a reality of my powerlessness and unmanageability and enables me to see why I so desperately need to seek a Power Greater than myself. And unless this malady is recognized, and a course of action is taken to enable God to remove it, the root of our alcoholic illness can lie dormant and burn us when we least expect it.

The psychology and neuropsychology of alcoholism, addictive behaviour and recovery. We begin to obsess and buy the lie because we want spiritual malady to feel the ease and comfort of the first drink. We drink and set off the craving and the cycle of addiction starts all over again.

There is a map of Emotional Responding Tattooed on my Heart.

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. I contend that alcoholism is an emotional disorder which results in chemical dependency on the substance of alcohol. However in order to treat it we have to first contend with the symptomatic manifestation of this disorder, chronic alcohol use, as it is the most life threatening aspect of this disorder when we present our selves at AA. My inventory of steps 4/5 showed me that my long lists of resentments were mainly the product of emotional immaturity and responding in an immature manner to not getting my way. Selfishness and self -centeredness is the root of my trouble.

I share my feelings of shame with those who know what that feels like. I have a spiritual tool kit that deals with this emotional disease. I respond to feelings of humiliation by humiliating https://ecosoberhouse.com/ you, I react to my chronic shame by attempting to created shame in you. These are my main negative emotional reactions to the world that often scare me and make me feel ashamed.

The Spiritual Malady: A Hole in the Soul

The Big Book talks about this delusion we develop in active addiction. Unlike normal people alcoholics are unsettled to the core. 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.

• This seems compounded by not always being able to read our emotions or somatic states.
• Today this would be termed “despite negative consequences”.
• We have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct, and are willing to straighten out the past if we can.
• We cannot control our abnormal reaction to alcohol.
• It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness.

For a while, that seemed to work for us but once we stopped using substances the discontentedness came back to the surface in sobriety. People in the rooms refer to this as a ‘god-sized hole’. It’s a void that we used to fill with drugs and alcohol. Once the substances are taken away we feel lost. We will try to fill this god-sized hole with anything we can. As addicts we can become so focused on the outward form our addiction takes – whether that booze, drugs, sex, overeating, etc. – that we overlook its deep roots at the core of our being.

What is a “Spiritual Malady”?

Alcoholics do not seem want stuff like normal folk, but have a pathological wanting, an all consuming need to get stuff regardless of it’s worth or value. I am assailed externally by fear of what other’s think about me and internally about what I think of me – when these two line up it can have a powerful and damaging effect on my psyche. I have found over the last decade in recovery that when I turn my Will over to the care of the God of my understanding that I am restored to sanity and my thoughts are sound, they are on a higher plane as the Big Book tells me.