12 Steps

The 12 Steps for Those Who Love an Alcoholic

1. We admitted we were powerless over the lives of our loved ones.

2. We came to believe that Christ could change our way of thinking.

3. We made a decision to turn our will and lives over to Christ, COMPLETELY.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of OURSELVES.

5. We admitted to Christ, ourselves, and to another person the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. We were entirely ready to have Christ remove all these defects
of character.

7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

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I am a Drug Addict

DRUG ADDICT

Yes me. Ashton. You should take this personally. I am writing myself here because everything I could tell myself out loud I won’t hear. Everything anyone says won’t help. All advice, admonishment, promises and pleas will fall on my deaf ears. And frankly, I don’t believe I even deserve the energy that all of that would take.

I know from this moment on that I will only call myself drug addict. I will not use my name because I have relinquished it. My name belongs to the person I no longer am. I am now…just drug addict.

I have surrendered my human identity, by which was no one’s choice but my own.

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Surrender

Driving down the freeway your left rear tire explodes.You gently pull to the side of the road to exit and see what happened. You begin to check to see why it popped.

STOP.

The problem with most of humanity is that reason right there. In the end, it doesn’t matter what popped the tire. It doesn’t matter that if you were in the other lane, you could of avoided it. It doesn’t matter that you will now be late. And it doesn’t matter when you say, ” I knew I should of called in”. Why? Because none of those things actually happened.

Work on the solution. Take it off, and fix it. There is nothing in this world that is good, nor bad that you can prevent. For there is only rules one can live by, for which when done, makes you accept when the unpreventable happens.

How many of you would go back and change an event in your life? Let’s say one would change their academic career. For which the only reason I can think of would be to have a better job, and obtain more money. They are not living by the rules given. Money is absolutely nothing. It buys fake rules for which leads people to think it is something. Money creates man to believe you can prevent. Money can not make one go back and prevent your flat tire. It can only buy you a new one. It can not make you sober, only get you into places that try to help get you sober. False: money controls people places and things. Fact: people places and things allow money to control them. Other examples are such; I would of not married that person, I would have said bye to my father before he died. I would of never used. I would of answered the phone. I would of been kinder. Would, should, could. Words I will never understand.

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Who Are You Serving?

Then Samuel told the whole house of Israel, “If you’re returning to the Lord with all your heart, then remove the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, direct your hearts back to the Lord, and serve him only. Then he will deliver you from the control of the Philistines.” 1 Samuel 7:3, NET Bible

I have to look seriously at who – or what – I am serving. For I can be easily deceived if I am not regularly submitting myself to the Lord my God.

There are many things I can serve in this world, none of which honour Jesus: I can serve money, other people, addictions to various substances or activities – I can even serve an addiction to people if what they think of me, or if their opinion, is more important to me than His opinion or what the Lord thinks of me.

Something else that I can become a servant to is my emotions. It is so easy for me to become overwhelmed by my feelings, and when I do, I can begin to quickly bow down to them. When anger rears its ugly head in me, it is all too natural for me to lash out at my husband or the nearest loved one to me. However, the Lord says in His Word:

A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1, NIV84

When I feel discouraged and overwhelmed by a task that is before me, it is simple for me to say, “I just can’t do this!” But the Word of the Lord speaks differently:

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When We Run From God

When we struggle with addiction or any other challenge, we may say and do things we wouldn’t normally. We may choose to disobey God as Jonah did in the Old Testament.

When we run from God, we have preferred our own will instead of God’s.

The storm will come as it did for Jonah. Our storm may not be a physical raging sea, but it could be raging emotions, a storm in our marriage, rebellious children, financial chaos, loss of a job, or foreclosure of our home.

If our children rebel, we don’t stop loving them. They can still turn to us, their parents for love and support, and we’ll give them both.

In the same way when we find ourselves discouraged or convicted about sin in our lives, we can turn to God. No matter what we’ve done, God loves us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3).

In speaking of God, 2 Peter 3:9 (NIV) says, He is patient with you not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

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Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus – Not the Logs!

Sometimes I fail to take time to just stop and be still with the Lord, meditating on just what it means that, “I was sanctified, I was justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.1 Corinthians 6:1-11 NIV


It is truly amazing to know that Almighty, holy God set me apart for Himself, which is what it means to be sanctified. I am holy – set apart – separated from those who do not know Him; set apart from those who have not been washed clean in and by the shed blood of Jesus.

Why have I been set apart? Not because of anything that I have done or could ever do, but because of the finished work of Jesus on Calvary’s cross. When Jesus gave His very life up for me, He had faith that His sacrifice of Himself would pay the price, the penalty, for my sins – past, present, and future! And because someone told me about His amazing atoning sacrifice for me and I believed in this Good News through the God-given gift of faith, I have been justified: I have had my sins washed away by the blood of Jesus! For to be justified means that it is the same as if I had never sinned. To be justified means that I am just, no longer guilty of the wrongs that I have committed; I am innocent before the throne of God! In His eyes, it is as if I had never sinned!

Praise be to God in Christ Jesus our Lord! My Abba! Father loved me so much that He allowed His only Son to suffer an excruciating death for me, for you, for all of humanity, that we might believe and be washed clean in His blood and saved from the eternal death that is the penalty of our sin! And when I accept Jesus’ gift of perfect atonement for me by faith, I am granted eternal life, a life that is meant to be lived with abundant love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and, self-control. I cannot help but think of Psalm 27:1:

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Can Jesus save… that person, that situation, that problem?

Hebrews 7:21-22, 24-25 NRSV
“The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind,‘You are a priest forever’ ” — accordingly Jesus has also become the guarantee of a better covenant. . . . He holds His priesthood permanently, because He continues forever. Consequently He is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

Can Jesus save… that person, that situation, that problem, that illness, that sin? Can Jesus save? I think the answer (“yes”) is something I believe intellectually, but not always something I believe in faith. I do have the choice of trusting (having faith) or observing (looking at what I believe are the facts) and often I choose the “facts” over faith.

I like optical illusions. But I have to admit, sometimes I don’t get them. I look and look and just can’t see what it is I’m supposed to see. It’s the same with jokes. Often I listen to them and then… nothing. I just didn’t hear the humor (while my husband is bent over laughing). Both are, in a sense, illusions for a reason. They take “fact” and twist it for a purpose (to amuse). So, I think, facts are not static. Facts are not, then, the same as truth because facts can obviously be manipulated.

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Forgiveness

There is much to be said about forgiveness and the impact it has one each life. The Bible holds hundreds of examples of people who have experienced first-hand, being forgiven of wrongful deeds: King David, Peter the disciple when he denied knowing Jesus three times, the woman caught in adultery, Paul who murdered hundreds of Christians before his conversion, Cain who killed his brother Abel because Abel’s sacrifice was accepted and Cain’s was not are just some to name a few who experienced the forgiveness of God in their life first-hand.

The sole purpose behind the come of Jesus Christ as a human was that He died as an atonement for our sins. He hung on the cross in our place. By all rights, WE should be the ones hanging on the cross. After all, Jesus was WITHOUT ANY SIN, but we were born into sin, yet it was Jesus who died and it is us who live.

If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. 1 John 1:8.

For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Romans 3:23.

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God IS our Spiritual Counsel and Protector (Part 1)

If our marriage is in trouble the first place we should go is to the Words of Our Loving Father. We should seek Him with our heart and with our minds and with our soul. We should do NOTHING else, nor say NOTHING else without first asking our Father what it is we should do.

Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man loves me, he will keep my words: and my father will love him, and will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me and not keepeth my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father which sent me. John 14: 23-24

Starting today, I will go to my Creator for the spiritual guidance and counsel that my marriage really needs! What did Jesus Christ say about marriage again? Let’s take a look at some very important principles for loving one another “in the LORD”.

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Alcoholics Victorious Local Meetings

Founded in 1948, Alcoholics Victorious (AV) support groups offer a safe environment where recovering people who recognize Jesus Christ as their “Higher Power” gather together and share their experience, strength and hope. AV meetings use both the 12 Steps and the Alcoholics Victorious Creed. AV is a program of Christians in Recovery. (see video below)

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