Seeking Spirit Beyond the Bottle
A Journey to Freedom through an addictive society
by
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All twelve step programs stress the need for acceptance of some power greater than we are. I had always believed in God, but I seldom thought about what that word “God” meant to me. I believed that God was a Supreme Being of some sort who lived somewhere in the heavens and who had started our Universe in motion. However, for the most part, God had no personal relationship with me.
If I thought about it at all, I likely felt I wasn’t worthy to receive any notice from God. Therefore during my drinking years, when it never occurred to me to pray to God to help me stop drinking, it was because it had never occurred to me He would care. This was far less because I believed in an uncaring God, than because I felt myself to be so unworthy of Her notice or Her love.
Working the steps has very gradually changed my conception of God over the years. In fact, though the program talks about a Higher Power who some choose to call God, I have grown to prefer avoiding the word “God” when this is possible. For one thing, the connotation of God tends to be essentially masculine and in recent years I have become much attuned to seeking and utilizing the feminine aspects of God. I therefore prefer to use the word “Spirit” which speaks to me of a force or energy without form that is androgynous in nature.
It is nothing short of miraculous that the early founders of AA suspected that they needed to be careful in their use of the word “God” and used instead the phrase “God as we understand Him” so as to broaden the doors of recovery. By using the term Spirit, I feel I am allowing that door to swing even wider.
I also no longer think of God as dwelling in heaven, wherever that might be. As a child, heaven seemed to be a place above the sky. However, even though I now know more of the facts about our Universe, I still can’t identify a place called heaven. Today I also acknowledge the fact that our Universe may not be the only one that exists. Consequently I think of Spirit as being a power that exists not only beyond the Universe, but at the same time exists and resides within us all.
I must admit, therefore, that I know very little about Spirit, even though I have enormous and always increasing faith that Spirit exists. Spirit remains and probably shall always remain a mystery, and I grow more comfortable with this each day. As a close program friend puts it, “I simply know I’m not Him.” This, after all, is all that is required. No one has to believe in God in order to recover. They simply need to be able to put their faith and dependence on some power greater than they are so they no longer feel required to do everything on their own. In the early days of recovery, my support came from that group of drunks who were alcoholic just like me.
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About the Book
We live in an addictive society in which compulsiveness has become an art form, and most people have dependencies of some sort. This book was written to help all dependent people learn ways to follow a spiritual path, even if their dependencies might be one of those potentially less severe than alcoholism or drug addiction: such as workaholism, materialism, excessive anxiety, or relationship difficulties.
To quote from the author: People these days talk seriously of addictions to television, the Internet, or to acquiring material possessions. These are usually self involved occupations. It’s as though humanity knows somehow that joy is their natural state, but they lack the ability to open enough to experience it. They are seeking comfort and joy in all the wrong places.
This memoir tells the story of three generations afflicted with alcoholism and its effects on family and friends. It chronicles the author’s growing up with an alcoholic mother in the middle of the twentieth century, and her own later development of the same illness despite her strong commitment to avoid this. It describes the methods she has used to remain in recovery over twenty seven years, and includes information learned from her twenty plus years of working as an addictions’ counselor, and from her ongoing relationships with an alcoholic spouse and an emotionally disabled son.
This book speaks to issues of import to much of humanity, such as abandonment, the need for safely and security in an insecure world, the need to give control back to a spiritual source, the need for forgiveness of self and others, and the primary need to find Spirit within and not without. To quote again from Ms. Sherry’s words:
I no longer think of God as dwelling in heaven, wherever that might be. As a child, heaven seemed to be a place above the sky. However, even though I now know more of the facts about our Universe, I still can’t identify a place called heaven. Today I also acknowledge the fact that our Universe may not be the only one that exists. Consequently, I think of Spirit as being a power that exists not only beyond the Universe, but at the same time exists and resides in us all.
The author clearly and humanly identifies the eclectic combination of spiritual tools she had put in place in her life. Her message will speak to those with addictions, but also to those who simply wish to avoid dependencies and to change, grow, and evolve.
About the Author
Helen Sherry is a pseudonym made from the first names of both the author and her mother because she chooses to honor the fifth (or anonymity) tradition of 12 step recovery programs. She is the granddaughter and daughter of alcoholics, had treatment for her own alcoholism in her early forties, and has spent over 27 years in recovery.
Ms. Sherry worked as an addictions’ counselor in a large metropolitan treatment center for over twenty years. Her spouse, to whom she has been married for over forty five years, is also now in recovery after ten years of relapses. Her experience with addictive illnesses is unquestioned. Ms. Sherry and her husband have three sons and several grandchildren.