Overcoming patterns of compulsive, unconscious, selfish, behavior is very challenging. Especially when these patterns involve drugs and alcohol, which alter brain chemistry and create physical as well as psychological dependence.
We can also have addictions to sex, media, food, or unhealthy relationships. This keeps us distracted from our internal spiritual life and from the good work we need to do in order to make the world a better place. Addiction masks our traumas and psychological scars, and inhibits healing.
A system of support is necessary to reclaim a conscious and healthy way of living.
Even if we have no obvious external addictions, when we meditate and observe ourselves, we realize we have an addiction to our thoughts, our sense of self, the ego, and the personality.
The twelve step program of recovery is compatible with the gnostic path. And in the case of an active addiction, twelve step or another form of recovery is a necessary preparation for real esoteric work.
The twelve steps outline a process of surrendering to a divine power, and paying karma for the harm we have caused through the selfishness of addiction. These steps are excellent keys to cultivate honesty, humility, and a connection to our internal essence.
The steps can be meditated on, or worked with in a trusted twelve step or spiritual group.
In the first step where it says “the addiction”, we can use whatever attachment or addiction we are working on such as “alcohol” or “compulsive negative thoughts”.
The Twelve Steps
1. We admitted we were powerless over the addiction—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him (or Her) to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to those suffering from addiction, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.