Drugs and Drinking no more, A 40 day program: Day 38
Joining a 12 step program is a great step. Many of you do not live in an area that has one so I will give you some idea’s of what they do.
1: Admit you are powerless over the addiction
2: Believe in a God that can restore us to sanity.
3: Accept Jesus Christ as our Savior.
4: Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrong.
6: We are ready to have God remove all of those defects of character.
7: Humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings.
8: Make amends to people we have harmed.
9: Unless making amends would harm them or others.
10: Continued to to take personal inventory and when we were wrong we promptly admitted it.
11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
12: Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to drinking/drug addicts, and to practice these principles in all areas of our lives.
Read 1 John 1
David Hawkins book Breaking Everyday Addictions noted the following. “Stage two denial – In this stage, people have admitted that they have a problem but deny needing any kind of support. Addicts in recovery may revel in their newfound sobriety but see no need to take precautions against relapse.
I have met and worked with many people who are proud of themselves for facing their addiction. Having seen the light, they now believe themselves strong enough, smart enough, brave enough to avoid slipping back into the same old turmoil.
Stage three denial. Here, people may be willing to participate in a recovery program for a time but are unwilling to make a full commitment to “go to any length” to deal with the addiction. They fail to realize that recovery is a never-ending process that demands physical, emotional, and spiritual regeneration.
In each stage pride can present a huge obstacle. Individuals frequently maintain a willfulness to do things their own way”.
No matter what we have done today, yesterday or this month; we can still worship God! There is a Bible story about a man who had led such an evil life that he had 2000 demons living in him. But when he saw Jesus he worshipped Him. You may keep dropping the ball time and time again, so you think – Jesus wants nothing to do with me anymore. But you can still worship. I am not telling you that you get an automatic ticket to heaven because you worship God while still sinning all over the place. But I am telling you that you can still worship God, ask for forgiveness (again) and start over again. While you worship God ask Him to help you come up with a plan for change for today, this week and this month. If you develop the habit of worshipping God He will help you with your addiction. God loves to answer this type of prayer. So make a habit of worshipping God and then you can pray about your addiction with increasing confidence and faith.
I can tell you that after many years of doing things my way I am now convinced that my way leads to disaster. Now the new me believes that doing things God’s way leads to long term joy and the beginnings of blessing. Now I believe that going to any extremes to quit my addictions is exactly the way I want to go. Now I believe that if I “care about other people” and go out of my way to help them the way Jesus wants me to – I will and am living a happy life.
It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus; and long ages ago he planned that we should spend these lives in helping others. Ephesians 2:10 (ICB)
An addiction is your choice of your will to obey the flesh and ignore the Holy Spirit and His commands. Mark Shaw in his workbook “relapse” says “sin only happens when we trust our-self more than God and it is never an accident.”
- When you trust God you will please Him, God loves people who trust Him. In the small and big things trust the living God (Heb11:6)
- As you trust God you will experience His presence; He will not leave nor forget you (Jer23:39).
- Trusting God helps us to progress, accomplish much for God. He guides our steps and gives us the power to achieve. (Neh6:15)
- Trusting God help us to prevail against the temptation and lies of the devil. We resist and triumph in a hard moment (1Pet5:8-9)
Proverbs 3:5-6 says: ”Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths”.
Jeremiah 17:7-11 “7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD And whose trust is the LORD. 8 “For he will be like a tree planted by the water, That extends its roots by a stream And will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit.
Often the sin of someone close to us causes separation with them. We must trust God and forgive them. Forgiveness will change your life if you start the process now. Joyce Meyers forgave her Father for years of sexual abuse. She became one of the 5 most known preachers in the United States for decades after that.
To quit drugs and drinking pray: Father, help me to forgive ______. Pray this prayer 3-10 times every day.
Fulfill your purpose – do something to help. Pray “Father, bring people to this website and give them a chance to overcome addiction, find your love, start to find their purpose and to start to find joy again.”
Read Matthew 10, and 1st John 2-3
- Pray: Father, take away my drug/drinking urges and help me to worship and praise you so that I will become more disciplined and stronger.
- Checklist for avoiding relapse: Make disciple and structure and planning a priority. Both to keep your addiction at bay and to aggressively find your purpose in life.
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Thank you for reading day 38 of this detox at home program.
Index
Day 1: Overcoming cravings
Day2 : Is God real?
Day 3: Quitting addiction exercises
Day 4: Getting negative emotions out
Day 5: You can never increase the amount of pleasure that you can have for the month by going back to an addiction
Day 6: Sin leads back to addiction
Day 7: Worshiping God helps us overcome addiction
Day 8: What causes you to stay addicted
Day 9: Develop positive addicitons
Day 10: Overcoming negative emotions
Day 11: You have some self control
Day 12: Always have a list of alternate activities to do when temptation hits
Day 13: Only living water can satisfy you for good
Day 14: Learning form the story of Adam and Eve
Day 15: Blessings and curses
Day 16: Self Control
Day 17: Self Control continued
Day 18: Learning to pray
Day 19: What kind of prayers does God answer
Day 21: Finding a Church that can help you
Day 22: Why is it so hard to quit
Day 23: plan plan plan
Day 24: Don’t condemn yourself
Day 25: Get the anger and negative emotions out
Day 26: Attack your addiction
Day 27: The mad cycle
Day 28: Practice coping skills
Day 29: Why we need to find our purpose
Day 30: We were created to worship, praise and serve God
Day 31: Addiction is a trap that takes our freedom away
Day 32: Learning how to start to live in God’s blessing
Day 33: Addiction has a life
Day 34 Learning to pray
Day 35: negative emotions lead to relapse
Day 36: covetousness
Day 37: Temperance