Spiritual Awakenings in Twelve Step Recovery

Aside from clarity, understanding, healing, restoration of sanity, and a return to wholeness, a spiritual awakening is one of the goals of the Adult Children of Alcoholics twelve-step program.

“One of the results of a spiritual awakening involves the understanding that God is real,” advises the Adult Children of Alcoholics textbook (World Service Organization, 2006, p. 283). “With a spiritual awakening, we move from theories about God to the belief that a Higher Power is accessible and hears our prayers… We have come to believe that God, as we understand God, is the actual parent.”

Although it is not until the twelfth step, which, in part, states, “having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps…,” that this goal is achieved, it must be remembered that the Adult Children of Alcoholics fellowship is a spiritual program, not just a single step, and a review of this invisible elusively-definable, and not necessarily understood entity can reveal that He was present before a person was ever guided into such a venue.

Orchestrated from above, it constituted the plan God has for a person’s path, which begins with that gentle guidance toward such a venue and may end with the actual spiritual awakening. How otherwise, it can only be wondered, could a person end up in a room with others who share his upbringing-bred fears, trepidations, struggles, wounds, traumas, and difficulties? Sheer coincidence seems highly unlikely. Something greater and higher must assuredly have been at work, pointing to the needed program.

Once inside, the initial spiritual connection continues with recitation of the serenity prayer. It links all meeting members to a Higher Power, who is invisibly present, but guides, lifts, and dissolves the roadblocks expressed by the respective person’s share--or the very ones he is unable to circumvent or transcend in his everyday life.

Spirituality is inherently expressed by two key, second-step words—namely, “believe” and “power”—as in “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.”

But that belief is, in and of itself, a conundrum for an adult child. Although recovery is contingent upon it, the disease he attempts to triumph over constitutes the wall between him and the very Higher Power who will aid him in his quest.

Survival, particularly during the person’s dysfunctional upbringing, had to take center stage and became the substitute and sacrifice for the very God he now most needs. Creation of his inner child, without other resources, became the only protective sanctuary he could seek at a very young age to escape the dangerous and detrimental effects of an alcoholic or para-alcoholic parent or primary caregiver. That earthly parent now serves as the representative of his eternal one, whom he may consider the ultimate authority figure and the one he most fears. He may question how the cause--at least in his distorted mind--can now become the cure.

Plowing through the layers of abuse, trauma, shame, and blame requires extensive recovery. Added to this dilemma is the fact that a Higher Power cannot reach him through the false self he was forced to create to replace his true one—or the one that God created in His image—and it now remains buried in its time-suspended cocoon.

“Spiritual experiences can be thrilling and conspicuousness-expanding,” according to the Adult Children of Alcoholics textbook (ibid, p. 284). “They become a sustained spiritual awakening through step work and by relating with the inner child. This is the true self and a conduit to the God within.”

Spiritual awakenings can be sudden or gradual, the latter the result of dedicated program effort and the progressive peal of the obstructing layers until they no longer inhibit a divine connection. They can also serve as an indication of recovery progress and as a threshold to a religious path, whether the person returns to his faith after a considerable absence or adopts one for the first time.

Nevertheless, a spiritual awakening is not an intellectual process, since it entails the reconnection of the soul with its origin and creator, and it is also not a passive one. The person must make an earnest effort to submit to his Higher Power through it.

As occurs with the sun, God does not necessarily sit on top of a person’s head, but, like its rays, reaches him, indicating his presence.

An incident can further illustrate the understanding of Him.

Many years ago, a man unleashed a tethered kite to the wind, which carried it ever higher until he could no longer see it. A passerby observed him, stopped, and asked why he was holding a string.

“I’m flying a kite,” he responded.

The man looked up. But, since he could not see anything, said, “How can you tell?”

“Because I can feel its pull on my string” was his explanation.

Like God, He cannot be seen. But when you feel his pull on your soul toward him, he is there and you are connected to Him.

Robert G. Waldvogel has earned the Interdisciplinary Certificate in Behavioral Health for Late Adolescence and the Emerging Adult and a Postgraduate Certificate in the Fundamentals of Cognitive Behavioral Treatment at Adelphi University’s School of Social Work. He has led Twelve-Step support groups on Long Island for the past decade, and created the Adult Child Recovery-through-Writing, and the Strengthening Our Spirituality Programs taught at the Thrive Recovery Community and Outreach Center in Westbury.