The Importance of Prayer in Addiction Recovery
If you’re recovering from a substance use disorder, it can seem like it dominates your life. For many of us, alcohol or drugs take over every part of our life, including our faith, while we’re addicted. Stepping away from that and moving into recovery gives you the chance to open up and to find your faith and your spirituality again. And, doing so can mean that you open yourself up to peace, to finding motivation to stay in recovery, and to finding a new lifestyle that helps you to stay clean and sober. If you want God to be an important part of your life moving forward, embracing prayer and talking to Him is an important part of the process.
That can be seen in how almost every self-help recovery group focuses on using prayer and embracing a Higher Power. Prayer is an important part of acknowledging that you are not alone, that you have someone to talk to, and that you have time to are committed to connecting to God and working towards creating a better life for yourself.
Taking Time Out
Making space in your life for daily prayer gives you time to step out of your busy life, to find peace, and to have some quiet. Try taking ten to fifteen minutes before bed and when you wake up to talk to God. That should involve sitting and thinking about what you want to say, framing what you want to share, and then saying it. Here, some people have an easier time writing things down, which gives you more space to figure out what you want to say. In either case, you’re taking the time out to contemplate over your day, to figure out what you need help with, what you’re looking forward to, what you’re grateful for, and what’s important. That can be valuable for framing the rest of your day. It’s also valuable for giving you insight into what you’re doing and in asking for help with.
Finding Peace
Taking time to talk to God can give you perspective, it can help you to find peace with who you are and what you are, it can help you to find resolution for your past actions, it can help you to make peace with yourself. Of course, just talking to God isn’t enough. However, taking the time to talk, to be honest, and to share what you’re feeling and how you feel about it with God can open your life up to making better changes, to investing in growth, and to understanding yourself better.
Taking time to be honest to God and to share how you feel will also make it easier to share with the people in your life. That will, in turn, improve your ability to build those relationships, will improve your ability to clear up how you feel, and will allow you to work on yourself from a better understanding of yourself.
That will help you find peace and find quiet, to find meaning, and to come to terms with yourself and with the world around you.
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Experiencing Wonder
One of the primary goals of groups like Alcoholics Anonymous is to get you to experience wonder, to acknowledge a higher power, and to recognize yourself as a tiny part of a larger plan. Prayer is part of that process because it means stepping back and acknowledging that you have to ask for help, you have to be grateful, and you are a small part of a larger plan. Realizing that and feeling it through daily prayer and connection with God can be an important part of your recovery.
That’s true whether you’re praying on your own, in a church, or as part of your AA support group. Talking to God means acknowledging who and what He is and that means experiencing wonder. And, that will be good for your recovery and your ability to say that things are out of your hands, you are merely responsible for making the decisions that guide you as best as possible on the route you want to be on.
Finding Positivity and Gratitude
Prayer should always be about sharing gratitude, about sharing what you have, and about acknowledging and accepting that gratitude. That often means shifting perspective to start looking for the things you’re going to be grateful for. For example, if you decide to share at least one thing you’re grateful for every day, you’ll have to look for that. And, that can mean shifting to a mindset where you’re actively looking for positivity – which will be good for your recovery. That’s especially true for addicts who very often focus on the negative. If something is wrong, we focus on it, aggrandize it, and make it more and more of a problem – that’s often addiction talking and pushing us to use or drink more – but it creates a negative outlook that decreases our quality of life. Taking the time to talk to God and to be grateful can reverse that cycle.
Self-Awareness and Perception
How often do you take time to sit down with yourself to look at yourself, who you are, how you interact with others, and the choices you make? Taking time to talk with God means doing that every day and having an honest conversation about your thoughts, feelings, motivations, goals, and how your actions line up with those. That can improve your awareness of how your actions align with who and what you want to be, can allow you to set daily goals, and can allow you to have a better understanding of not just who you want to be but who you actually are. Eventually, that will help you with recovery, and it will give you insight into yourself and what you need to do to get to where you want to be.
For example, talking to God can allow you to identify and refine your beliefs. What do you think being a good person looks like? What do you think a good person acts like? Are you doing that? You’re holding yourself accountable by telling it to God every day and working with Him as you learn, grow, and change.
Moving Forward
If you’re moving into recovery, chances are, you’re moving into a church, AA group, or other support group as well. It’s also important that you do so, because connecting with God is not a thing that most people do alone. It’s important to have guidance, to get support, to have people to talk to, and to be able to ask for help when you don’t feel heard or like your prayers are being answered. Having a church with a pastor to guide you can be an immensely important part of developing talking to God. Most importantly, it allows you to take asking for help, being honest about yourself, and committing to doing and being good into a community where you can put that into practice.
Alcoholics Anonymous insists that its members acknowledge a higher power by joining AA. That means stepping away from ego, recognizing ourselves as an equal part of everything around us, and understanding that we are part of a network, a community, a group. Learning how to live that means working with others and your church, AA community, etc., is a great place to start – and that will kickstart your prayer and being able to talk to God more than anything else. Good luck with your recovery journey.
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