New Empowered Steps for Liberation from Addiction
In my upcoming book, Liberation from Addiction: An Empowered Path to Recovery by Creating Your Life, I walk the reader through 12 new, empowering, and secular steps to recovery and liberation from addiction. The word “addict” comes from a Latin root related to an old Roman law where a judge could sentence a person to be addicted to a debtor, essentially enslaving a person.
The relationship between enslavement and addiction is powerful. Being sober means to not be drunk or high. A person can be sober but still enslaved by their master: the substance, behavior, and belief.
My message is liberation. Sobriety is the first step to liberation, but many people tend to stay in stagnant sobriety and never create a life that contradicts their enslavement, or addiction.
It is not necessary to enslave yourself to another belief, idea, substance, or behavior to achieve liberation; in fact, if our recovery requires a new enslavement, then we are still addicted to something or someone. We are not powerless over our addiction, and it is not a moral failing, character defect, or shortcoming.
Addiction is an existential survival skill that we unwittingly gave our power to for our survival. It worked! The evidence it worked is that we are still here. The only problem is that what once was an adaptive skill has now become maladaptive and destructive. We just do not know how to stop.
These steps invite the suffering addict to use the power they have to achieve liberation by creating the life they want; one from which they do not need protection or escape.
Practice these steps with wisdom, understanding, and intention. The new book, Liberation from Addiction, will explain the full process. I also invite and encourage you to sign-up for and engage with the free course found on the course link at the top of the page to practice these steps.
One more word of caution and encouragement: I recommend engaging in a sober, healing community and individual therapy as part of your healing process. You will see that admonition in all the steps. I do not recommend walking this path alone.
New Empowered Steps to Recovery, Liberation, and Creating Your Life
Step 1
We acknowledge we have power over addiction, and we are aware we have unwittingly bound ourselves to it; therefore, we accept the responsibility to mindfully enter the path toward liberation.
Step 2
We acknowledge the power of a healing, sober community and a therapeutic relationship on the path toward liberation from addiction and commit to seeking a community and a professional counselor that best support our journey.
Step 3
We take possession of and use our power to commit to this path toward liberation, dedicating our lives, time, and resources to our liberation.
Step 4
We commit to the fearless examination of ourselves, what we reveal and what we keep hidden, our strengths and weaknesses, our desires and disappointments, our accomplishments and resentments, and our ideas and fears. We shine a bright light into the shadow places and see what they reveal.
Step 5
We submit ourselves to an exploration of our self-examination with a professional therapist, committed to uncovering and exposing our unhealed parts that we have kept hidden, intending to do the work toward healing them.
Step 6
We pursue and embrace our authentic selves, including all the parts we keep hidden and all we reveal.
Step 7
With humility and courage, we actively make necessary changes towards becoming our authentic selves, letting go of the parts of ourselves that no longer serve us and intentionally accepting new and life-giving parts.
Step 8
We embrace our responsibility for the harm we have caused from our past actions and commit to repairing relationships we can repair and letting go of those that we cannot.
Step 9
With careful and wise intention, we actively seek to repair relationships we have damaged, being mindful of the potential harm to others and ourselves. We accept that there are many cases where we cannot repair these relationships, so we let them go, and we commit to living our lives in such a way as to prevent harm to others in the future.
Step 10
We engage in ongoing self-examination, exploration, and awareness, taking responsibility when appropriate, apologizing with words and actions, and working towards restoring relationships when we harm others or make mistakes.
Step 11
We commit to mindful practices as guidance for how best to carry out our wise next steps for continued healing and ongoing liberation.
Step 12
As we continue the mindful and wise practices of healing and liberation, we commit to helping fellow sufferers by spreading the message of hope and healing in all aspects of our lives.
