I would contend that grandiosity is a part of emotional immaturity. I also contend that our “maladjustment to life” is based on emotional immaturity which is in itself a function of emotion regulation and processing deficits. What we used once to regulate negative emotions and a sense of self has eventually come to regulate our emotions to such an extent that any distress leads to the compulsive response of drinking. Alcoholics had become a compulsive disorder Sober Home to relief distress not to induce pleasure. So we have issues with emotions and somatic/body feeling states. That is not to say that normal people cannot be full of sin – a cursory look around the work and it’s events will soon confirm this is the case. What I am saying is that they do not have the emotion dysregulation or fear based responding that I seem to have which often prompts “sin”. Unlike normal people alcoholics are unsettled to the core.

The three must be addressed to find healing, recovery, and to live life sober. This idea is insane because we have admitted that we are powerless over our thoughts, and our lives have become unmanageable because of it. That means that we suffer from a perception problem. We dont see the truth and only see what we think is the truth. Greater than the mind is reason; and greater than reason is He – the spirit in man and in all. It is emotionally healthy to be define spiritual malady altruistic – to help others without question or expectation. I end, however, with some words from a doctor who seems to be suggesting that AA works because it makes us more emotionally healthy. For me she is saying how AA treats emotional illness. The list of emotional difficulties continues throughout the Big book’s first 164 pages. For me this maladjustment to life is not exactly the same as the spiritual disease mentioned in the Oxford Group pamphlet.

Understanding What a Spiritual Malady Is

In fact they were all interlinking in a pattern of emotional reacting, one activating the other. It was like a emotion web that ensnared one in increasingly frustrating states of emotional distress and inappropriate responding. So we have two main ailments, distressed based wanting which results in the same negative emotions as being in a shame- based fear of rejection. This is how a mental health disorder manifests itself as distorted fear based thinking which appear, if acted upon, to make one’s situation a whole lot worse. Keep in mind that this is separate from the physical craving. Even after someone is completely detoxed and has all alcohol or drugs removed from their body, they will still obsess about drinking or using. For me this is saying that out of my emotion dysregulation “stem all forms of spiritual disease”. I contend that alcoholism is an emotional disorder which results in chemical dependency on the substance of alcohol. However in order to treat it we have to first contend with the symptomatic manifestation of this disorder, chronic alcohol use, as it is the most life threatening aspect of this disorder when we present our selves at AA. For me this section is saying our emotion dysregulation leads to feelings of being “restless, irritable and discontented” which prompt a return to drinking.

When I have a fear of not getting stuff and this is linked to insecurity, as mentioned in the Big Book, it is usually in relation to my pocket book, financial insecurity, personal relationships, self esteem etc. I have found over the last decade in recovery that when I turn my Will over to the care of the God of my understanding that I am restored to sanity and my thoughts are sound, they are on a higher plane as the Big Book tells me. We are in a sense co-dependent on other people for our sense of esteem. We rely on others in terms of how we feel about ourselves. Unfortunately, the snapshot of consciousness taken of them in 1938 didn’t last.

A Higher Power and Our Spiritual Awakening

My inventory of steps 4/5 showed me that my long lists of resentments were mainly the product of emotional immaturity and responding in an immature manner to not getting my way. I do not believe I have the same spiritual malady as other normal people such as those people who were in the Oxford Group. William James wrote the book The Variety of Religious Experiences in 1902 and it is a book that is actually talked about in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. In his book, James describes four qualities of a religious or spiritual experiences that are shared by most people who experience one. Imagine the worst feeling you have ever had, and then add in the fact define spiritual malady that in that moment you also felt utterly alone in the universe, and you have the general feeling of a spiritual malady. The reason for this is because addiction is at its core a spiritual malady. Many people who enter into recovery do not want to hear anything of spirituality. When they hear words like God or spirituality, they begin to bristle with antagonism as they remember the religion of their youth or the traumas they have faced. The spiritual aspects of recovery and the ‘God word’ can be an obstacle for many new folks trying to get sober. Hopefully the ideas included in this short writing show that there are many ways to approach these topics.

They proposed that the remedy to all obsessive states, at that time alcoholism, was primarily to become spiritually well, after which all of their mental and physical issues would be miraculously resolved. The Big Book describes a spiritual experience as a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism. It also says that it manifests itself in many different forms. This means that the experience looks different for different people. It is emotionally healthy to live in the day … in the here and now. Professional therapists teach people to live in the present. AA encourages members to share their experience, strength and hope with other members. It is emotionally healthy to accept our past experiences, however painful, as past events and move on to a richer, more fulfilling future. This is why we need a satisfactory definition of what alcoholism and addition is?