There are also many great detox facilities in Glenwood Springs that can help people get the physical component of addiction out of their system and under control. This also includes creating addiction relapse prevention plans so that the first drink is never taken, and thus, the physical allergy is never triggered. We also house traumatic memories in the threat centers of our brains that are slightly different than predictive codes as they may bubble up to awareness or into nightmarish dreams. We look very different in these different phenotypical states. Particularly notable to this discussion is what we look like in threat. In threat, we can be mobilized towards aggressive or reactive defenses or we can be immobilized into passive or submissive defenses.

What Constitutes a Spiritual Awakening?

A habit (as it relates to addiction) is something that we’ve yielded our spirit to again and again. It’s something that, like a lover, we’ve turned to for comfort, for peace, and for a false sense of happiness. We started looking to this thing as a way to fulfill a deep longing or pain within us. It provided instant, although temporary, relief from our current condition, and although we knew it was a fraud, we kept going back to it.

Understanding the ‘Three-Fold Illness’

Simply put, they feel a terrible loneliness at their very soul or center of being. However, this does not mean, necessarily, they’ve abandoned their faith. Bryan was born in Philadelphia and remains an ardent supporter of Philadelphia sports. After attending FSU and FAU where he majored in writing, Bryan ventured out to follow in the footsteps of his idols, running straight into drug addiction. After being arrested by the President’s Secret Service, Bryan finally started to rebuild his life and beat that monkey off of his back through writing, playing music, and studying Buddhist philosophy.

Learn What Spiritual Malady Is And The Role It Plays In Your Recovery

Therapists will often have an individual in recovery write a goodbye letter to their drug of choice. The words used in so many of these letters are painful and desperate. They are the words a person would use to say goodbye to a lover who used them, lied to them, promised them the world but held them hostage instead. An addiction is a habit that has taken root and is now attached to our physical bodies. We like to simplify it and say that a habit is just something that we’ve repeated enough times that it becomes so familiar that we do it on autopilot without thinking. This is partially true, but it goes so much deeper than that.

• Such awakenings need not involve religion or “finding God.” In a general sense the experience relates to recognizing and beginning to internalize a connection with that which is beyond self.
• However, given the times we are in, I find myself compelled to vault forward to the spiritual.
• As we are an inherently spiritual species, we frequently fear a spiritual death as much as a physical death.
• So, if malady means that something bad or ill has a hold on me, there is another factor involved that needs to be explored.

But there is more to our threat load than the physical and spiritual. We have the subawareness shadow part of our physiology that tends towards a defense bias and trigger. Our brains are constantly searching to see if we are safe or threatened and this subaware mechanism fine tunes the system based on the incoming information.

• This is partially true, but it goes so much deeper than that.
• Things may change over time, and you never know when or how your beliefs might evolve.
• It is strange paradox, the more you focus on helping others, the more you discover how much you matter.

These are all positive things that can help you on your journey to recovery, regardless of your beliefs. Without a connection to a higher power, it can get quite ugly in sobriety. So, if malady means that something bad or ill has a hold on me, there is another factor involved that needs to be explored. If I am connected to something bad, I must have a disconnect between me and something good, right? We are spiritual beings, so we are always hooked into positive or negative.

We returned to the seductive promises it made over and over, and each time the hold it had on our spirit became stronger. One of the core characteristics that makes people vulnerable to addiction (and is also amplified as a consequence of active addiction) is a sense of internal emptiness—a pervasive feeling of being hollow, empty, of something missing. The specific manifestation(s) of addiction represent an attempt to fill this emptiness from the outside. Substances, activities like gambling, eating, or sex, material objects, jobs, money, or people, may fill this hole, but only very temporarily.

Kickstart Your Recovery at California Detox in Laguna Beach, CA

• Bryan was born in Philadelphia and remains an ardent supporter of Philadelphia sports.
• Now, the inability to stop drinking or using is the allergy part.
• This spiritual malady, or spiritual disconnection, is the driving force behind our addiction and self-destructive behaviors.
• I can manage my spiritual malady or emotional dysfunction, I have the tools to do so.
• This is frequently referred to as “fight and flight” physiology.
• If you’re struggling with the concept of God, try to find a sponsor who shares your views.
• The threatened given safety will see, understand, connect, bond, and thrive.

When we are under threat, we create a bias towards negative, selfish, aggressive and prejudiced thoughts. When being chased by a tiger it is helpful to think “danger”, react quickly, judge spiritual malady without contemplation, defend and protect one’s self. It is not a time for deep thought, nor bonding and sharing, or you’ll be sharing a meal with the tiger and not in a good way.

Inside The Alcoholic Brain