If you think you may have a problem with alcohol or drug abuse, there is help available. Look at the 10 questions below & be honest with yourself & answer them.
- Do you lose time from work due to drinking?
- Is drinking making your home life unhappy?
- Is drinking affecting your reputation?
- Have you felt remorse after drinking?
- Do you crave a drink at a definite time daily?
- Do you want a drink the next morning?
- Do you drink alone?
- Have you ever had a complete loss of memory as a result of drinking?
- Is drinking jeopardizing your job or business?
- Have you ever been to a hospital or institution on account of your drinking?
If you have answered YES to three or more of these questions, you have a definite problem with alcohol.
Don’t wait until it is too late, you can attend an AA or NA meeting in any town, where you live at 19:30, just about every night or if you not sure, send me a Whatsapp message & I will help you.
Take it from me, life is better without alcohol or drugs & I have been sober since the 6th of July 2004 (20 years) and I understand the situation you find yourself in.
The AA & NA program, have helped millions of sufferers, around the world, to get the lives back on track. the program is based on the 12 Step Program.
Remember, you have to stop & you have to do it for yourself & nobody else, except God.
The 12 Steps & Bible Verses
- We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviours. That our lives had become unmanageable.
“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out”. (Romans 7:18)
- Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
“For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:13)
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship”. (Romans 12:1)
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
“Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD. “ (Lamentations 3:40)
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.
“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” (James 5:16a)
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up“. (James 4:10)
- Humbly asked Him to remove all our shortcomings.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness“. (1 John 1:9)
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
“Do to others as you would have them do to you”. (Luke 6:31)
- Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:12)
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and power to carry that out.
” Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly“. (Colossians 3:16a)
- Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and practice these principles in all our affairs.
‘Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.” (Galatians 6:1)
– All scripture quoted from the New International Version.
The Beatitudes
- The Beatitudes are the best prescription for mental and spiritual health – the Bible holds the blueprint for healthy and abundant living.
- Beatitudes are described as “the psychology of Jesus”
Attitudes
- The Beatitudes are be-attitudes and not do-attitudes – the doing comes out of the being
- Our attitudes have a tremendous & powerful influence upon every part of our physical & emotional being
- It is not our arteries, but our attitudes that have the biggest say in our well being
- There is not a tissue or an organ that is not influenced by the attitude of our mind and spirit – the attitudes of our minds pass into definite physical effects
- Right attitudes produce right effects in our bodies
Happiness
- Happiness is a God given instinct
- Happiness is not something you make – it is something you receive
- Happiness is not an achievement but a by-product of knowing Jesus
- You must reach out & receive Jesus – with empty hands
- Give up what you are holding & allow God to fill our lives with forgiveness, love & power
- To find happiness, we must find Christ
- Reach out and touch Jesus & He will give you forgiveness, cleansing, power over temptation, fears, anxieties & everything that stands in your way of happiness.
Grief
- God lets us experience sorrow & grief
- He uses these encounters to sensitize our spirits & make our ministry more effective
- God permits pressure for a purpose
- Sorrow & grief will produce benefits in our lives
Negative Feelings
- Don’t deny or express hurting emotions
- Denial can suppresses these emotions, reverberate and produce psychosomatic disorders
- Acknowledge your emotions before God
- Great sorrow brings great happiness
- The happiest people who have had hurts and have been healed by the Power of Christs transforming Love
Meekness
- Meekness is not timid, shy hesitant unassuming person
- Meekness is a trusting, confident & secure person
- Meekness is not weakness
- Being humble, complaint & submissive
- Approach life in the spirit of meekness & submission & you’ll discover God’s your purpose
- Meekiness is not a natrual quality but a spiriutal one
Bibliography
Strong at the Broken Places – Selwyn Hughes
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Just For Today
- Just for today I will try to live through this day only, not tackling all of my problems at once. I can do something at this moment that would discourage me if I had to continue it for a lifetime.
- Just for today I will try to be happy, realizing my happiness does not depend on what others do or say or what happens around me. Happiness is a result of being at peace with myself.
- Just for today I will try to adjust myself to what is and not force everything to adjust to my own desires. I will accept my family, my friends, my business, my circumstances as they come.
- Just for today I will take care of my physical health; I will exercise my mind; I will read something spiritual.
- Just for today I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. If anyone knows of it, it will not count. I will do at least one thing I don’t want to do, and I will perform some small act of love for my neighbour.
- Just for today I will try to go out of my way to be kind to someone I meet. I will be considerate, talk low, and look as good as I can. I will not engage in unnecessary criticism or finding fault, nor try to improve or regulate anybody except myself.
- Just for today I will have a program. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it. I will save myself from two pests — hurry and indecision.
- Just for today I will stop saying, “If I had time.” I never will find time for anything. If I want time, I must take it.
- Just for today I will have a quiet time of meditation wherein I shall think of my Higher Power, of myself, and of my neighbor, I shall relax and seek truth.
- Just for today I shall be unafraid. Particularly, I shall be unafraid to be happy, to enjoy what is good, what is beautiful, and what is lovely in life.
- Just for today I will not compare myself with others. I will accept myself and live to the best of my ability.
- Just for today I choose to believe that I can live this one day.
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Why We Were Chosen
“God in His wisdom selected this group of men and women to be purveyors of His goodness. In selecting them through whom to bring about this phenomenon He went not to the proud, the mighty, the famous or the brilliant. He went instead to the humble, to the sick, to the unfortunate. He went right to the drunkard, the so-called weakling of the world. Well might He have said the following words to us:
“Unto your weak and feeble hands I have entrusted a power beyond estimate. To you has been given that which has been denied the most learned of your fellows. Not to scientists or statesmen, not to wives or mothers, not even to my priests or ministers have I given this gift of healing other alcoholics which I entrust to you.”
“It must be used unselfishly; it carries with it grave responsibility. No day can be too long; no demands upon your time can be too urgent; no case can be too pitiful; no task too hard; no effort too great. It must be used with tolerance for I have restricted its application to no race, no creed, and no denomination. Personal criticism you must expect; lack of appreciation will be common; ridicule will be your lot; your motives will be misjudged. You must be prepared for adversity, for what men call adversity is the ladder you must use to ascend the rungs toward spiritual perfection, and remember, in the exercise of this power I shall not exact from you beyond your capabilities.”
“You are not selected because of exceptional talents, and be careful always, if success attends your efforts not to ascribe to personal superiority that to which you can lay claim only by virtue of my gift. If I had wanted learned men to accomplish this mission, this power would have been entrusted to the physician and scientist. If I had wanted eloquent men, there would have been many anxious for the assignment, for talk is the easiest used of all talents with which I have endowed mankind. If I had wanted scholarly men, the world is filled with better qualified men than you who would be available. You were selected because you have been the outcasts of the world and your long experience as drunkards has made or should make you humbly alert to the cries of distress that come from the lonely hearts of alcoholics everywhere.”
“Keep ever in mind the admission you made on the day of your profession in AA — namely that you are powerless and that it was only with your willingness to turn your life and will unto my keeping that relief came to you.””
— Anonymous
“POWERLESS OVER ALCOHOL”
“I had gone steadily downhill and on that day in 1934, and lay upstairs in the hospital, knowing for the first time that I was actually hopeless.
Loise was downstairs, and Dr. Silkworth was trying, in his gentle way to tell her what was wrong with me and that I was hopeless. “But Bill has a tremendous amount of willpower.” she said. “He has tried desperately to get well. We have tried everything. Doctor, why cant he stop?”
He explained that my drinking, once a habit, had become an obsession, a true insanity that condemned me to drink against my will.
“In the late stages of our drinking, the will to resist has fled. Yet when we admit complete defeat, and when we become entirely ready to try AA principles, our obsession leaves us and we enter a new dimension – freedom under God as we understand Him.”
From “The AA Way of Life – a reader by Bill” – page 283