SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES OF RECOVERY

Grief and Loss Anonymous

As we moved through the 12 Steps, we made an amazing recovery discovery: the steps are more than just tools to restore us to sanity, each is associated with a spiritual principle that helps us live a fuller, more satisfying life outside of recovery. Different programs use different words – essentially shadings of the same color – to describe the Spiritual Principle associated with each step of recovery in their program. These are the Spiritual Principles of Recovery for Grief and Loss Anonymous.

Step 1: Acceptance
Only by admitting that we cannot stop our powerlessness on our own are we ready to reach out for the support of others. Our humility in recovery is a lesson we carry outside “the rooms,” gratefully accepting support in all areas of our life as needed and desired.

Step 2: Hope
We have hope that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity because we’ve experienced how that has happened for others. As we move through recovery and embrace our Higher Power, we begin to experience hope throughout our life.

Step 3: Faith
When we make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God as we understand God, we are practicing faith by placing our confidence in a power greater than ourselves. Guided by our faith in our partnership with our Higher Power, we experience recovery and blessings every day and in countless ways.

Step 4: Courage
It takes courage to undergo a fearless inventory of ourselves, to acknowledge where we have fallen short. Our courageous inventory, revealing patterns of character defects as well as our character assets, provides direction in healing our grief and loss and in sharing our best selves each day.

Step 5: Honesty
It’s one thing to acknowledge our shortcomings to ourselves. It’s another to share them with someone else…and with God, who already knows them and has been patiently waiting for us to see them as well. Newly unburdened by this exercise of full disclosure, we find ourselves practicing complete, but not brutal, honesty in all life matters.

Step 6: Willingness
Being entirely ready to have God remove our defects of character requires us to allow our stubborn willfulness to be replaced with eager willingness. We do this knowing that God will remove our defects of character and replace them with character assets that will empower our spiritual growth. We are willing to let go and let God.

Step 7: Humility
The humility that we exercise asking God to remove our shortcomings is practice for humbly asking for support outside of our recovery program. As we’ve heard it said: isolation is addiction, connection is recovery.

Step 8: Love
We list the people we have harmed and become willing to make amends to them. Why? Because we love them. Or more precisely, we wish for them to be loved just as we wish that for ourselves. The dividends we receive for acting from a place of love is priceless. We are more able love ourselves, knowing that we now always strive to do right even though it may not be easy.

Step 9: Forgiveness
Making direct amends wherever possible to those we have harmed may not seem like forgiveness, but it is. When we feel we are the ones who have been harmed, we forgive others their transgresses. Only in this way can we focus on cleaning up “our side of the street.” More important, having worked our recovery program and grown as the result, we now forgive ourselves for the wrongs we have caused others because, having worked the previous steps, we are no longer that person who committed those harms.

Step 10: Perseverance
Step Ten is often considered the first of the three “maintenance steps.” In continuing to take personal inventory we recognize that ours is a lifetime program and a lifelong journey of recovery and spiritual growth. We continually work to free ourselves of any obstacles that may keep us from being of the greatest service to our Higher Power.

Step 11: Awareness
We are aware that only through regular conscious contact with God are we able to become an extension of our Higher Power’s grace and goodness, and in this way be a conduit for the greatest good we can offer ourselves and others.

Step 12: Service
Our spiritual awakening as the result of these steps did not happen on its own. It was aided by many forces. We were supported by our sponsor, our Higher Power, and by others in recovery, including those who are long gone but helped keep the doors open for us until we were ready to walk through them. We now have the privilege of carrying the message of recovery to those still powerless over their grief and loss. And we have the joy of creating a better life for ourselves and with all those we touch with our spirit.