The Insight

 I met a woman who related to me two feelings she had.  She was an alcoholic by her own omission.  One feeling is that she felt terribly lonely.  The second feeling is that she felt she was no good.  The second might be more of a judgment as well.  She drank over both of these issues.  She does not drink now, but the feelings can still come up.  Drinking can be arrested in recovery, but feelings cannot be so easily roped in.  A spiritual practice helps us deal with these feelings rather than act on them in some negative way.  Prayer gives us power to accept a feeling and respond to it in an appropriate way.  It is called growing up.