Spiritual Recovery

One way that I look at religion is as a spiritual recovery from a lot of mediocre to bad behavior.  It is a recovery from apathy to compassion, from ignorance to open encounter, and from fear to love.  AA is a spiritual recovery program.  A lot of outsiders and some AA people think that it is all about not drinking or drugging or whatever the addictive stuff is.  AA is really about learning how to live without the stuff you used to ingest.  It is called "sobriety."  Sobriety is a lot more than not drinking.  Religion is a lot more than going to church, which is like going to a meeting.  It is a lot more than avoiding bad behavior.  It is about learning good behavior through a connection to a spiritual force that is not you.  It is more than believing this spiritual power exists.  It is taking time to encounter it within yourself and than within others.  Sobriety is a lot harder than abstinence.  I meet people who abstain from things, but many of them are quite miserable and not much fun to be around.  For me, prayer is the key to a sober way of life.  I must have been into spiritual sobriety yesterday, because people seemed to enjoy being around me.  Working on today.