Post by Snips on May 27, 2019 22:06:00 GMT -6
When people hear the “12 Steps”, they automatically associate it with the AA/NA 12 step program. Where this is an accurate assumption, it is also the reason that I am creating this program. It is true that the 12 steps Alcoholic Anonymous was created by two men that had a problem with drinking. However, the 12 steps in itself, is about a way of life. You do NOT have to be an alcoholic or drug addict to follow the 12 step program.
The sole purpose of AA/NA is about how to “live life on life’s terms” If one was to pay attention, they would notice that only the 1st and 12 step talk about alcohol/drugs; the rest is about changing the way that we think and approach situations that might take our peace of mind. The 12 steps are about learning how to control emotions and learn new ways of coping. For those in recovery, it is about not going back to drink/drug.
The 12 step program has saved countless amount of lives. To state that only those with substance abuse history can benefit from the lessons is unjust. In the Jedi community, we have a tendency to lose control over our discussions. Instead of standing together, we allow our differences to take lead. Tempers start flying, emotions take over, and all hell breaks loose. Eventually, this can lead to a person leaving the community due to the drama. We have lost many people in the community this way.
The 12 step program is structured in a way to where we can learn to identify things about ourselves that lead to this type of conflict. It will teach us how to identify patterns within arguments and address them once a for all. As Yoda says “Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering”. Our community suffers because we as a community are not willing to notice the patterns and deal with them.
The hope for this program is to teach tools and techniques that one can apply to their own life, substance abuse or not. We cannot change the world or even the problems we see in Jedi community. What we can do is change ourselves and how we address the problems we face in life. By changing ourselves, we can change the environment around us.
Personal Story and What Lead Me to Jedi:
I will not go into my whole backstory but I will highlight some important details and how it got me here. Many moons ago, I had a drinking and drug problem. When I first realized that it was a problem, I turned to the program for help. It did not take me long to fall back into the drinking and drugging. I struggled for many years to stay sober and was not able to do it. At first, I blamed it on the 4th step. I mean seriously, who wants to see themselves in their true form? Luke Skywalker had this same experience when he faced himself in the cave. Only difference is that fear lead me the other way and back into the arms of my darkness. It was years before I realized that the reason I was not able to stay sober had nothing to do with facing my fear, but of my hatred/disbelief in God. How could I put my trust in something I did not believe in?
One night, I decided to binge watch Star Wars. I watched Episode 1 through Episode 6. I found myself relating to Anakin Skywalker’s journey to the Darkside and Luke’s triumph to not follow in his father’s footsteps. By the end of the movies, I was taking notes on how to fight back against my darkness. I couldn’t stand behind a religious God but I could stand behind the “Force”. When I started using the Force as my higher power, I was in shock at how fast I was able to grasping onto the program. All that I simply did was remove the word “God” and replaced it with the Force. No one knew the difference and I didn’t feel the need to explain it to them.
One day, someone asked me what religion I followed. I told him that I didn’t follow religion but that I was following the concept in Star Wars. I then started explaining to him why and how it was able to keep me sober. He started telling me about a Facebook group called Jedi Church and told me that I might be interested in it. I was about three months sober at this time of the conversation. This is when I joined the Jedi Community.
Over the years, I have adopted the Jedi Path to my recovery. My last drink was on January 19, 2010. When I say that my life has seen some good days and some horrible days, I am not exaggerating. I started this path as a single mother struggling to stay sober and to get through college. I had a GPA of 1.5 and on the verge of being suspended from all colleges in the state of Michigan. I had self injurious behaviors and enjoyed being around chaos. I was in a dark place, without the drinking and drugging getting me through it.
Today, I am grateful to report that I graduated the University with a GPA of 3.8, and have started my career working in the mental health field. I have remained sober through many of life’s curve balls and that is including the recent passing of my husband, who I was with since 2008. This would not have been possible without the Jedi community and the 12 steps leading the way for me. The 12 steps were my foundation of my recovery. The Jedi Path created the walls in which I could build. Today, I live in a house of peace and serenity.
What is the 12 Steps?
As I stated previously, the 12 steps are about a way of life. You can literally apply these steps in your everyday life. When done over and over, it becomes a habit of thinking. In this program, I will go into details about the 12 steps, as they are quoted in the Big Book of AA and the 12 and 12. :
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
9. Made direct amends to such people where possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the results of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
The 12 steps comes with the 12 step principles:
1. Honesty
2. Hope
3. faith/action
4. Courage
5. integrity/trust
6. Willingness
7. Humility
8. Responsibility/brotherly love
9. restitution/Discipline
10. Perseverance
11. Spirituality
12. Service
These steps have been adapted to many types of groups and have been altered to fit those needs. As I am in recovery, these are the steps that I work with and know very well. I just change the wording as I face different situations in my life. In this program, I will attempt to use the steps to fit both general situations, along with substance abuse. My goal is teach these steps in a general forum but to also reach those who are continuing to struggle with their abuse of substances.
Please note that this is a peer speaking to peers. Where I am completely qualified as a professional to work with substance abuse, that is not my purpose here. This should not be used as a substitute for AA/NA groups, just a resource to use. Feel free to contact me and share your feedback with what you see here. As I am only one person who lives within my own mind, I am looking for outside opinions and suggestions.
MTFBWY
The sole purpose of AA/NA is about how to “live life on life’s terms” If one was to pay attention, they would notice that only the 1st and 12 step talk about alcohol/drugs; the rest is about changing the way that we think and approach situations that might take our peace of mind. The 12 steps are about learning how to control emotions and learn new ways of coping. For those in recovery, it is about not going back to drink/drug.
The 12 step program has saved countless amount of lives. To state that only those with substance abuse history can benefit from the lessons is unjust. In the Jedi community, we have a tendency to lose control over our discussions. Instead of standing together, we allow our differences to take lead. Tempers start flying, emotions take over, and all hell breaks loose. Eventually, this can lead to a person leaving the community due to the drama. We have lost many people in the community this way.
The 12 step program is structured in a way to where we can learn to identify things about ourselves that lead to this type of conflict. It will teach us how to identify patterns within arguments and address them once a for all. As Yoda says “Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering”. Our community suffers because we as a community are not willing to notice the patterns and deal with them.
The hope for this program is to teach tools and techniques that one can apply to their own life, substance abuse or not. We cannot change the world or even the problems we see in Jedi community. What we can do is change ourselves and how we address the problems we face in life. By changing ourselves, we can change the environment around us.
Personal Story and What Lead Me to Jedi:
I will not go into my whole backstory but I will highlight some important details and how it got me here. Many moons ago, I had a drinking and drug problem. When I first realized that it was a problem, I turned to the program for help. It did not take me long to fall back into the drinking and drugging. I struggled for many years to stay sober and was not able to do it. At first, I blamed it on the 4th step. I mean seriously, who wants to see themselves in their true form? Luke Skywalker had this same experience when he faced himself in the cave. Only difference is that fear lead me the other way and back into the arms of my darkness. It was years before I realized that the reason I was not able to stay sober had nothing to do with facing my fear, but of my hatred/disbelief in God. How could I put my trust in something I did not believe in?
One night, I decided to binge watch Star Wars. I watched Episode 1 through Episode 6. I found myself relating to Anakin Skywalker’s journey to the Darkside and Luke’s triumph to not follow in his father’s footsteps. By the end of the movies, I was taking notes on how to fight back against my darkness. I couldn’t stand behind a religious God but I could stand behind the “Force”. When I started using the Force as my higher power, I was in shock at how fast I was able to grasping onto the program. All that I simply did was remove the word “God” and replaced it with the Force. No one knew the difference and I didn’t feel the need to explain it to them.
One day, someone asked me what religion I followed. I told him that I didn’t follow religion but that I was following the concept in Star Wars. I then started explaining to him why and how it was able to keep me sober. He started telling me about a Facebook group called Jedi Church and told me that I might be interested in it. I was about three months sober at this time of the conversation. This is when I joined the Jedi Community.
Over the years, I have adopted the Jedi Path to my recovery. My last drink was on January 19, 2010. When I say that my life has seen some good days and some horrible days, I am not exaggerating. I started this path as a single mother struggling to stay sober and to get through college. I had a GPA of 1.5 and on the verge of being suspended from all colleges in the state of Michigan. I had self injurious behaviors and enjoyed being around chaos. I was in a dark place, without the drinking and drugging getting me through it.
Today, I am grateful to report that I graduated the University with a GPA of 3.8, and have started my career working in the mental health field. I have remained sober through many of life’s curve balls and that is including the recent passing of my husband, who I was with since 2008. This would not have been possible without the Jedi community and the 12 steps leading the way for me. The 12 steps were my foundation of my recovery. The Jedi Path created the walls in which I could build. Today, I live in a house of peace and serenity.
What is the 12 Steps?
As I stated previously, the 12 steps are about a way of life. You can literally apply these steps in your everyday life. When done over and over, it becomes a habit of thinking. In this program, I will go into details about the 12 steps, as they are quoted in the Big Book of AA and the 12 and 12. :
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
9. Made direct amends to such people where possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the results of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
The 12 steps comes with the 12 step principles:
1. Honesty
2. Hope
3. faith/action
4. Courage
5. integrity/trust
6. Willingness
7. Humility
8. Responsibility/brotherly love
9. restitution/Discipline
10. Perseverance
11. Spirituality
12. Service
These steps have been adapted to many types of groups and have been altered to fit those needs. As I am in recovery, these are the steps that I work with and know very well. I just change the wording as I face different situations in my life. In this program, I will attempt to use the steps to fit both general situations, along with substance abuse. My goal is teach these steps in a general forum but to also reach those who are continuing to struggle with their abuse of substances.
Please note that this is a peer speaking to peers. Where I am completely qualified as a professional to work with substance abuse, that is not my purpose here. This should not be used as a substitute for AA/NA groups, just a resource to use. Feel free to contact me and share your feedback with what you see here. As I am only one person who lives within my own mind, I am looking for outside opinions and suggestions.
MTFBWY