Spirit of Recovery

Many of us in addiction recovery can affirm that we've never let go of anything that didn't have claw marks on it! Even when we were, in essence, clinging to a sinking ship! But we eventually find that we become willing to try a new way, our lives begin to change. When we can truly “Let Go” and allow a higher power to provide guidance and direction, our lives begin to become amazing. Today we want to share our experience, strength and hope on learning how to let go, trust a Higher Power and build a wonderful new life. Join Rev Dan Beckett and Rev Michelle Vargas on Facebook and connect with the Spirit of Recovery community! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Early on in our recovery journey, the idea of a life of peace and joy might seem impossible. The good news is that we can live such a life! But first we must learn to trust a Higher Power so we can start to move away from the disarray of an undirected life, opening the door to sanity and hope. The program of recovery gives us tools we can take up and use in our daily lives that assist us as we find our way to a Higher Power that works for us. “God as we understand him,” as we read in the Big Book. Today we want to share our experience, strength and hope on coming to believe in a Higher Power. Join Rev Dan Beckett and Rev Michelle Vargas on Facebook and be a part of the Spirit of Recovery community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At any point on our recovery journey we have the option to begin again. We can call, “time out” and get a “do over!” Go back to basics! Our Higher Power gives us the ability to leave behind that which no longer serves us and move ahead with a clean slate. And as we do, it can be helpful to refocus ourselves on recovery Step 1. It’s been said Step 1 is the only step we need to get 100% right. What does that mean for us today? And how can a new beginning support us on our journey? Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength and hope on energizing your life with a fresh start. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Has your trust ever been shattered? Have you ever felt betrayed by an authority figure? Many of us in recovery will say yes to those questions, but do we want to spend the rest of our lives in distrust and fear? No, so how do we regain trust if we have lost confidence in another? Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on regaining trust in our higher power and in others around us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In addiction recovery, we learn that we need to make “conscious contact” with a higher power, but we don’t stop there. We continue and learn how to be of service to others by carrying the message of recovery to any who seek it. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on learning to be of service as a natural outcome of spiritual awakening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the old song tells us, sometimes we need to hold on to things and sometimes we need to let go. Fortunately for us in addiction recovery, we make a spiritual practice of taking personal inventory as a way of life. If we find we are wrong, we promptly admit it, and if we persevere in this practice, we find a meaningful purpose in life. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share “when to hold ‘em” and “when to fold ‘em” on the path to purposeful living. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Early in addiction recovery, many of us are not inclined to trust others or other people’s ideas of how things should be done. But once we make the commitment to clean and sober living, we have an opportunity to learn and trust a recovery process that has worked for many others. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on learning to trust the process of recovery on the way to a life that is happy, joyous, and free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we get into addiction recovery, we learn to be mindful of our actions. “Do the next right thing” sounds like a great idea, but what does that actually mean? How are we supposed to know what the next right thing is? Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on moving from aimlessness to freedom by doing the next right thing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One thing we need in order to grow in our recovery is to walk our path with principled honesty. This can be more challenging than it sounds at first! But if we are willing to show up and do the work, we can drop the heavy load we have been carrying and enjoy a lightness of being that will transform our lives. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on lightening the load through the power and practice of truth with integrity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It takes courage and integrity to walk an addiction recovery path. If we persist, we will come to know ourselves as the spiritual beings we truly are, but first we must trek through the wreckage of our past. In order to move into the light, we must face our shadow. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on finding a path through the shadow to the light. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we are in early recovery, the idea of a life of peace and joy seems very far away. The good news is that we can get there! But first we must extricate ourselves from the disarray of an undirected life. We can then learn to trust a higher power, thus opening the door to sanity and hope. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on moving from disarray to genuine peace and joy through coming to believe in a higher power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you ever feel like life would be so much better if you could just have a do-over? Well, you can do just that! In fact you can start over anytime you decide. Our higher power gives us the ability to leave behind that which no longer serves us and move ahead with a clean slate. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on energizing your life with a fresh start. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many of us enter addiction recovery with an excess of energy, not always knowing what to do with it. We can exhaust ourselves overcommitting, trying to make up for lost time, or just generally running ourselves ragged. This has been called “frantic sobriety.” Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on using our recovery energy to create a life of purpose, right here and right now, one day at a time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many of us in addiction recovery, life can seem hopeless, especially in the beginning. After all, we chose to deal with our life difficulties with a behavior or substance meant to numb the pain. Take that away and life can certainly feel hopeless. But we hold a vision of hope, and we find a wonderful new life on the other side of addiction—one that we would not trade for anything. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on holding a vision for hope and finding our way through the tough times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we first get into addiction recovery, it can be hard to imagine a life without a drink or a drug. It may seem like our life is over and we’ll never have fun again. But nothing could be further from the truth! We soon begin to learn that there is a new way of being in the world that is far better than our old habits. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on moving from a dull existence to the life you want to live through the spiritual power of imagination. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How many times have we found ourselves doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results? We enter recovery and learn a new way of thinking and being in the world—and yet the same old thought habits can still drive us crazy. What’s going on? How do we change this? Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on breaking old patterns of thought and discovering new levels of freedom, happiness, and joy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“If you want what we have, you have to do what we did.” 12-step addiction recovery is a program of action based on spiritual principles. The ideas are nice, and anyone can read the steps and see that perhaps they make sense, but nothing happens if we don’t take action. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on putting spiritual principles to work through a program of action and the amazing changes that take place as a result. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For some of us new to recovery, the whole “God thing” can be a real barrier. We may be carrying old ideas of God that don’t make sense to us. We may not realize that we don’t need to accept someone else’s understanding of God; we can find our own. In fact, we don’t even have to use the word “God” if we don't want to! Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on making peace with the whole “God thing” on our own terms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many of us in active addiction were not looking for a way out of our way of living. But then things got really bad, and we became willing to find a new path forward. We moved from complacently accepting our addiction to actively seeking to move beyond it. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on forging a new path forward with hope, commitment, and focus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many of us in addiction recovery are all too familiar with the feeling of fear. Fear of the future, fear of change, fear of pain—you can probably add to the list. The good news is that in recovery, we can learn to manage and transform our fear, moving instead into a life rooted in faith. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on moving from fear to faith using the power of release. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we first get clean and sober, it is not unusual to feel like the whole world has been turned upside down. It can feel like chaos has taken over our lives! Fortunately, if we are willing to do the work, the recovery journey includes the gift of balance and peace. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on moving from chaos to peace using the power of order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Murphy’s Law seems operable in the life of many addicts and alcoholics: whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Beaten into submission by the school of hard knocks, we wonder, “Do we have to learn everything the hard way? I don’t understand why this always happens!” Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on learning to unlock a new way of experiencing life—a life of grace and ease—through the spiritual power of understanding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Twelve-step wisdom teaches that we are powerless—powerless over our addiction. But does that mean we are powerless over everything? Certainly over the behavior or substance that brought us into recovery, but what about the rest of life? Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on practical ways you can move from powerlessness to balanced living through the spiritual power of dominion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The “Serenity Prayer” tells us to be open to Wisdom so we can discern what is ours to do—and what is not. Many of us in recovery have experienced the results of questionable decisions we have made—sometimes repeatedly! Fortunately, we grew tired of living that way. But how do we move away from bad decisions, bad relationships, and bad situations? Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on practical ways we can do just that and experience new levels of joy and freedom in our lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!” This sounds like great advice though many of us begin the recovery journey feeling quite the opposite: stuck and limited. Sometimes even after years of being clean and sober, we can find ourselves feeling aimless. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on practical ways you can find your true purpose in life and advance confidently toward making it a reality! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here on Spirit of Recovery, we approach each week’s topic asking the same questions: What was it like? What happened? What is it like now? Today we want to share with you the answers to those questions for each of us in our own recovery journey. What’s our story? Well, today we aim to share our experience, strength, and hope on the experience of our own recovery. What we were like, what happened, and what we are like now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we take action in our lives, powerful and positive changes begin to happen. In fact, action is essential to addiction recovery and spiritual growth. In Scripture we read, “Faith without works is dead,” and many of us have experienced apathy and detachment when we don’t “move our feet” on the recovery path. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on learning how to take effective action and building a vibrant life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Am I alone in the universe? I’m supposed to pray, but how and for what, and to whom? I prayed as a child with seemingly no results. What’s different now? Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on finding effective ways to make conscious contact with God as you understand God and seeing concrete, positive results in your life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It has been said that if we change our thoughts, we change our lives. And if we direct our thoughts with integrity, our lives come together beautifully. We can move from negativity to hope and joy by making just such a shift. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on learning how the power of our thoughts can lead us to hope and a new experience of joy in our lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we first get clean and sober, we may be overwhelmed by a sense of lost identity. Who am I if I don't drink, use, or fix others? The recovery journey offers an opportunity to heal this dismay and grow into an entirely new sense of ourselves. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on finding out who we really are and how our new identity can bring deep meaning to our lives and our life’s work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Early in recovery, many of us find ourselves confronted with “the God thing,” even if we felt we had settled that question for ourselves long ago! But sobriety can bring with it a nagging feeling that maybe there’s more to life than just flesh and circumstances. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on finding a power greater than ourselves that can help us move from questioning to faith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are so many questions in the world, and many times we have opinions on all of them! We may even find ourselves tied up in knots over conflicting ideas that really have very little to do with our daily lives. How do we regain our serenity? Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on the value of maintaining a neutral stance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the unique aspects of the way recovery communities operate is that there are no bosses. The group manages and serves the group. No one is any more or less important than anyone else. For recovery to work, the playing field must be genuinely level. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on being “one of the bunch” and learning to see all people as equally valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we answer the call to assist another alcoholic or addict on their recovery path, we do so with generosity and gratitude. We do not pay our sponsors or expect payment. We give freely and receive freely in gratitude. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on giving and receiving freely, and the joys that accompany it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nobody else is responsible for our sobriety. We are the ones who direct, live, and own our own sober experience. But in active addiction, we often try to put our responsibilities onto others: “If work weren’t so stressful, I wouldn’t drink so much.” Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on owning our sobriety, one day at a time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The lure of prestige has been the downfall of many on the recovery journey. Can we practice humility without feeling humiliated? Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on staying in integrity on the recovery journey and avoiding the desire to look good doing it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nobody has ever stopped drinking or drugging if they didn’t want to. The motivation and commitment to get clean and sober is essential for success. Even though we know this alone is not enough, we also know it is foundational for living a life of freedom. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on finding and sustaining the motivation and commitment to sober living. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It has been said that nobody can do our inner work for us, but we cannot do it alone. We need the company of others on the recovery path in order to truly thrive. This can be challenging because we can be used to doing things our way! But if we are willing to become one of the bunch, we will discover the group to be a profound healing influence. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on finding a path to freedom and peace through the power of community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In addiction recovery, we learn that we need to make “conscious contact” with a higher power, but we don’t stop there. We continue to learn how to be of service to others by carrying the message of recovery to any who seek it. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on learning to be of service as a natural outcome of spiritual awakening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the old song tells us, sometimes we need to hold on to things and sometimes we need to let go. Fortunately for us in addiction recovery, we make a spiritual practice of taking personal inventory as a way of life. If we find we are wrong, we promptly admit it. If we persevere in this practice, we find a meaningful purpose in life. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share “when to hold ‘em” and “when to fold ‘em” on the path to purposeful living. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When in early addiction recovery, many of us are not inclined to trust others or other people’s ideas of how things should be done. But once we make the commitment to clean and sober living, we have an opportunity to learn and trust a recovery process that has worked for many others. We get to decide if it will work for us. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on learning to trust the process of recovery on the way to a life that is happy, joyous, and free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we get into addiction recovery, we learn to be mindful of our actions. We hear the phrase, “Do the next right thing,” but how are we supposed to know what the next right thing is? Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on moving from aimlessness to freedom by doing the “next right thing.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many gifts of addiction recovery come to us when we are willing to work for them. Part of that work is facing the wreckage of our past. To do so we must combine right intention with the guidance of a trusted advisor in order to get real results. We must “do the work”—but how do we go about doing this work? Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on finding our way from complacency to freedom through the willingness to do the work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we grow through our addiction recovery journey, we often come face-to-face with old habits that are hard to break! Fortunately, once we are a few steps down the recovery path, we become willing to make new choices that support our new way of living. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on letting go of old habits and opening the door to a whole new way of being. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One thing we need in order to grow in our recovery is to walk our path with principled honesty. This can be more challenging than it sounds at first! But if we are willing to show up and do the work, we can drop the heavy load we have been carrying and enjoy a lightness of being that will transform our lives. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on lightening the load through the power and practice of truth with integrity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It takes courage and integrity to walk an addiction recovery path. If we persist, we will come to know ourselves as the spiritual beings we truly are, but first we must trek through the wreckage of our past. In order to move into the light, we must face our shadow. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on finding a path through the shadow to the light. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many of us in addiction recovery can affirm that we’ve never let go of anything that didn’t have claw marks on it! But we eventually find that when we become willing to try a new way, our lives begin to change. When we can truly let go and allow a higher power to provide guidance and direction, our lives begin to become amazing. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on learning how to let go, trust a higher power, and build a wonderful new life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we are in early recovery, the idea of a life of peace and joy seems very far away. The good news is that we can get there! But first we must extricate ourselves from the disarray of an undirected life. We can then learn to trust a higher power, thus opening the door to sanity and hope. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on moving from disarray to genuine peace and joy through coming to believe in a higher power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you ever feel like life would be so much better if you could just have a do-over? You can and you can start over at any time. Our higher power gives us the ability to leave behind that which no longer serves us and move ahead with a clean slate. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on energizing your life with a fresh start. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many of us in addiction recovery, life can seem hopeless, especially in the beginning. After all, we chose to deal with our life difficulties with a behavior or substance meant to numb the pain. Take that away and, yes, life can certainly feel hopeless. But we hold a vision of hope, and we find a wonderful new life on the other side of addiction, one that we would not trade for anything. Join Rev. Dan and Rev. Michelle as they share their experience, strength, and hope on holding a vision for hope and finding our way through the tough times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices