Real Relationships

Instead of getting G-d to step into the ring, you need to learn how to step out of the ring. It works.

But to step out of the ring, I cannot be going-it alone, I need to bring other sober people into my struggle, and as often as possible in the heat of the moment. Because if I am doing it alone, I am most likely saying inside: "I can beat this! I have the trick now!". There are no tricks and no easy ways out.

It doesn't seem to ever work if I am really saying to G-d: "Take it away G-d, so I don't have to give it up"!

And we cannot assume that our faith in G-d is so real that when we talk to Him it has the same emotional value to us as talking to another person does. If that were so, we'd never hide from people when acting out - would we? So we must really have a disconnect there. Face it.

And the answer, for me, was to establish real connections with people, and only then with my G-d. This is the way G-d made us. We were created to establish human relations (parents, then friends, then a spouse, then children) all to model and develop our relationship with G-d.

Trouble is, addicts get short-circuited somewhere, and they remain eleven-year-olds in their own head, still fighting their parents. G-d becomes a ritual, to some extent. If you were G-d, you would not want to be a ritual, would you? And the relationship with G-d doesn't work either.

So how to do it? The 12 Steps spelled it out simply and clearly for me, and I worked them with my sponsor and continue to work them today, with G-d’s help. And if I can, anyone can. Trust me. You may not know how screwed up I was, and how grandiose, self-centered and fearful I am, by nature. ANYONE can do this.

The trick is to stop thinking about it. Just stop. Work the steps, in order, and with another person who already did it and for whom it is still working. No deep explanations and calculations need apply.