Have you ever wondered why highly spiritual people seem to have it all figured out? You wonder why they don’t face the same struggles as you or why their suffering seems so much more bearable than your problems. You might wonder if spiritual people ever face addiction and issues with substance abuse. The fact is, they do. But spirituality can often be a means for healing, which can lead to sustainable sobriety and more resilience in facing life’s struggles.
The Keck School of Medicine of USC stated in 2015 over 52,000 people died in the U.S. from overdoses. If you’re struggling with addiction, you might be wondering if spirituality can help you overcome it. In this article, we’ll discuss the power of spirituality to help people become sober. We hope this helps you along your journey to sobriety.
What Is Spirituality?
Spirituality is defined as, “the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.” It’s often thought of as the practice of finding meaning and purpose in your life. Your spiritual life is a part of the eight dimensions of wellness, among emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, physical, and social.
When you foster a strong and healthy spiritual connection in your life, you become more connected to yourself, your community, and the world around you. It can also help you develop a stronger sense of purpose and to better understand yourself. We’ll talk about ways of finding spirituality and how it’s connected to sobriety shortly.
The Spirituality and Sobriety Connection
Spirituality isn’t a quick fix for your addiction, and it may not lead to a complete understanding of your addiction as substance abuse stems from different reasons for everyone. However, addiction can often stem from feelings of emptiness, dissatisfaction, or trauma, and spirituality can help to heal these things.
Recovery and sobriety are opportunities to restructure the way you deal with the things that led you to drug and alcohol abuse. When you practice the spiritual activities of your choice, you’re resetting your sense of meaning and purpose in life to something greater than the substances you’re addicted to. Spirituality can also help build a new foundation for you to fall back on when you go through something like relapsing after inpatient drug rehab.
How to Find Spirituality in Recovery
Some form of spirituality is essential to your overall well-being, but spirituality doesn’t have to be religious. There is no wrong way to find spirituality, meaning, and purpose in your life. You just have to find something that helps you feel a deep sense of personal meaning in your experiences. Your idea of spirituality may even evolve over time and as you grow and change. These are just a few examples of ways people have found their own forms of spirituality:
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Attend a place of worship
- Get out in nature
- Journaling
- Listening to music
Do sobriety and spirituality go hand-in-hand? Spirituality doesn’t guarantee sobriety or that you’ll never experience addiction. It can, however, help you heal from your addictions because it helps build meaning, purpose, and connection in your life. Spirituality can also help you heal from past trauma. It could be the cause that may have led you to use drugs and alcohol. You don’t have to be religious to find spirituality in your life. What’s important is that you find the things that give you a sense of meaning in your experiences.
