Highs And Lows Of Spirituality

Spirituality has had its place within my life for a long time. I believe that it was likely ever present, long before I learned about it, or even realized it existed. While I feel rather familiar with it now, with an enormous connection in so many parts of my life, it can still seem like such a difficult term to define.

Its purpose can’t necessarily be pinpointed in the world around us. Since it is something that is different for each person. It can be a strong force in a person’s life. A force that is embraced through all times, good and bad. It can be just as much of a present force in the lives of people who do not embrace it or even recognize it. For many, it strongly connects to a God or a Higher Power, yet at the same time, it’s not always deemed as something religious.

One of the more mysterious parts of all of this, brings me back a long way, to times where my life was covered with darkness, loneliness, and pain. A sense of lost hope. A feeling that felt as if, even going to seek help would be so useless.

Because since for the longest time, I was hopeless, I learned to live in a way that gave no power or connection to hope whatsoever.

I was so ill, with a day that repeated every single day like a groundhog day. I lived life in order to use drugs. To avoid getting sick, and therefore it was many days of scheming. The only need that I had in life was drugs.

There was a time, when I used drugs for fun. To get high, to feel good, to escape from myself, and to be like the others around me. Everything seemed fine with the world, until the truth and presence of addiction became my reality.

I would say my very lowest point of being empty of spirituality was as my addiction grew deeper and deeper right after I had realized what the truth was. The day I accepted that my new normal was one that consisted of waking up each day, knowing that I had to feed a massive addiction, not to get high. But instead all just to feel as “normal” as I could possibly be.

That is really a point that I continue to go back to again and again. No matter how often I share any part of my story, I work hard to make that factor very clear as I try to make clear just what addiction is really all about. People may use and abuse drugs and alcohol to get high or drunk. But it is addiction that is the never successful chase to reach a point of finding that normalcy.

Normalcy to wake up, get out of bed, go to work, eat meals, go to sleep, have relationships with friends and family, socialize, and just be happy with the way one is living.

To be happy each morning when we see the sun is coming up. Not angry with fate that we are stuck living another day.

Finding that spirituality is a process that can continue forever. When we embrace it, we get the opportunity to grow in good ways. Ways that create of timelines of health and wealth. The wealth may not be money and possessions, but it can be happiness and contentment within. A love for self. It can lead us to sobriety in that moment. And it can then help us continue living sober.

Sobriety can be a tricky part of life. It isn’t always a guaranteed time of joy and happiness.

Life still happens every single day. Hard and rough times will still happen, and we will still experience sorrow and loss. It is a stronger sense of spirituality to carry alongside that sobriety that will take us to further stages in life where we can learn that sobriety is so much more then the act of not using a drug.

Spirituality brought me to a place of sober living. It is that same spirituality that shows us what a continued life in recovery can bring up as time goes on. That is why we seek better success sober, when we include being spiritual.

If we simply tried to quit drugs because somebody is making us do it, or if we seek an immediate fix, that is a journey that will not move far. Sobriety without spirituality can only travel together for a very short time.

Michael Patanella

is a Trenton, New Jersey Author, Publisher, Columnist, Editor, Advocate, and recovering addict, covering topics of mental health, addiction, sobriety, mindfulness, self-help, faith, spirituality, Smart Recovery, social advocacy, and countless other nonfiction topics. His articles, publications, memoirs, and stories are geared towards being a voice for the voiceless. Hoping to reach others out there still struggling.