A Higher Power Of My Own Understanding

I stopped believing in God at an early age.  I stopped when I discovered hypocrisy in the way my parents practiced "their" religion and it was easy to extend that discovery to just about every or religion or practitioner I encountered in my adolescent and adult years.  Oh there were a couple of Gods along the way but they were God's of my first wife's understanding and the God of second wife's understand. Gods of convenience that I adopted when I wanted something or someone. 

When we sought help for our son's addiction to drugs and alcohol and was first introduced to 12 Step recovery I quickly dismissed AA, NA and CA as religious cults.  The evidence was abundantly clear to me...they had 12 commandments they called "Steps"...they had a "Big Book" which they treated like a bible....they began their meeting reading from this book like scripture and at the end of the meeting they circled up, held hand and recited The Lord's Prayer.  A revival meeting pure and simple!!!!

So when my son David died from the disease of addiction at 16 and two years later I willingly checked myself into the same treatment center; I knew I needed help but I was scared to death.  Scared because I thought if I was going to succeed where I had failed my son I would have to undergo a religious conversion...and if that were the case...then alI was lost. And so for the first three days I wandered aimlessly from meeting to meeting, therapy session to counseling session, always hearing the difference in the other patients stories instead of the similarity.

It was on the third day during an alumni panel of former patients that I first heard of the term "a higher power of your own understanding".  the fellow who used the term went on to say that "AA..NA..CA and all the A's were not religious programs but were spirituall programs."  He went on to explain further that "religion is for people who are afraid they are going to Hell and spiritual programs are for people who have already been there."  This was the first thing that I heard during my treatment  made any sort of sense and I stopped him afterward and told him a little about what had happened to me.  he listened attentively and then quietly suggested that instead of using my son's death from substance abuse as an excuse to further my own addiction I should make David part of my higher power so he would become a reason not to drink and drug.  I was incredulous..."you mean I can do that!!!" , I exclaimed.  "Of course",he said, "It's a power of YOUR understand and no one else's."

That evening I returned to my room and had the most restful night's sleep I had had since my son's death 2 1/2 years before. The next morning I awoke refreshed and began attending my daily meetings with a new out look.  His words the day before had opened the door to recovery just enough for me to slip my butt through and I became at least willing to consider that there might be a power greater than myself.  Over time I came to accept not only the existence of that power but the help and strength I now draw upon daily.

My Higher Power today is not a God in the Judeo/Christian sense but more of an amalgamation of belief systems. There is a little Buddhism in Her, a bit of the Native American Great Spirit and a lot of my son in Her.  Sometimes I call Her HP...sometimes Great Spirit and sometimes just Dave.  I have come to understand that the things I hated about religion were really all the man made trappings that surround the different sects and denominations.  I discovered that when I stripped away all the accouterments of Catholocism, Judaism and Islam what remained was my higher power...my great spirit...my Dave. 

And that She had been waiting patiently there for me all the time