Novena to Our lady of Lourdes for Alcoholics: Day 3

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Depression is another affliction for us alcoholics, especially in early recovery. With our moods swinging wildly from day to to day, and sometimes more quickly, we fall into a state of wondering “will it ever get better?” It becomes easy to lose hope and to wonder whether this sobriety thing is worth it if an emotional roller coaster is the cost.

A dark cloud seems to follow us and we drift from meeting to meeting to seek a means to snap out of it. We see others with more long-term sobriety than ours and we “want what they have”, but we want it now. And gloom sets in when we see the long road ahead that we need to trudge to get where they are.

It passes as easily at it arrived, this depression. We eventually learn that it is a normal part of the landscape of our minds, and eventually we endure. It does not make it any easier, nevertheless we develop the strength to see it through and our fortitude pervades our life.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, ever our watchful and protective mother, is ready to assist:

Pray:

Oh ever Immaculate Virgin, Mother of Mercy, Health of the Sick, Refuge of Sinners, Comfortess of the Afflicted, you know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings. Look upon me with mercy. When you appeared in the grotto of Lourdes, you made it a privileged sanctuary where you dispense your favors, and where many sufferers have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and corporal. I come, therefore, with unbounded confidence to implore your maternal intercession. My loving Mother, obtain my request. I will try to imitate your virtues so that I may one day share your company and bless you in eternity. Amen

From: Prayers – Catholic Online: “Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes”

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes for Alcoholics: Day 2

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Anxiety is another cross that we alcoholics have to bear. Fears and worries about the future or about present circumstances and the apparent powerlessness over them leads to anxiety.

Anxiety happens when faith is weak or absent. We lack the confidence that God is there to help us or provide for us, and we feel we are cast adrift. Our inability to deal with things in the past had pushed us to drinking as a means to cope, and now without that crutch anxiety fills the gap.

Anxiety fills the empty spaces where love and faith should abide.

At Mass is the following dialogue after the Lord’s Prayer:

Priest: Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Via Catholic Resources.)

One of the little-known effects of the Mass is that it is a weapon against anxiety. If we are the faithful servants of our Lord then we should be confident that the One who died for us will not let us stumble and fall beyond His reach.

The Mass is the drama of God’s love for us. Immerse yourself in it. (Helpful if you are a member of a parish with a reverent priest who says the Mass properly.)

Pray:

Oh ever Immaculate Virgin, Mother of Mercy, Health of the Sick, Refuge of Sinners, Comfortess of the Afflicted, you know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings. Look upon me with mercy. When you appeared in the grotto of Lourdes, you made it a privileged sanctuary where you dispense your favors, and where many sufferers have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and corporal. I come, therefore, with unbounded confidence to implore your maternal intercession. My loving Mother, obtain my request. I will try to imitate your virtues so that I may one day share your company and bless you in eternity. Amen

From: Prayers – Catholic Online: “Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes”

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes for Alcoholics: Day 1

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We are all individuals. Sometimes our sense of individuality gets unhealthy and and is replaced by a feeling of aloneness. We feel isolated and no longer a part of whatever community or communities we belong to. This separation is distinctly harmful and will lead to all sorts of thoughts about our well-being that are untrue. Our problems are worse that anybody else’s. No one likes me. No one notices me, I am invisible.

No one suffers with us.

We somehow must re-establish our connections with those around us and reassert our balanced perspective as to how we are in relation to others.

Prayer is one way. Prayer, that seeking out conscious contact with God and uplifting our hearts and minds to Him reconnects us to the Divine, and in turn helps us to be aware that we are not truly alone. God is there and He softens our hearts and assists us in seeing those about us.

In this novena, we turn to Our Blessed Mother and request her intercessory powers to aid us in our healing. We can turn to her and ask that our feelings of aloneness be banished when they arise.

Pray:

Oh ever immaculate Virgin, Mother of Mercy, Health of the Sick, Refuge of Sinners, Comfortess of the Afflicted, you know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings. Look upon me with mercy. When you appeared in the grotto of Lourdes, you made it a privileged sanctuary where you dispense your favors, and where many sufferers have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and corporal. I come, therefore, with unbounded confidence to implore your maternal intercession. My loving Mother, obtain my request. I will try to imitate your virtues so that I may one day share your company and bless you in eternity. Amen

From: Prayers – Catholic Online: “Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes”

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes for Alcoholics

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On February 11 is the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. It honors the 1858 apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France. Along with the apparition at Fatima, Portugal, it is one of the best known of Marian apparitions. Even non-Catholics have heard of it due to miraculous healings of people immersed in the waters of its springs. This article from New Advent contains the basic information Lourdes.

At daily Mass this morning I got the idea of starting a novena (a prayer of petition or supplication said daily for nine days.) in honor of this feast day. I might have thought of it last year, but never got to it for whatever reason.

It will start tomorrow, February 3rd, and end on the feast, February 11th. Some novenas start 10 days before the feast and end the day just before, others start 9 days before and end on the day of the feast. Honestly, I never got a straight answer from anyone as to why this is so, so I just start them so that they end on the day of he feast. Other Catholic bloggers that you read might have started their own novenas to Our Lady of Lourdes today. That’s OK, I just wanted to explain why we’re a day off.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Nightly prayer for the next day

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“Lord, grant that I be treated tomorrow the way I treated others today.”

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Death as a passage

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What do you think of death? Is it something to be feared, avoided and denied? Like many people do you ignore it and hope it never bothers you?

I have had a relationship with death stretching back to my childhood. Not that I lost anyone close to me during that time, but I feared that I would. My Mom had celebrated her 47th birthday 11 days before I was born. Dad turned 50 a few months before. I thought nothing of that until I went to school at age 5. At school events (choir, plays, etc.) I noticed right away that the other kid’s parents seemed different. I discovered that they were younger. They were farther away from death than my parents were. Death… as in going away permanently. I didn’t much like that. I was convinced that at any time Mom and Dad were going to die. I developed the habit of checking their chests while they were napping to see if they were breathing. This continued long after I reached adulthood during vacations home and after I returned home to care for Mom.

My adult experience of death has been defined by my Mom’s dying in November 2005, and the subsequent griefwork (grief counseling, namely online discussion forums, in person counseling and grief support groups.) After the initial period which lasted well over a year, I developed the notion that death isn’t something to be feared. Sure, I would rather have my Mom and other loved ones still around, but as I moved past the pain and agony of the loss, I was able to see and understand the “Communion of Saints” doctrine of the Church as something of a comfort. This great “cloud of witnesses” that St. Paul writes about in Hebrews 12 may include our beloved dead, gone on before us. They form a part of the Church along with us. Those in Heaven being members of the Church Triumphant, while we still on Earth as a part of the Church Militant. Together with the Church Suffering (those souls in Purgatory) we all comprise the Mystical Body of Christ. We are all members of a community of believers, and as a community can still have a relational bond.

Through prayer and devotion to the deceased, we can still maintain our relationships with them. They are not completely gone. We obviously cannot interact with them as we once did, but it is uncharitable and cynical to regard them as forgotten or “gone”. They are just beyond from where we are.

Therefore, death ceases to be a means by which our beloved are taken away and are gone. Death becomes a passage through which our beloved experience the joy of entering into the presence of God, the domain of eternity where He is.

Ultimately it is a passage that we need to think about and meditate upon. Unlike most times where we focus upon the destination rather than the road, this passage is significant unto itself. Everyone will experience it. Regardless of what you believe happens after death, it is universal. Happens to everyone. This means you. Whether the passage of death leads one to Heaven or Hell depends upon the choices we make while alive. Therefore death as a passage forces this consideration of our daily living. How do we live? How are you “trudging the Road of Happy Destiny?” Catholic teaching puts that AA slogan in a new light.

If your attention is focused upon Heaven, and you consciously yearn for that place which is our true home, the death is to be welcomed and not feared. Perhaps not desired, but certainly not looked upon with dread.

It is our way home.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Gratitude: Wanting what you have

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One of my least favorite 12 Step meeting topics is “gratitude”. Not that I am ungrateful for anything in sobriety, for I have plenty to be grateful for. My main issue whenever this topic is brought up is that quite often the attendees just launch into a list of the things they are grateful for. Much of it is common to all even when the sharer does personalize it with special items. Nevertheless, such “gratitude” listings are boring (to me) and miss the point.

First, the idea that anyone needs to hear something about gratitude. Does this person feel a nostalgia for the days of drinking? Are they taking their sober life for granted and therefore need to be reminded of what can be lost if they do return? Do they not see very well the things around them that they have attained as a result of their sobriety? Do they just want to boast about their sobriety (“Oh, look at me, see how much I’VE got!”)

Someone at a 12-Step meeting with the topic of gratitude I attended long ago introduced something besides a list of what he was grateful for. He mentioned something along the lines of gratitude as being an attitude. He concluded with the notion that gratitude simply means that you want what you already have.

We alcoholics have an impatient streak. Even after a sustained period of sobriety we sometimes fall back into the “I want what I want and I want it now” attitude. We are impatient with what we already have and seek to attain or achieve something else that would make us better or happier. Just like back in the days of our drinking we needed “just one more”, what we have now is not enough and we seek something more to satisfy a hole in our soul.

“Wanting what you already have” is a great way of humbly accepting that which has come into your life and genuinely appreciating it. It is also an excellent way of living a moderate life and not a life driven to excess and conspicuous consumption. In other words, greed.

Sometimes the words “and thanking God for it” are added to the definition of gratitude. “Gratitude means wanting what you already have and thanking God for it.” A nice reminder as from where all good things come from, and to Whom we owe our sobriety to.

Luke 17:12-19: “As he was entering a village, ten lepers met (him). They stood at a distance from him

and raised their voice, saying, ‘Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!’

And when he saw them, he said, ‘Go show yourselves to the priests.’ As they were going they were cleansed.

And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;

and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan.

Jesus said in reply, ‘Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?

Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?’

Then he said to him, ‘Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.'”

(Via USCCB.)

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Calix Society of Tampa needs help

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I received an email from Bryan P. of the Calix Society of Tampa Bay. Bryan tells me that he founded the chapter about one year ago and membership is struggling to grow. If you live in the Tampa, Florida area and are interested in joining, contact info is available in the chapter’s website: Calix Society of Tampa. If you are a Calix Society member elsewhere, and can offer tips or suggestions on promoting a chapter, email Bryan.

If any readers of this blog also have their own blogs (AHEM: you know who you are!), and would like to promote Bryan’s efforts, go ahead and link away!

Bryan’s website contains a wealth of information on Calix. There are also Calix links in this blog’s sidebar. I shall add Bryan’s site in a bit.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Drinking is Never an Option

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I think it was nearly 5 years ago when I stumbled upon the notion of just ruling out the idea that drinking is an option. In the “One Day at a Time” concept of 12 Step Movements, you will just take the notion of not drinking, but just for today. “Today, I will not drink.” This is because the idea of never taking a drink for the rest of one’s life may be too much to handle. Therefore, take it in bite-size, one-day-at-a-time baby steps. Tomorrow is another story, another day.

While this is fine, and very successful, I found it questionable for my own personal abilities. You see, the “ODAAT” (“One Day at a Time” acronym) leaves open the possibility of drinking tomorrow. Advocates of ODAAT would respond by saying that you would merely resolve to do ODAAT again when tomorrow arrives. But for me, there would still be that narrow window of opportunity that would allow a drink to sneak in.

Therefore, I decided that drinking would never be an option. No matter how good, or how bad, drinking just wouldn’t be on the table as a response. In the past, I would drink when things got bad, but also when things were great. Drinking was a lubricant, either quelling the pain or heightening the joy. Drinking was always a response to something. It was an option.

What had happened to get me to the idea that drinking would never be an option, no matter what was a day in April 2004 in which I was laid off from a job due to insufficient work. As I was the last hired, I was the first to go. I was depressed, I had thought that I had finally “made it” in sobriety, that I had finally landed a job that would last and that I was putting in the final building blocks of my sobriety. The initial struggling period would be over and I would just “practice these principles in all my affairs” and just live. But being laid off shattered that notion.

I drove home, and it seemed as every liquor store in my part of the state was between work and home. I resisted the urge to go into any of them, thinking all the way “ODAAT”, and went instead straight to my old AA Home Group. I pondered stuff and I think that the topic was something about ODAAT. I decided that ODAAT wasn’t good enough for me, or rather, not suitable enough. There was always that danger that the desire to drink would wedge its way in and that I wouldn’t be strong enough the next day to do ODAAT.

So I decided to just remove drinking from the list of options. Not just for today, but forever. ODAAT preserves the notion that drinking is an option for tomorrow, and when tomorrow arrives, just push drinking off one more day through ODAAT.

My removing drinking as an option does not mean that I will resolve to never drink for the rest of my life, the scary notion that ODAAT evolved to ease. It just isn’t on the list of response mechanisms I have at my disposal. It isn’t something that I “do”, or have to ponder with never doing. I am not facing the prospect of viewing the rest of my life without drinking, it is more like the idea that murder or rape is simply not an option for how decent civilized people deal with others. Drinking isn’t there for me to choose. I do not bemoan the idea that I won’t murder or rape anyone in the future before I die, doing either of those things isn’t a part or my character. Drinking no longer is a part of my character.

I did not arrive at this idea easily. I spent the entire month of April 2004 beating this into my brain. I was helped by many AA meeting topics that kind of reinforced this. I guess the Holy Spirit was working on me.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Prayer drought

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Everyone who has a decent prayer life goes through periods when they just have a difficult time praying. By “prayer life” I don’t mean saying 1 or 2 prayers and that’s it. I mean daily Mass readings, Bible study, rosary devotion and whatever else that constitutes a greater-than-normal attention to the interior life of the soul.

Sometimes one just can’t do it. Whether it’s through a personal failing (“I don’t feel like it.”) or a God-induced dryness (just ask St. Teresa of Avila), people sometimes just have a difficult time praying.

One can force it or just roll with it until the moment returns. I go through it for a few days every so often. Not epic by saintly standards but enough to welcome and appreciate my prayer life’s return.

And when it returns it is like coming to a wellspring in an oasis after detouring through a desert. The tank was empty and then it isn’t.

My primary tool for sobriety has thus been recharged.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)