Christian Recovery

Why Christian Recovery

You don’t find recovery from addiction or abuse – God provides it to you, if only you have the courage to let go and find your strength in Him!

• Although you may have tried and failed on so many occasions that you think you’re a hopeless case, God can heal you, if you let Him in!
• By taking a Christian approach to recovery, you harness God’s love for healing. Through recovery acts and through prayer, you practice right spiritual living and through these acts you rekindle and strengthen your connection with Christ.

Through a stronger felt connection with God you gain peace and serenity, and even JOY! You gain strength to resist the temptations that will always exist while you also reshape your life so that it serves a higher purpose, to yourself, to your family and to God. Through this better way of living, you further reduce the odds relapse.

Recovery doesn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t happen within a 30 day program – recovery takes a lifetime and for those that put their faith in God – recovery can last a lifetime. As the old saying goes, “anyone can quit…it’s staying quit that’s hard!”

Through Christian recovery you not only gain the tools to break free from substance abuse or addiction, you also come back home to a right way of living. Through Christian recovery acts you come back to a faith and value based way of life, and those that live this life with an honest heart will find what they need, from God, to stay clean and sober for good.

• Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17¹
• Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. Ephesians 2:12-13²

Why pray to a nameless ‘higher power’ in AA when you can speak directly to God in a Christian 12 steps group.

The 12 steps of AA were created by two very faithful men who endeavored to widen the audience for their message of healing by making their newly created organization a secular one.

AA and other 12 steps groups are open to men, women and children, regardless of belief system, and a great many Christians find recovery through the support and guidance of a 12 steps group. Some though, prefer a Christian 12 steps group and a Christian 12 steps, which speak to Christ by name. The Christian 12 steps are:

1. We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and dysfunctional- behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that God, a Power greater than ourselves, could restore us to sanity and stability.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as revealed in the Bible.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as revealed in the Bible, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The Christian 12 steps are used in Faith based addiction treatment programs. Those seeking community based Christian 12 steps support can find the Christian 12 steps used with the Alcoholics Victorious organization, Alcoholics for Christ and others.

This is what your Sovereign LORD says, your God, who defends his people: "See, I have taken out of your hand the cup that made you stagger; from that cup, the goblet of my wrath, you will never drink again. Isaiah 51:52³

While using or drinking hard, it’s easy to start to feel hopeless. We try to quit or cut back and find that we can’t. We make promises to ourselves and to others and we break them. We act in ways we never thought we would and we can’t find a way to do better.

We feel hopeless because we shut God out. Recovery begins when we let Him in.

In step 1 of the Christian 12 we admit that we can’t do it on our own – and in step 2, we accept that only God can give us the strength we need to get better.

• Let go and let God. Pray for guidance, work a program of recovery and live like the scriptures tell you to; and you’ll find that there is hope and that you can overcome your addiction – with God in your heart, you do have the strength.
• Trust in God and stop worrying about tomorrow – do your best, pray and God will provide the answers as you need them. Christian recovery means living with Christ, one day at a time!

Some people will benefit greatly from a period of residential addiction treatment, including people with serious addictions, people who’ve tried other forms of treatment in the past and always relapsed and those that just feel that without getting out of their daily environment of temptation, they’ll never get the fresh start they need.

For those that are considering drug or alcohol rehab, those with Faith may want to consider a Christian approach to treatment.

Christian treatment facilities, typically, combine the best of secular treatments (cognitive behavioral therapy, relapse prevention classes, drug education, etc.) with a full array Christ-centered healing programs, such as:

• The Christian 12 Steps
• Prayer (individually and in groups)
• Bible study
• Christian counseling
• Good works
• More

Costs and facilities vary enormously. Many Christian organizations offer free or very low cost Christian addiction treatment to those in need (The Salvation Army, The Union Mission, and others). Those seeking a more comfortable and therapeutically intensive experience can find an array of private Christian facilities – some of which are very luxurious!

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11⁵