Religion Is the Cup. Spirituality Is the Juice.

One person’s humble, heretical case for spiritual-ish recovery.

I’m one of the last people you should listen to on spiritual matters. When I first got into recovery, my higher power (or Higher Power, if that makes you feel better) was an imaginary number.

i is the symbol for the square root of -1, a value that doesn’t exist—at least not in the world of positive square roots. And yet, i is indispensable in solving certain equations. If some math problems can be solved with a nonexistent value, I figured it was good enough to help me solve the problem of my life. At the very least, it put something outside my will, ego, and appetite at the center of the universe.

After that, my higher power evolved into something even weirder: my ability to express gratitude. From the minute I entered recovery, two suggestions came up again and again—be grateful and pray. My first mentor must have said it a hundred times: “A grateful heart will never drink or drug.” He and others insisted it didn’t matter whether I believed in God or not—prayer, they said, was good for me.

I took that advice the most efficient way I knew how. I started praying “Thank you, God” fifty times a day. Same words, every time. And oddly enough, it worked. That tiny prayer seemed to transform my internal plumbing. I stopped being a regional distributor of resentment and became a modest manufacturer of gratitude. To this day, the most common thought that runs through my mind is that simple phrase. Whether or not any god exists, the act of expressing gratitude clears my spiritual pipes like a Roto-Rooter.

Recently, my notion of a higher power has morphed again into… never mind. I told you not to take my advice on this stuff. The last thing you need is another unlicensed tour guide leading you through the nonsense that has kept me clean and sober. This isn’t about what worked for me—it’s about what might work for you.

Do you need any ideas about a higher power to get clean and stay that way?
ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Millions of people have found recovery without needing some Great Joker in the Sky who requires elaborate voodoo rituals to calm him down. At the same time, millions have found comfort and strength through faith—Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or something else entirely.

Theists, atheists, agnostics, spiritual-but-not-religious, none-of-the-above: people in recovery span the full spiritual spectrum. Still, some form of spirituality seems to show up in nearly everyone I’ve known who’s found lasting recovery.

Sometimes it’s prayer or chanting or walking in the woods. Sometimes it’s meditation or the simple act of noticing the breath. Richard Thompson, the brilliant English songwriter, once described our pre-recovery state like this:

“A drunk’s only trying to get free of his body / And soar like an eagle way up there in heaven.”

Even in recovery, we still want that transcendence. We want—just briefly—to be lifted out of ourselves. Spiritual actions help with that.

No matter what recovery path you choose—12-Step, SMART, Refuge Recovery, Recovery Dharma, Three Principles, some homemade hybrid, or none at all—you may (dare I say it?) will benefit from a spiritual practice of some kind.

I know some folks have been wounded by religion, and I’m truly sorry for that. But remember: religion and spirituality are not the same thing. They can be related—but they’re not interchangeable.

Here’s one thing I do believe. Religion is the vessel that tries to hold the juice of spirituality. Too often, the cup is empty and gathering dust. But the juice is still out there.

Taste and see that it is good.