The 12 Spiritual Laws of Recovery and
Meditations for The 12-Step Program
By Rahasya Poe
Every once in a while I feel compelled to reach out and connect with what I see as the fastest-growing segment of our population. 
Now I have to admit, it would be very easy at this point to get into how other countries, such as Portugal for instance, have decriminalized drug use and have substantially fewer violent crimes associated with drugs and far less usage … but then again they don’t have a billion-dollar prison industry to support like we do and pharmaceutical companies putting millions into the pockets of their politicians, but this is a subject for another time. This is a spiritual crisis.
(I really need to add something here; the underlying cause of a lot of addiction is the fact that it’s actually being supported by our government. For instance, our soldiers are guarding the poppy fields in Afganistan (Over 93% of the worlds heroine comes from Afganistan, who do you think is making all that money?) as you read this. many people know this but never really think about the fact that if we are guarding it, who do you think is smuggling the heroine into our country? And if we are smuggling it in, as we were doing all the way back to Viet Nam war days and the drug cartel/CIA days, then we are also setting up distribution chains for the drugs to hit the streets. No one wants to admit that their government is doing such things, but this little fact should help…it’s not our government and hasn’t been for many years. It belongs to secret organizations and breakaway aspects of the CIA, the FBI, FDA, CDC, NSA and almost every international corporation and banking cartel there is. You may be asking, “Isn’t this a harsh indictment?” My answer is no, actually the truth gets far worse. If we want Justice we must learn to respell it because it should be spelled “Just-Us.” Did I mention that YOU are paying for this?)
And believe it or not, this article isn’t about the millions of people on drugs, legal and illegal, who are suffering all over the world and who are in the grip of a system that is dysfunctional, to say the least. This is about stepping back and taking a realistic look at “why” we go down this path in the first place, because the answer to this question is also the answer to “how” we stop going down that path (this statement is at the heart of this article so remember it). I think most anyone who gives this subject some honest thought has wondered why some substances that are relatively harmless with no lasting side effects are illegal while others, such as alcohol, pharmaceutical drugs, and tobacco, are legal and actually drive a lot of our political machinery. It becomes obvious that the laws are not meant to protect us; they are meant for something else entirely with respect to drug use. This too is a subject for another time.
Now we are getting close to the “why” in relation to drug use. The answer seems to have been lost in the legal system with a barrage of disinformation and misinformation. Meanwhile, we have millions of people, young and old, who are suffering while the rest of us stand back and legislate laws, judge, and separate ourselves from one basic truth: Human beings are adventurous souls and we should have the right to explore our own consciousness as long as we are not harming another person. I think we all intuitively know this and as adventurous souls we explore the most amazing thing in the known universe … our conscious awareness.
Drugs & The Heart of the Matter-Consciousness
So here we are at the heart of the matter, consciousness. A number of years ago I wrote a book along with my wife, Dhara, specifically for young people. I was a drug counselor for adolescents going through drug recovery in San Diego. As a house manager, I had some freedom to really get to know the boys coming through the program and in the beginning it was my plan to impart all of my knowledge and wisdom to them. Well, I quickly learned that it was I who was being taught. Asking these kids why they took drugs was like asking a fish what it felt like to be wet; in the world they grew up in, they had no normal frame of reference to compare their lives to.
The Final STEP-Freedom
It was no surprise that they weren’t resonating with the 12-step program, a program that was created back in the ’30s for alcoholics hanging on to the last remnants of reality. I remember Ram Dass saying that he worked with the program for many years and noticed one big problem: There was no way out. Even John Bradshaw, a well-known supporter of the 12-step program, said that after almost 30 years of being in it, he had to admit that the greatest value was as a resocialization step for addicts wanting to get back in society but that it was unfortunate that there was no final step to exit the program. I will always remember this young kid in the recovery program who was sitting with the other five kids I had taken to a 12-step meeting one evening. He was quietly listening to Joe: “Hello, my name is Joe. I’m an alcoholic; I’ve been sober for 22 years, three months, two weeks, and one day.” It was at that point that the kid stood up and screamed and ran out. I followed him out and asked him, “What’s wrong?” He said, “If this is what I need to do for the next 22 years to stay clean I can tell you right now … it’s not me!” The next day in group we all talked about it and I found that every kid who came through the program sincerely felt the same way.
WHAT !
What was the biggest complaint? The first step: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol/drugs and that our lives had become unmanageable.” I know a lot of you 12-steppers are going to go crazy right about now, but hear me out. The reason our lives became unmanageable in the first place was because we “gave” our power away to drugs and/or alcohol. As a society we have been indoctrinated into giving our power away to local and world leaders, churches, schools, doctors, institutions, governments, you name it. But something amazing has been happening right under our noses and most of us, especially the older generations, have missed it. An awakening is happening and with that comes the power to change things, including our lives.
The Big Difference Between ‘Fault’ & ‘Problem’
Something else I noticed in almost every client who came through the program was the tendency to “blame” and place fault on the world around them, which made sense because everyone from the parents to the courts was blaming them. It was easy to get them going in the “blame game” in group sessions; I would let them get all worked up and at the height of the conversation I would ask them a question, “OK, settle down for a second and let me ask you something. If I made all of you take off your clothes and shoes, tied you up, threw you in the van, and took you out in the desert 500 miles from nowhere with no water or food and kicked you out of the van and drove off, whose fault is it that you are there?” Of course there was an immediate response, “It’s not our fault, it’s your ‘!@#*ing’ fault, Rahasya.” Then I would quietly sit back and ask the next question, “Yes, it is my fault … but whose problem is it?” The whole room would get quiet and they would “always” look at each other for group coherence and say, “It’s our problem.” This is why asking them to give their power away to what they see as the very system that put them in this position is completely out of the question, but getting them to realize they have a problem and take responsibility for it is within the realm of possibility.
Just a Different Form of Slavery
For years I experimented with all sorts of drugs and it was a long, strange trip indeed. When it came time to quit, I realized that giving away what power I had left was not an option for me, so I embraced my addiction as a transformative tool and it was ultimately a meditation that I learned that brought me out of it and showed me another aspect of consciousness. This is why the 1st Spiritual Law in our book is “What you resist, persists.” It was through meditation that I learned about the truth, which was what I was actually looking for in drugs … an expanded consciousness, an awareness of a deeper aspect of being.
No matter what we are declaring war on—poverty, terrorism, or drugs—it simply does not work. So it’s time to think out of the box, take charge of our lives, be responsible, and recognize that we are powerful spiritual beings exploring every avenue of consciousness. It was a lifetime of experience and my short career as a drug counselor that provided the material for this book. And since it was a particular meditation practice that brought me out of it, Dhara’s contribution of developing a meditation for each step was invaluable. She brought more than 25 years of meditative experience to this project.
FINAL NOTE:
Here are the links that I was talking about in the Print version.
Brain Restoration has been show to have dramatic affects when it comes to addiction. If you’ve read our book, The 12 Spiritual Laws of Recovery & Meditations For the 12 Step Program you know that I covered this with something called “The Bomb” which is a strong megadose of vitamins and nutrients. The reason for this is because I found that many people go back to drug use simply to feel better so the quicker you can get healthy, the better. CLICK HERE for BRAIN RESTORATION INFO
The Wildness of Children: If you take the time to read this article you will quickly realize that one of the biggest contributors to addiction is not the drugs, it’s everything from the environment and civilization to us. This is why kids must take back their power and we must support that process. There has been research that clearly shows that rats that are addicted will break their addiction if they are put in an environment that’s 200 times larger than their cages, has fun toys to play with, and the opportunity to fornicate 🙂 If you are a teacher or a parent I highly recommend that you read this: CLICK HERE
For more information on Rahasya visit www.RahasyaPoe.com and for Dhara, visit www.DharaLemos.com. Rahasya is also the author of To Believe Or Not To Believe: The Social and Neurological Consequences of Belief Systems, was interviewed in the documentary on addiction called A Wave of Compassion, publisher of the Lotus Guide, and soon will have a live Internet radio show called Spiritual Activist Radio. Dhara Lemos, along with many years of meditation experience and dance, produced with her friend Pam Jamian her meditation CD called Dhara’s Active Meditation. Dhara also played an invaluable role in the documentary Eco-Chic Retreat demonstrating her meditations. Available on Amazon.com.
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