My response to email about saying that mental illness is a label...

Hi @#$^,

Indeed, alcohol does become our medicine. Once the drinking has been removed we are still left with us-our thinking mind, our past, our shame, our guilt, our trauma....nothing ever being dealt with or processed. That's why we always go back to that which is killing us, but giving us relief. I, we find that relief in God. We get God because we admit and become willing to trust (Step 1 &2). We get God because we turn our life over to him instead of a bottle, other people, doctors, ourselves clear our thinking mind that little seeks to destroy me. We get God when we clear out the wreckage that blocks us from receiving him in (Step 4 & 5), We get more God when we get "rewired" by actually identifying the defects by name...calling out the demons, if you will, that have been running the show. The defects/isms are a result of the way we adapted to the unacceptable. Assaulting our soul, inuring the brain. The crap we conformed to and did to fit, that never felt right because we never felt like we belonged here to begin with. 

One on my defects was lying. Lying about things I didn't even have to lie about...lol! So once I owned that, called it out-asked God to remove it, then practiced being honest about everything...not say yes when I really mean no....not making up excuses....no white lies, etc..What ends up happening is that my mind is no longer in charge, my soul is. I am going on a forward journey backwards home-home to him....home to who I was when I was created and intended to be before I got muddied and conformed to the world and the vile way it works. I am no longer going against my soul. My soul is restored, my mind follows. 

Our fragmented mind is our problem. We aren't whole. We seek relief in everything but God. We put everything and everyone above God. We close our minds to the real power of God and give it to over to them, making them our HP. I know my view isn't popular, I know that doctors and meds and therapists win out in our society over the concept of trusting our Creator-I too thought that true. But AA asked me to have an open mind, to be willing to let go of conceptions and perceptions that I once had....to be open to a complete overhaul. I was only because I was broken. I was willing enough to believe that alcohol, celexa, Zoloft, whatever else I was on, money, people, wasn't making me better. Nothing was going to make me whole in mind, body and spirit-except God. The Steps are what get people like us with trauma and just happen to have chose alcohol as our medication, back to him. We fearlessly face what happen. We fearlessly see how our choices 96% of the time resulted in our problems. We stop blaming. We stop playing the victim. We start helping others to get and to stay sober. We stop looking to anything outside of our Father to make us whole in mind. 

In our society we are quick to give diagnosis but offer no solution. Here is a pill, quick fix-just like alcohol. It's the softer and easier way. AA says, admit, surrender, be willing, see your part, own your part, let God bring you back into wholeness, stay in connect with him everyday....oh, and go help people!!

I was speaking to a sponsee and we were talking about her daughters...one who just had a miscarriage....one with serious trauma from having leukemia for most her life-chemo, needles, poked and paraded....year and years....anyway, the one who had a miscarriage was seeing a therapist and of course she wanted to give her meds. I said, what if that therapist said "would you be willing to go help this women who just lost her baby and tell her your story?" Or with the daughter who is in remission again...would you go speak with children who have cancer and offer your experience, strength and hope? What about people who have been raped...they go directly to the hospital and tell them their story....not a white coat acting like they know when they don't as they proceed to violate her again with "tests".....

What if we did that in our world? Worked with others that were traumatized as we were traumatized? In AA, we do. This is why we get whole. This is why those who truly do the work recover and never drink again. And, it's free! Who benefits from all our dis-eases....they very people we seek to "fix" us. God could and would if he were sought...but we have been conditioned to not seek him. 

Programmed into thinking that people are more powerful then our Creator. That's why we are all so lost and tied and sick...our souls our sick, mind and body, because we are disconnected from God. Disconnected by our own garbage, the noise of this world and the babbling that never ends....right down to everyone feeling the right to be offended at every turn then whining about how offended they are on social media. (Not, you-just saying) 

What if people shut off the noise and truly sought God, looked at themselves instead of distracting themselves, did their own inventory-not someones else, stopped putting themselves front and center, used their pain to help others? Know what....the whole "Self Help" industry would go bankrupt-so would big pharma. Again, I know my view isn't popular, and guess what....I don't care. I'm going to bring God back in to style...one drunk at a time ;)

Love,

Hil