Spirituality, The Brain, and Recovery

“It is often in the darkest skies that we see the brightest stars.”  ~ Richard Evans

I intended to write about misconceptions again on today’s post but a reader, that I now consider a friend, suggested that I do a post on spirituality and recovery. I do not have personal experience and I suggested a guest post or collaboration. What I received was a complete post that is an excellent read, provides meaningful insight, and it is profoundly moving. Everyone’s story of recovery is unique, yet many will relate to this story as I think that spirituality is critical in the lives of most people that remain in recovery. Here is Augustus Feleccia’s experience in his own words.

I remember the exact date of the day that I was cured of my obsession to use drugs and alcohol. On January 11th, I was changed from the inside out. After being helplessly addicted for 6 years, I was desperate. My relationship with my family was falling apart and was extremely strenuous. I was depressed and would sometimes not leave my room for days. I had had my right arm taken from me when it became paralyzed in a college football drill that knocked the nerves from my spinal cord. With this came hundreds of doctor’s visits that led me to an abundance of prescription medication. I was ashamed and regretful of my past, I was fearful and hopeless about my future, and my present was filled with doing whatever would make me feel momentarily better despite who it hurt. Like a rat, I had been digging a hole for myself through drug use that seemed insurmountable. Every night I would go to bed high and be determined to quit. In the morning I was in withdrawal and that promise was out the window.

When my best friend visited from North Carolina, he was a different person than from when I had last seen him. He was filled with joy and love and would not stop talking about the Bible. I became frustrated by it by the end of his visit, telling him “you don’t need to shove it down my throat. I’m glad it helps you, but it just isn’t for me.” Years later, Sean would tell me that he knew I would say that, but he was trying to help me. The idea of Jesus dying on the cross for my sins always confused me, but when I reached my point of lowest desperation, Sean’s words stuck with me. “Without God we cannot do much. But with Him, we can do anything.” This helped me immensely in not using for a few days, but it would always come back when I forgot about God. The logical, rational brain was doing just enough to get me by. I finally discovered that there was something greater than just that on January 11th, 2015. Beaten down and scared, I decided that I was desperate enough to beg God for help. I got on my knees in front of my crucifix and began to cry. I didn’t know what prayer to say, and finally I just blurted out “God, help me!” What happened next has been described by nearly every culture and religion. At once, I felt an intense feeling that something was with me. This being-if you like to call it that-loved me deeply. It accepted me for who I was and wanted the best for me. When I looked up at the cross, I saw Jesus’ arms extended on the crucifix, almost as if he were saying “come here and embrace me. You are with me now” I felt intense joy and knew that nothing would ever be the same. I then thought about how I had been living my life and felt so sorry for all of it. However, almost as soon as it came, it was gone as I finally understood the forgiveness of God. I knew intrinsically-almost as if you know you’re hungry-that my soul would live forever with God. I began living my life with a fresh pair of eyes, and the world looked and felt very different. I checked myself voluntarily into rehab shortly after and have not used since. The experience is still the single most important moment of my life.

This may sound like crazy pseudoscience nonsense to the more logical, 3-dimensional thinker, but experiences like this are a lot more common than you think. Bill Wilson had a very similar experience and thus created the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as a way of getting alcoholics (who just couldn’t warm up to the J or G words) to that same experience.

Here, we see how the 12 steps are directly from the framework of the Gospel.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. This is what I admitted, but to painkillers instead of alcohol. I admitted that I was “licked” and that I truly needed help. My prayer was literally just a sincere “God, help me!”. I “repented”, or changed my mind, to the way that I had been living my entire life thus far.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. This is where I had my white light moment. He showed Himself to me immediately after asking.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. After having this experience, Jesus had entered my life and He would never leave. I would now live through and for Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. I realized all of the wrongs that I had ever done-especially the ones that made me uncomfortable and I didn’t want to think about.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. God already knew all of these and forgave me. Admitting them was for my well being, not just His.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. I knew that He could. I knew that I was forgiven. At that point, I had no trouble at all talking about my wrongs in life to anyone. As I did, I was further freed from their emotional chains.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. As I admitted them, God began to live through me and I lived out His will for me. My shortcomings were me acting selfishly, not through God.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. This was a natural response to my spiritual transformation.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Again, this became natural. I wanted the whole world to see God and this was how I showed that love.
10. Continued to take a personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Everyday was spent in prayer, attempting to do the right thing and asking for God’s guidance and forgiveness when I screwed up.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Being as though “conscious contact” with God was a better high than any drug, I tried for it every chance I could.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. This is also what keeps us sober. Helping others and service is the main instruction in the Bible as well as in the rooms of AA.
So, what is going on in my brain, and why do we see this same experience helping so many of those in recovery?

Scientists at Yale University recently did a study* where they discovered that the part of the brain responsible for the awareness of ourselves and others lights up when going through a “spiritual experience.” What this explains is that during these moments, the brain starts to slowly not recognize itself as an individual separate from others, but rather a part of the larger whole. This concept is found in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and just about every other major religion of the world. The brain effectively becomes more selfless-exactly what AA teaches us to be.

These studies may be showing us that the way we think as a culture as well as individuals may be wrong. I personally find it odd that of all the science and medicine we have (which are both incredible and important) the most effective treatment we have for addictions of any kind lay in the stepwork filled with words like Higher power, prayer, and God’s Will. Could it be that maybe pure logical Science is not all of what it takes? Could it be that just maybe, there is more to the effectiveness of 12 step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous than just trading a drug addiction for a meeting addiction and white knuckling it through life? Can we be figuratively born again as new people with a new perspective on the world? Most importantly, can our world be reborn from one that uses a pill to fix everything to something more; something deeper? I believe that the answer is yes. With more studies coming out confirming this theory, it may be time that we start treating addiction completely different from the way we have been seeing it as a choice that needs punishing into a ‘spiritual malady’ that requires love. Whether you believe in religion or not, there is now evidence that it’s teaching have very real effects on those who practice them.

Augustus J.F. Feleccia is now two years sober and still doing well. He is eight years post-injury and has learned to get by without much use of his right arm. He works for a non-profit telling his story at schools and community centers in hopes that he can prevent any kid from becoming addicted to drugs. He also offers evidence-based prevention programs in Delaware County, PA.

You can reach him at afeleccia@childandfamilyfocus.org

* Lisa Miller, Iris M Balodis, Clayton H McClintock, Jiansong Xu, Cheryl M Lacadie, Rajita Sinha, Marc N Potenza; Neural Correlates of Personalized Spiritual Experiences, Cerebral Cortex, , bhy102, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhy102