How I tapped 7 Spiritual Laws of the Universe to Get Sober and Be Whole.

Women drink primarily to change our inner world. To drown out the voice inside that tells us we aren’t good enough. Not thin enough. Not smart enough. Not young enough. Not fill-in-the-blank enough.

Any type of quit lit or treatment program that doesn’t address this underlying issue doesn’t work long term.

I was super Type A.

I believed that if I achieved enough, I’d show my family that I deserved to be noticed.

People would accept and love me.

And I’d be whole.

No matter how driven I was, how much money I made or how big my title, I never arrived at that magical place.

Drinking changed my inner world.

It numbed the anxiety.

It dissolved the boundaries between me and you as quickly as it dissolved my inhibitions

It helped me feel whole.

It worked.

But all of that feeling was temporary. Drinking left me with remorse. Shame. And even more anxiety.

So of course, I wanted back to that magical, blurred world. And I’d open another bottle of wine or pour another glass of vodka.

I tried to make up rules that would allow me to drink and access that magical world of wholeness without the nasty consequences.

I tried drinking a glass of water between each glass of wine. (That lasted until the second glass of wine.)

I didn’t keep booze in my house. (But the liquor store was within walking distance.)

I tried to only drink 3 glasses of wine. (But as a friend says, “It isn’t the caboose that kills you.”)

I couldn’t find the right titration to get me comfortable in my skin without feeling worse the next day.

So I quit.

But alcohol itself wasn’t the problem. The real problem was that hole in my solar plexus, the unending internal voice telling me “you’re an imposter,” and the existential vacuum I felt.

I couldn’t drink. And I couldn’t live with that level of angst.

Here’s what worked for me.

I work WITH the seven spiritual laws of the universe in these specific ways.

1. The Law of Substitution

Dostoevsky wrote “Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.”

Setting ourselves to the task of NOT drinking actually causes us to think about and focus on drinking.

Instead, I practice one spiritual principle each week to take the place of my worries about my own inadequacies. I act from a place of amusement, honesty and generosity rather than from “I’m not enough.”

2. The Law of Practice

I practice spiritual principles. With my husband. My kids. My mom.

I experiment with what each one feels like in my body. What is the posture of honesty? Sometimes I need to assume the posture of the opposite, so I ask myself what is the posture of DISHONESTY? Then I can find the posture of honesty. I remind myself to practice that posture throughout my day.

I focus on what the counterbalance to each principle must be, for I’ve found that any of these principles taken to the extreme can be unhelpful.

Honesty without kindness is cruel.

Boundaries without empathy is rigidity.

Amusement without discernment is rude

3. The Law of Growth

What we focus on grows.

What we feed with our attention takes on more and more energy and presence in our lives.

So as I practice spiritual principles, I focus on what I’ve learned from my experiences. I write down what I’ve done well. And if I blow it, I write down what I want to do differently next time I’m in that situation.

4. The Law of Thoughts and Feelings

If thoughts aren’t energized by feeling, they don’t penetrate to our subconscious.

This is why writing affirmations on sticky notes doesn’t work for me. I read the words, but they are devoid of feeling because I don’t believe them.

Only if I can vibrate an idea with the energy of love, gratitude and awe does the idea become real.

5. The Law of Subconscious Activity

Once our subconscious ACCEPTS an idea, it aligns resources that conspire to bring that idea into our reality.

And the subconscious is powerful.

6. The Law of Relaxation

For a Type A like me, this one required a lot of work. Ironic, right?

In the physical world, the same action only harder does yield different results. If I swing the hammer with more force, the nail is driven in more deeply.

In the spiritual world, however, the harder we work, the stronger our effort, the less room Spirit has to work.

Read a light book. Take a bath. Take a stroll. Let God in her infinite wisdom take it from here.

7. The Law of Forgiveness

We forgive to free ourselves of our entanglement with other people. It truly is miraculous to feel the knot of anger and hurt dissolve while I am in the process of forgiving the other person.

Forgiving does not mean condoning behavior, nor does it mean I want to have dinner with the other person.

Forgiveness is the key to freedom.

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